MUSICAL COMEDY

Evening Post, Volume CIX, Issue 39, 15 February 1930, Page 9

MUSICAL COMEDY

TWO SHOWS A NIGHT

COMPETITION OF "TALKIES"

(From "The Post's" Representative.)

LONDON, 7th January.

An interesting experiment in musical comedy is to be made in a theatre in the West End of London by giving two performances a night, after the manner of the music-hall system. Mr. Lee Ephraiin, who numbers among his successes "Rose Mario," "The Desert Song," and "Blue Eyes," is tho experiincutcr, but the theatre at which the change is to be introduced has not yet been chosen. He expects to have the idea in full swing before Easter.

Mr. Ephrairn ihas worked out the question in this way: TJiere are many workers in tbo West End, who, if there is 1 an-early show (0.30 or so), "will like to see it, direct from their work, and afterwards go home. And, the 'appeal of the later performance—-9 o'clock— is this,-that it becomes a possible entertainment for those who, having dined, spontaneously say: "Let us go to a show," and can go on, without bustle, to the second house. There is the further inducement that a lower price—seats from 2s to 8s (id—offers.

Such convenience may well help in the theatres' battle with "talkie" competition, and a little foreshortening, with shorter intervals, would improve most musical comedies. The actors, it is understood, favour the idea, because, with matinees abandoned, there is no increase' in the^r work, and they have freer days for themselves. The first musical comedy to be thus bisected is not yet definitely chosen, but it will be quite new,. and on a lavish seal*.