FAY COMPTON'S ART.

Evening Post, Volume CXXV, Issue 22, 27 January 1938, Page 21

FAY COMPTON'S ART.

No eulogy is too high for the art of Fay Compton, ill the opinion of Melbourne critics. Recent performances by the famous London actress in Melbourne have provided playgoers with never-to-be-forgotten memories of a fascinating actress and a perfect art. Miss Compton! has been playing Queen Victoria in "Victpria1 Regina," a role - as ( ' triumphant and consecutive in develop- _ tnent as any, historical figure ever essayed by any actress..Melbourne audiences were amazed to see the lovely Pay Compton actually appear to grow did before their very eyes, so perfect was the art with which she portrayed England's loved Queen. Timed to the second, and full of deft touches, her characterisation drew eulogies on all sides. For the Prince Consort of - Bruno Barnabe, too, only the highest praise was offered. So joyously human, so exquisitely coloured, so sympathetic, and so enlivened by humour was his portrayal, that he never ceased to bo entertaining arid manly in every movement and mood. The Prinns Ernest of Michael Wilding; the Arch bishop of Canterbury of Stafford Hil hard; the Duchess of Kent of Mary Charles; the Lord Conyngham of Guy Hastings; ,the Lord Beaconsfield of Jack McNaughton; the -Vlrs. Gladstone of Lorna Forbes, and so on, were all - widely comriiended as authentic delineations of historical roles. Miss Compton and her distinguished company open a Dominion tour at Auckland on February 5, under J. C. Wil-1 < liamson management. '■.-