"THE WIZARD OF THE EAST."

King Country Chronicle, Volume V, Issue 354, 22 April 1911, Page 5

"THE WIZARD OF THE EAST."

-♦• Te Kuiti has suffered much in the matter of so-called "entertainment" but last night's show at the Town Hall just about reached the limit. There was only a small, if noisy, audience,which is perhaps as well, for in the present writer's experience he has never met with a company of performers showing so little originality and doing such puny parlour tricks. To introduce the show a paralysing "band" maltreated a number of musical items, and when the "Wizard" came on the stage the acetylene lights burned so dimly, that shouts for the "gas man" were painfully frequent. When "the light that failed" was restored, the Wizard of the East took "yards, and yards, and yards"—"and yards," as the unfeeling audience insisted, of ribbon from a borrowed hat, the audience j impatiently enduring the item, dis- ; covered a cat in a cage, transferred ' some playing cards in sealed en- ! velopes, and produced a number of j alleged eggs from some other source. I He was followed by Virgo, the someI thins or other, who gave a number of l weird imitations of different national- ! itics playing on the violin. Then I came a passable ventriloquist's" turn" j with a dressed dull, followed by Virgo ! the fire timid, who drjpped some of | the "fire" <•■;; hi.-' chest, amidst, en- | thus iaslio cheers from the now bored i audience. After the interval a treegrow in;. I ,' ilein «';i; ; given, the sho-.v i concluding with a fa rev in more senses than one. The rougher elements in the audience somewhat scared the pe rfunsere by holding them lip for an hour or so before letting them get away at the conclusion. A haka danced by member.; of the ; audience on the. pavement way also ; calculated to terrify unwary strangers. '. Altogether -. painful experience.