Dramatic And Musical

Free Lance, Volume V, Issue 222, 1 October 1904, Page 14

Dramatic And Musical

By Footlight.

DTK'S Gaiety Company, at the Theatie Royal, is putting on a new piogramme that gives excellent returns for money invented. Miss Doia Tayloi, the veiy clever toe-dancei, who pirouetted 1 into prominence in pantomime last year, it> back on the Dix boards again. She does a tip-toe cake-walk which xs tip-top. The Wheeleis have perfected a new feat, which is daring enough to be positively creepy. They nde their bikes hardheld for a common table, bump the furniture with terrifying force, and, turning a somersault, wheel and all, alight before the footlights mounted. Try it in your kitchen. It is "dead easy" — to the Wheelers. » * * Mjs& May Moore Duprez, the astonishing American' girl, whose tongue is sharp enough to cut steel, but whose emile and laugh heal the wound 1 right away, is the vogue at Dixs just now. Her remarkable facility for "gag," but above all her genius for dancing, helps her to keep her place 1 as -She "star" of the constellation. Mr. George Dickie, au American ventriloquist, has a veryexcellent manner, and manipulates his wooden people and' supplies their voices w ; th much cleverness. Then, again, the patter has a freshness about it that helps the "turn" wonderfully. ♦ • • There is no padding 1 about the show, for Mr. Fred. Graham and 1 Miss Nellie Dent, inimitable in the musical sketches for which they have won fame, find it very difficult to get aiway

when once on. "Mistaken Identity" is leally and tiuly tunny. l (l ied i'S> a bhop-walkei, who loves one of tw nib, and makers love to whiohevei one of the twins happens along, with lesults 1 that you can imagine toi yourself. One looks upon 'Peicy Brown" as rathei lucky on the whole. Mr. Peicy Denton, the favounte teaior and jovial comedian, is yodelling and ti oiling forth hi-, soul in song as of yore. Miss Louie Perfect the Austiahan sopiano, is likewise using her gift with gratifying 1 eeults. » * * Fuller's Vaudeville Company, at His Majesty's Theatre, among other new people hafc gathered to itself Miss Mabel Lynne and Mi^s Elsie Maisie, both of whom can kick a bell-toppei fiom the head of any six-footer who wants Ins hat removed 1 that way. Sketchy little somgs in unison, accompanied 1 by the graceful actions no serio is complete without, make their "turn" a very rollicking and amusing one. Some of then songs seem to have an unfamiliar sound. The. Nawns have a new sketch, which takes you back to the time of the Pharoahs, and a judicious blend of the Aiabian Nights gives the necessary touch of magic. The sudden vivifying of a several thousand-yeai -old mummy is fraught with hilanous consequences. As befoie, Tom Nawn as a "Pat" is exhilarating. Dennis Carney, m Irish songs and Hibernian business, flavoured with the Yorkshire burr that will not entirely give way to the biogue of the Emerald Isle, is a very strong favourite still. * * * Little Miss Eileen Capel, the clever mimic, sweet sonersti ess\ and nimble dancer, helps the show very nicely. Mr. Frank Kmg, an actor vocalist of some merit gives a clever rendering of "Actors of Everyday Life," introduced 1 here by Mr. George Dean, amd the dog educator, Ohmv. still shows what useful animals a couple of doers may become in earning a living for a clever trainer. • * * Other clever comedians, gay dancers', an 1 comic songsters knowm to all, and appreciated by most, are still in the bill, and, although Dennis Carney and other gentlemen distinctly averred that "Thomson's Dead" several years ago, it

appears lie ha^ only been in a tiance. His faicical frolics are still the reason foi the concluding chucklet. of the nightly audiences. The Musical Johnstons (thiee), who ai c described as "The Paderewskis of the xylophone," aie due to appear tomorrow (Satuiday) night. The ''Dunedm Stai" says "It may be conceded at once that the Johnstons are ica,Uy gi eat artistes." Mr. Fiank Harwood also appears to-morrow night. He is an English actor-vocalist of some consequence, and has just concluded a successful Austiahan season with Mr. RiekardK. Mr. Watkin Mills, in leaving Auckland for Wellington the other day took with him some of- Mr. Alfred 1 Hill's compositions, including a fine "Tangi," which he has composed since taking up his residence in Auckland, and which ik probably the finest, composition, he hai"= turned out since he wrote "Hinemoa." Mr. Mills hns formed a very high opinion of Mr. Hill's work as a composer.

(Continued on page 18.)

The Knight- Jeffries Company, with "Monsueur Beaucaire," will hit Dunedin oa October 11th, and' Wellington somewhere about Trafalgar Day. * • • Another "His Majesty's" — this time at Perth. Newly built, and leased for three years to William Anderson. The sandgropers will have a melodramatic time. * • • Sorry to hear that Howard Vernon, creator of many leading parts in Gilbert and Sullivan's operas this end of the. earth, is doing Gippsland backblocks with "small stuff." * * * The Majeionis are playing the good old stock things — "Colleen Bawn," and so on — in the sizzling wilderness of Queensland. * * Miss Lillah McCarthy, who visited Australia and New Zealand as leading lady with the late Mr. Wilson Bairetfc, recently underwent a surgical opeiation in England, but is now progressing towards recovery. * * * The "electric marvels," the Salambos, are providing a "turn" at Melbourne Opera House of startling interest and originality. Lighting gas which issues from their mouths is, perhaps, the most sensational act of the two performers. * * * Lady Halle, the violinist, wrote from Berlin to London that Melba was not the first woman to receive the decoration of Science, Art and Music. Lady Halle was awarded the decoration after playing before the King on January 23 1903. » • * Miss May Beatty won a salver jewel casket presented by Stewart, Dawson, and Co. to the lady who handed in the largest sum obtained by the sale of flowers, programmes, and photographs at a recent matinee in air of thei "Nemesis'' wrecK fund. Mi«s Beatty handed over the casket to be raffled for the good of the cause. Tt is intensely plebeian to talk about "going to the theatre" in London. The West End always refers to it as "doing a T)lav." Curious thing tihat one cam buy tickets "on tick" in the West End libraries, and that one library there has over a thousand pounds' worth of bad ticket debts on its books. The libraries are of course, lesponsible to the theatrical managers.

Julius Knight calls 'The Eternal City" a melodiama in Sunday clothes. "The Sign of the Cioss" (lemarks an exchange) is a play without sufficient clothing. * t * Carkeek, billed as ' the champion wrestler of the world," lute Auckland to-morrow (Satuiday). Carkeek is said 1o have abandoned the piaotice of the lav for the other kind of wi estlmg. "He being dead yet speaketh." The late Wilson Barrett supported during his life over one hundred theatiical old age pensioners, and his will provides that their pensions are to be still paid. Val Vousden, who sticks to the assertion that he is ' the world's greatest ventriloquist, mimic, and monologue entertainer," still doing a one-man business in the Noith. Was at Hamilton lately giving Waikatonians samples' of his best. * * * Two gymnasts weie mariied in an Alabama town last month. The principals and witnesses attended in their circus costumes, stood on a fourbarred trapeze, and the parson mounted the spring-board. Admission to all parts, "Twenty-five cents." ♦ ♦ * Disaster of a serious financial nature has overtaken the Bostonians, one of tlie oldest and best recognised opeia companies in the histrionic profession in America The company got stranded at Atlantic City, and the chorus girls are now walking home across country. I want to know why the principals didn't "humt> bluey" too?