Dramatic and Musical

Free Lance, Volume VI, Issue 281, 18 November 1905, Page 14

Dramatic and Musical

By Footlight

WEST Pictures and the Brescians are compel hug crowds as before. No previous picture show has done this thine: and' no previous picture show could show such good reasons for drawing people to it. Since the pictures were here last, many splendid, films have been added. One gets the complete picture at West's. There is mo glittering blank in the middle of th& exciting captuie of a whale, or a thief, or a hu&band. You get the whole story. • # • Those railway-journey films take a lot of beating. You go through Switzerland on the front of the West engin©. The only disappointment is that one cannot get off and pick flowers or picnic in the gorgeous scenery. A very fine film shows a motor cycling highwayman chasing a nuotor car, whicn he bails up in the good, old-fashioned style. There is a merry race ; but the cycle wins. Some enterprising firm ought to get West to put the name ooh> h their special bike into the picture. • • • A picture showing the evil effects of alcohol causes a lot of laughter, although the subject of drink is serious. The "drunk" dreams he skips to the moon. Of course, being drunk, he cannot hang on to so small a thing as a moon, and he drops off and hustle 0 tlhrough stars and moons and whirling comets, and hits his own bed with a bump. There are many new magical films, which emphasise the fact that the making of moving pictures is now-a-days one of the fine arts. • • • Perhaps, the comic chases are appreciated the most. It is ail ways a mystery to me that a corporation should lend its town to the cinematograph man ix* fill with apparently excited women who are chasing a husband or a lost baby. But, you never know what they will do in America for money. Some very beautiful coloured films are included. An Indian one, showing a function in which the late Viceroy of India, Lord Curzon, figures, exhibits the gorgeousness of the Hindoo way of doing thinigs.^ The or ; ental glitter is very fascinating. • • ♦ The Brescians are 111 good voice. The gem, perhaps, is Mlss Antonia Martinegro's "Jewel Song," from "Fau&t." She sings it with taste and feeling. Mr. Rudall Haywards sonig, "My Maore and I" (C. Flavell Hay ward), wasi given in that _ fine singer's best style, and Miss Dominica Martinegro, in "An Old Garden," was appreciated. Miss Sarah Hendry, who, on her previous visit, impressed with her vocal method is again most successful, and her "Love is Meant to Make TJs Glad" was a pleasing effort. Funny Fred Mills is a strong favourite, the orchestra is effective, and the occasional choruses satisfactory. • « * Fullers' Entertainers still pursue the even tenor of their way, and the even bass of Mr. Fred Stanbridge is a good article. Fred sings the songs with 1 good lilt in them, "When the Boys Come Marching Home" and all that sort of thing. Miss Beatrice English has a voice that might have strayed out of a grand opera, and) the musiclovers, who are legion, encore hei nicely-rendered ballads, which are not of the tear-in-the-ey© and dying- Willie kind. "The Swallows" mean those birds, and not a lump in the throat. In both parts this excellent operatic artiste shows gifts of a high order. • • • Leonard Nelson seems to have taken the place in the heart of the audience successively filled by Tod Callaway, Fred Rdvenhall, and other quaint comedians. He sings "W'o'm'a'xi" with a deal of go, although why it's spelt thai. way I cannot explain. Six songs ls his nightly portion. Cleopatra, ths lady of the snakes, is still rolling her black eyes, and keeping her anacondas amd pythons from making a meal of her, while her picturesque little sister, Bonita, is shooting little targets from the head of her respected parent for but a little while longer. She wip?s out any rifle shot seen here lately, and tihe shooting is genuine.