HUDSON’S SURPRISE PARTY.

New Zealand Times, Volume XXXIV, Issue 5736, 18 August 1879, Page 2

HUDSON’S SURPRISE PARTY.

The company with the above title began their season here in the Academy of Music on oaturday evening, and were welcomed by a good audience. The troupe is a mixed one, comprising three lady vocalists, two lady instrumentalists, two gentlemen who engage in several departments of the “ negro business,” and tno others of the same sex who undertake miscellaneous work. The company is a happily selected one, the various members working together most h irmonionsly, and it may be said without reservation that each is thoroughly proficient in the duties undertaken. Altogether the troupe may be classed as very considerably above the average of such companies in ability, and if the entertainments to be given during their stay in the city are equal to that of the opening night their season will be a most successful one. The programme on Saturday commenced with a number of songs, one being rendered respectively by the Misses Norton, Maven, and Burton, and Messrs. Wallace, Hudson, and Glover. These songs were carefully selected, what may be termed the sentimental and comic elements being pretty evenly balanced, and each allowed an innings alternately. The ladies of the company have agreeable voices well adapted to the successful rendering of a ballad in a miscellaneous entertainment, one, indeed, being capable of a far higher class of work. The songs were interspersed by some negro business, Mr. Glover anting as interlocutor, while Messrs. Hudson and Wallace were the temporary Ethiopians. There is nothing whatever objectionable in this part of the entertainment, Messrs. Wallace and Hudson being evidently careful to keep out any phase to which exception could be taken ; indeed, throughout the whole of their utterances there was but a single allusion to which even the most fastidious could object on the ground of coarseness. The numerous witticisms, good, bad, and indifferent, perpetrated by these gentlemen have nearly all an agreeable freshness, there being but two or three jests enunciated on Saturday which hear the stamp of a somewhat venerable antiquity. It would be hypercritism, however, to find fault with trifles in a generally good entertainment. Following the songs was a sort of farce called “ The Surprise Musketeers and after an interval Mr. Hudson performed some extremely clever dancing on a lofty pedestal, for which he was loudly applauded. ’ Une of the lady instrumentalists, Mias de Gay, then executed some fantasies on the violin. Mias I)e Gay is a tasteful and accomplished performer on, the violin, and while being far removed from a Joachim, or even a Simonseu, is capable of rendering some rather difficult music in an expressive and agreeable manner. The lady, too, has the somewhat rare good sense to attempt nothing higher than her powers, but confines herself to what she has evidently thoroughly mastered. Mr. Glover next rendered a “ song,” which was described in the bill as a “ Loudon speciality.” A London speciality it doubtless is, there being no other part of the habitable globe, we believe, where the genus ” Lion Comique 1 has found sufficient admirers as to become a sort of institution. The “song” given by Mr. Glover was one of the class which the “ lion comiques shout nightly to half drunk audiences in the music halls of the English metropolis, and consisted of half a dozen verses of the veriest nonsense that could possibly be strung together, half of it being repetitions of one Une. Rhyme of a sort the “ song” certainly had, but reason, as in the generality of the songs of “lion comiques,” was wholly wanting. We hope during the remainder of his stay Mr. Glover will not bestow the powers of a good voice on “ London specialities,” but allow them to remain “ London specialties." Lion comiques’ “ Loudon specialities” are usually a number of verses too bad to be called even nonsense, and the meaning of which, if they have any at all, is in the worst possible taste, and might even be called by a coarser name. Following the “ London speciality” was a most laughable item by Messrs. Wallace and Hudsoni* called tho “ Balloon Ascent,” and after several other ballads the entertainment was ; brought to a close by a sketch called “At the Paris Exhibition,” very provocative of mirth but with a somewhat weak ending. A majority of the items were encored; and as the audience left the building the merits of the company were the subject of very favorable comment Altogether the entertainment may be characterised as most agreeable ; the songs are excellently sung, accompanied, and chorussed, and the various members of the company work together most cordially to give their patrons satisfaction. The performances are, of course, of a class in which instruction and amusement bear the same proportions as did Falatafif’s bread and sack, but Mr. Sleary has laid down the dictum that people “ muth be amuthed and while the amusement given is of the harmless character provided by the Surprise Party no exception can be taken. —One of the gentlemen members of the company, by the way, infuses much humor into bis dialogue by imitating Mr. Sleary’s peculiarity of voice.—The company will doubtless obtain good audiences during their stay here, and their successful efforts to excite the risible faculties may be recommended as a sort of antidote to the depressing influence of dull times and the noisy strife of contesting politicians.