The Show's The Thing

NZ Truth, Issue 1207, 17 January 1929, Page 14

The Show 's The Thing

CO it will not be many moons before Dion Boucicault and Irene Vanbrugh will make their bow before a New Zealand audience. Popular to a degree these two artists are being looked forward to by Maorilanders.

"THE GIRL FRIEND" company, aftei a most successful tour of New Zealand, left for Sydney on Friday. Annie Croft en - deared herself to the hearts of her patrons during the season and drew crowded houses all the time. Besides being a fine sportswoman, Annie Croft is a real sport. She inspired "The Girl Friend" cricket team m the many matches it played, and had the pleasure of seeing her boys beat the Wellington Press for the Hodgson Cup * # r)N its return to w Sydney, "The Girl Friend" and "Hit the Deck" will run for a short season. The company will then go into the making of "The Show Boat, a merrily picturesque presentation, the beautiful "New Moon" and "The Five O'Clock Girl," m which Alfred Frith will make a welcome reappearance.

PLEM DAWE and his bunch of merry i entertainers came back to Wellingjton last Saturday night and the "gods" j howled approval of Clem's buffoonery. The show m numbers is about the same as when last m New Zealand, but originality and a better selection of material makes it a hundred per cent, more entertaining.

WHEN the "S.S. Manuka" nestled into the Dunedin wharf a day or so before Christmas Day, it 'meant a slice of Otago gobbler on the festive dinnerplate of Pat Hanna. Much more important, though, it brought Pat to his nome town for Christmas after three years among the wattles and wallabies. There is no need to introduce P.H., for his name is almost as familiar as that of, a national hero. And, let it be , said without flattery, Pat is something of a public idol, if for no other reason than that his showman propensities have been responsible for keeping alive memories of the human side of the war — -all those happy and sad, farcical and tragic, but ever true episodes m the indelible romance which makes an Empire love its dr.o'll, simple, brave, big-hearted hero — the typical wartime Digger. To re-enact these unofficially historic scenes, no returned Digger could be more suited to the

part and better equipped with ex-

perience m the field than Hanna.

To Pat trenches held more than rats and stinking debris— he felt the indomitable comradeship which characterized the unselfish spirit behind the sandbags, and found m human nature something to compensate for the barbarous trends,, of. war. Sincere, uiniffected and convivial, Pat Hanna gets the best out of life's locker because Nature has Mrmed him with the key to all human understanding — a sense of humor.