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BENGOUGH'S ENTERTAINMENTS.

Judging by the reception acorded! him by his audience on the 2nd, it may be safely toid that Bengough, before his season here ie ended, will have become a very popular entertainer indeed. He is cartoonist, comedian-, poet, reciter, singer, all an one, aad one feele from the moment that he appears on the stage that he possesses in an unusual degree the power to get into sympathy with and please a gathering of people. He has a powerful head, a strong, mobile face, a ready ampe, and a delightful accent. He is obviously a man who Bias closely studied men., and knows intimately their little whims *d& peculiarities and weaknesses, and it is as obvious that lie loathes cant and humbug. He is without mannerisms, and without conceit. He has *n inexhausutible fund of anecdote, and he ■is as pleased with his own jokes as is the audience — and that indicates much. He is, above and beyond all, pre-eminent in ithe art of the cartoonist. His line is strong and true, and in many respects extraordinary. His work, as has been said, is instinct with animation, and character. Without fuss or noise, he begins to draw, quickly, firmly, and rapidly, And as he works he talks in the cleverest and quaintest way imaginable. If his manner ifl ooingidered

' what he says Is worth nothing— is simply thrown in to fiH up a blank, —but the laughing audience strains forward to oatch every word, f«v Bengough is a very subtle humorist Msurwhile the picture grows with inor*!lible sapidity. This, he says, is a coraio tragedy or a tragic, comedy, in four acts. A dot, four lines — and we have the hopeful lover; the same thing again — the eager lover ; again— the pleading lover ; and again — tiie rejected lover Mere words cannot describe the varying expressions put. by Bengough into those four lines. Then he began to play in earnest. He, with a few strokes, turns an ultra-gorgeous sunflower into a pink-cheeked maiden — and then leaves the chalks and easel to themselves while he shows a gratified aududence how she- would have recited "Barbara Freitehie." Next Euclid is sacrificed. Here ■are- two angles — acute and obtuse. The first musut go 2nto the second an indefinite number of times. In a flash the first is a. piece I of cake and the second a boy's open mouth. [ More rapid lines, and the boy is a girl. Another sheet of paper, and Bengough is showing how the letters in- " Oh, how we all love you, Tommy " can be so placed to form an interesting picture. Then the ladies are entertained. The pomps and vanities represented by the dkectohre gown regarding the intricacies of wihieli man's " mind is simply wallowing in profound ignorance" are exposed, and Bengough does some cunning things with crayons: then he proceeds to demonstrate how — though it is a fact indignantly denied by eeornere — the "Johnny, or dude" can cast a shadow — and a most extraordinary shadow it is. The dude, Bengough remarks in an aside, is to be seen in. Wellington: there axe none in Dunedin. But there are Seotehmen here, and Bengough, when he presently leaves his .chalks to have " a moment wi' a canny Scot " is simply irresistible. His Scotch, accent was managed admirably. Each, of his monologues and recitations was well received last night, and worthy of a. place in any programme was a set of verses of his own composition — " The "Visit of the Yankee Fleet," — which, apart from their decided literary merit, were valuable inasmuch as they were calculated to foster a fraternal feeling between Britain and Britain's colonies and America. Thus he proved himself a> poet, while with a WihitcombRiley verse — " Grandpap " — Bepgough showed that he is also an exceptionally gifted elocutionist. Local colour was, of course, introduced, and he threw upon the easel pictures of well-known citizens, in which the likeness, considering that ha worked with great rapidity and from memory, was little short; of marvellous. Were BengougJi, brilliant talker and inimitable cartoonist, not there one would fefel that the star of the little combination was Borneo Gardiner, a. whistler. Not for years has there been heard locally a sifneur so absolutely a master of his art. - His rendering of Hoffman's " Mocking bird " was a revelation of wiiat the common troublesome -whistler "sa»y aspire to, and the performer was loudly encored- On his second appearance he gave Gounod's " Serenade," 'which, was equally pleasing. Mr Claude Allan, the possessor of a light tenor voice, which he uses artistically, was the vocalist of the evening,. and Mis* Dora Canroll, Vba was accompanist, played two pianoforte eolos very acceptably. i On Saturday evening Bengough had. 1 something, ■refreshing' to Bay about tfhe> significance of words, and the different meanings assigned to them in differentcountries. He instanced- and wrote on his board the word "graft." "Here," he said, " a grafter is a man of unusual industry; in tile States he is a man who objects to work at all." Then he picked up his crayons, end his hand moved' rapidly over the board. "This ie a gmfter, he 6aid, and in a flash the initial G had become tie hooked nose of a particularly ugly Hebrew, and the rest of the letters were his mouth and chin. An old hat, and a fat hamd in a bag called Public Funds were edded— and the picture of a hated American citizen was complete. After that the .talented cartoonist played with Euclid. He built a simple geometrical design of three lines — a triangle. Half a dozen quick strokes, and it had become the bead of a cat ; a joke, another stroke or two, and it was the "common or garden variety" of hen. Bengough broke into i rhyme, and quoted a Mother Goose verse. [ "Higgledy, piggkdy, my block hen," declaimed he, dramatically, and the gratified audience broke v into roars of laughter. Beoffoogh said the verse had great political ' significance. " Higigiedy, piggledy "—" — social conditions at the present time; a i hen — "a simple innocent " creature, do i mg something fort a Hiring, producing wealth — j not I O Us." Then he 6ud<denly sidjei tracked, and nas bade at Euclid again. " This *is the sad and serious, not to cay tragic consequence, of an acute angle coming into contract with an obtuse angle." : In a moment, the obtuse angle appeared in j the nose of a wretched-looking man. on ; whose hairless head the hen was standing-. j The hen's sharp beak had become the princ ipal feature of the face of an acidulous ' matron — and, presto ! there was the henpecked husband. A Mark Twain story about the height of n-"°ann-ess attained by j the Amalgamated Association of Mean Men of Colorado next engaged the attention of this wonderfuly versatile man. and, though doubtless the thing was already familiar to everyone, Benigough brought out the point of it co that it was received as if it were Clemen's latest. Bengough put j before the audience drawings of two Dun- , edin men. To one he- affixed the name of I Mark Tapley, a Dickems character — but discerning people in the hall marked another Tapley, ar.<l craned their necks j to look at a gentleman present, who — as i BengougJi naively put it— wouldn't be ! deeply offended if he weTe made mayor I next year. A cartoon that pleased was one showing a certain Prime Minister " flying home- Ward " carrying a satchel under each arm. One was labelled " Loan " and the other "Policy," and the .entertainer j sang a number of • verses of his own comI position, to the tune of "Bide a wee." I tellipg among other things of Mr Massey's anxiety to determine the exact nature of the contents of fchose satchels, and the ofchear man's recommendation to bide a wee. A whole temperance lecture was j comprised in the simple crayon sketch j called the " Down G^xia." A picture of a i little boy on top of a hill with a toboggan- , elide, and a red light in the distance, became, by a few powerful strokes, a representation of a drunken wharf labourer, with a black eye, a.nd a whole complexion concentrated in his nose. Bengough said , that this might be the person who, in boy-

I hood's days, had evinced too strong a 1 liking^flbT . lemonade— with lemons in it — at Sunday school picnics " Stick to cold water 1" he remarked. A few verses by American poet who ought to be better known called " Gettin' on " were recited as only an elocutionist with exceptional depths of feeling could recite^ them; while the same talent was displayed in the presentation of a set of verses of his own composition, describing the varying sentiments — end accents — of a shipload of immigmnts^ arriving in New Zealand- And so- this really extraordinary man went on — proving himself pre-eminent as a cartoonist, and, as poet, raconteur, elocutionist, mimic, humourist, and hater of humbug, far above and beyond mediocrity. ■ As* before,, Bengougi was supported by Borneo Gardiner, an unusually clever whistler, and Claude Allan, a vocalist with a clear, light tenor, which he uses with excellent Miss Dora Carroll, was 1 accompanist.

Permanent link to this item
Hononga pūmau ki tēnei tūemi

https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/OW19090908.2.362

Bibliographic details
Ngā taipitopito pukapuka

Otago Witness, Issue 2895, 8 September 1909, Page 68

Word count
Tapeke kupu
1,530

BENGOUGH'S ENTERTAINMENTS. Otago Witness, Issue 2895, 8 September 1909, Page 68

BENGOUGH'S ENTERTAINMENTS. Otago Witness, Issue 2895, 8 September 1909, Page 68

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