FEMININE APPEAL

Rotorua Morning Post, Volume 2, Issue 274, 14 July 1932, Page 6

FEMININE APPEAL

ACTRESSES APPEAL FOR SUNDAY THEATRE PROGRAMMES. LONDON, June 24. A number of aetresses and producers visited th'e House of Commons to plead with members, at a meeting, to agree to leg.islation permitting the opening of theatres on Sundays. Miss Violet Vanbrugh, who wore a yellow costume and fashionable hat, won cheers from members when, ap•pealing to the British sense of fair play, she urged that theatres should have the same privileges as cinemas Mdlle. Alice Delysia preferred th'e French method of appealing to gallantry, and flashed her entrancing smile on the hitherto solemn members, who d'sclared later that such a delightful French accent had never been spoken in Parliament anywhere before, and they rather liked it. Major Proctor unchivalrously asked whether Mdlle. Delysia and Miss Vanbrugh believed in Sunday dog and horse racing and general "Cochranisation" of the Sabbath. This drew a spirited retort from Mr. C. B. Cochran, the theatrical manager, that he staged nothing more demoralising on Sunday than McCormack or Kreisler. Mr. Cochran added that the Sunday opening of cinemas had made th'e nation "celluloid-minded." Miss Nancy Price concluded the case for the theatres, declaring that the stage had mothered the cinema. "The films take our place and give us carbon copies of our artists," she said. -