"MEMORIES OF MUMMIES."

Shannon News, 24 July 1925, Page 4

"MEMORIES OF MUMMIES."

"GAGS" OFF THE STAGE,

A theatrical touring company was due to open in a small Lancashire town which had been visited previously by numerous shady revues employing so many financially embaria.ssed artists that suspicious landladies were demanding their rent in advance.

On the Sunday the company arrived, and as the members were alighting from the train, one landlady was overheard to remark to another, "Oh, but it's a champion company! They've all got overcoats!" This is one of many stage stories from "Memories of Mummers," by Albert pouglas, himself a member of a well-known theatrical family. The first time the author met Sir Herbert Tree was when he went to see him on behalf of his brother. "When I was ushered into the great actor's presence, his first question was, 'Are you an actor?" 'No,' I answered, facetiously. 'l'm respectable.' He smiled slightly, eyed me critically, and said, 'Ah! appearances are so deceptive.' " Sir Augustus Harris, the famous theatre proprietor, had a love for stupendous effects in pantomime which often overshadowed the efforts of his comedians. A certain comedian once asked the great man's permission to insert a wheeze. "What is the gag?" Sir Augustus asked. "Oh!" replied the comedian, "a little humorous story concerning an English md a Ki-ench sailor." "Certainly, my boy," said the genial knight, "put it in. We'll have a procession for it. . sailors of all nations." It was in a provincial theatre, and a domestic drama was in , progress. "Shall I play for you, dearest?" said the erring wife to her forgiving husband. "Do, darling," he gurgled. She gracefully guided to the piano, and gave a beautiful rendering of the second movement of Tschaikowsky's "Pathetique." Now the leading lady, although an excellent actress, was no musician, so the difficulty was overcome by having another piano and pianist off the stage. On the night in > question, after the opening bars, the stool suddenly collapsed and the lady was precipitated in an undignified heap on the floor, but the sublime melody still continued. A story from the Mnema theatre: In a very dramatic film, the villian came face to face with the adventuress on the tow-path of a canal. In a lurid sub-title he hissed, "I have sworn to kill you wherever I found you." A fierce struggle ensued, ending by the "vamp" being hurled into the canal. Leaving nothing to chance, the villian held her \ beneath the water, and as she gasped and gurgled, the pianist, an unconscious humourist, played "I'm For Ever Blowing Bubbles." ~ A supercilious comedian who prided himself upon his prepossessing appearance was once holding forth to a fellow-aetor thus:— "You know, I never appear out.of evening dress. I require no arched eyebrows to accentuate by expression, nor is it necessary for me to pamt mv pose with red to raise a laugh. ""Quite so," was the reply, "but heaven hasn't blessed us all with such a darned funny face." , The proceeds from "Memories of Mummers" are to be devoted to theatrical charities. *