FIXTURES

Sun (Auckland), Volume I, Issue 288, 25 February 1928, Page 22

FIXTURES

HIS MAJESTY’S THEATRE In season: “Queen High.” Easter: “Student Prince” and “Madame Pompadour.” COMING “The Ringer” and “The Terror”Maurice Moscovich (indefinite) June (indefinite): Dion Boucicault and Irene Vanbrugh. “Archie” (Elsie Prince). “Tell Me More.” “Castles in the Air.” Grand Opera Company. March 6: Wirth’s Circus. CONCERT CHAMBER March 28: “If,” Little Theatre Society. Marie Burke left Melbourne recently for England. Slie hopes to find a play that will give her a chance of coming back to Australia. “Domestic Troubles” is the temporary title of a new comedy in which Warner Bros, will co-star Louise Fazenda and Clyde Cook for Master Pictures release. Zoe Wencke, prominent Australian actress, is heiress to half the estate of her late father, Martin Wencke, well known Sydney publican and horseowner, who died last November, after a lingering illness. The estate, estimated at £54,165, was divided between his sister and daughter. The latter is reported to be engaged, and will leave the stage. A 1 Winn, well known Australian actor and producer, who returned to Australia after spending almost a quarter of a century in America, is an inexhaustible fund of reminiscence. He was speaking the other day, when one of the gathering asked about a certain artist who had left Australia for America, and of whom little had been heard. “What sort of a performer was she?” asked one of the boys o Al. . “God’s worst gift to the profession,” came the reply.

(By COTHURNUS) Marie Eaton is playing in “The Trial ■ of Mary Dugan” in Sydney. Included in a scheme of contem- ! plated improvements to Williamson J theatres in New Zealand is a plan to j renovate His Majesty’s Theatre, Auckland. Hastings Lynn, who is appearing in “A Cuckoo in the Nest” at the King’s Theatre, Melbourne, was associated in comedy with Margaret Bannerman in London. Miss Bannerman is coming to Australia shortly to appear in the Somerset Maugham, play, “Our Betters.” “Spellbound,” a play by Frank Vesper, the Bolshevik fisherman in “Yellow Sands,” has been produced in New York. It is based on the BywatersThompson murder case, and for that reason has been banned in England. Both Sybil T | >rndike and Edith Evans were anxious to secure the English rights, if the censor would allow the piece to be staged in London. In New York, where the principal character is played by Pauline Lord, the opinion of the critics • seems to indicate that “Spellbound” is unconvincing. Herschell Henlere, the slap-stick pianist, who had the curtain lowered on his head at a show in England, was the same sort of oyster in Australia, says a writer in the Sydney ‘.‘Bulletin.” Once at the stool, and with an appreciative audience, neither the howls of the management nor the abuse of other performers waiting to come on would remove him. One night at Melbourne Tivoli he held the fort for 40 minutes, so the next night he found himself the last item on the bill. This was an opportunity the French-Canadian could not let by. He played encore after encore, while the audience, missed its train, the supers yawned, and the band grew restive. Finally the cloth was rudely dropped, and the orchestra struck up “God Save.” But Henlere was undismayed. The audience departed, the staff locked up, and the night watchman began his rounds, but strains of jazz and Beethoven continued to drift through the curtain. It was 3 a.m.

Mr. Walter Fuller, who has been Fullers’ representative in London tor some time, leaves for New Zealand in April. He will probably live again in Wellington. For many years the late Harry Rickards tried, unavailingly, to get the comedian, George Robey, to Australia. Several times the latter promised that he would make the trip, and Rickards even went so far as to make announcements in the Press, and also had a notice displayed in the lobby of the Sydney Tivoli. However, Robey never came—giving, as his excuse, that he dreaded the sea voyage. Last year he took his own company to South Africa, where he did well. Now he speaks of coming to Australia, and, if so, will probably be handled by the Fuller firm. Although well into the fifties, Robey is still in the first flight of entertainers. Recent cables tell of the passing of Harry Relph, for many years the “Little Tich” of London, and a favourite comedian. In 1927 he played a Tivoli season, after a period of over 20 years. To the present generation much of his work was old fashioned; but to those who still remember him for the wonderful entertainer he really was, his various numbers made a definite appeal when the comedian was in Australia last year. The death is announced of Arthur Elliott, in private life Arthur John Hargrave, third son of the late Captain W. P. Hargrave, Auckland. His wife is Maud Fanning, in her way one of the finest black-face performers in Australia. A family of clever children includes Violet Elliott, the comedy success of “The Film Girl” at the Empire, Sydney. The late Arthur Elliott, was around fifty years of age. Possessing a very powerful voice, for a comedian, he was an indefatigable worker —equally at home in straight or comedy roles.

Sir Harry Lauder will not retire from professional life —at least not for a long time to come. The vaudeville knierht recently signed a three-year contract with Welsh-Pearson to appear in films. He is to star in one feature a year.