“Comb the Chorus”

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 643, 20 April 1929, Page 24

“Comb the Chorus”

Motto for Managers in Search of Stars NEW DISCOVERIES IN LONDON The long-sustained bitter cry that there are no young English girls capable of taking leading parts m musical plays is not so loud as it was. Clavton and Waller have found one in Gladys Cruickshank, and the moss Empires hope they have found one m Jean Colin, writes William Pollock in the London "Daily Mail.” Miss Cruickshank, displacing the American actress originally tried in Urn part, is in the new Carlton piece "Merry Merry.” A fair-haired wisp of a girl, who reminds me of June, she began in the chorus of "No, No, N is to play the name part in “The Five o’clock Girl. The established artists in it include George Grossmith, Hermione Baddeley, Ursula Jeans —her second attempt m a musi cal play—and Ernest Truex. Miss Colin has had plenty of Provincial experience, Rhe has piaye'l n the music-hall stage with Herb Williams, and in pantomime at the Lyceum. Now she is to have a real chance in London. Charles B. Cochran, who was calling out for a “second Jessie Matthews” last summer for the American edition of his Noel Coward revue, “This Year of Grace” —and finally found her in his own chorus — said to me the other day that all this talk about there being no young girls on the stage for musical comedy is "nonsense.” Well, it is becoming pretty evident that there is more hope—and talent — in English choruses than in the importation of some so-called "stars” from the United States. I do not want to mention any names, but there have been at least three recent instances of young American actresses brought to London for musical shows who have had to be replaced after the opening performances. "Comb your chorus” should be a motto for managers.

The success of the present London revival of “Chu Chin Chow,’* with Oscar Asche in his original role, is shown in the fact that in 17 days the attendance totalled 45,000. The first play that has found its way to England out of Soviet Russia was seen at the Little Theatre, London, on February 28. It is called "Red Rust,” the authors are Messrs. Kirchen and Ouspensky, the first production taking place at the Dramatic Theatre in Moscow in 1927, where it has continued in the repertory ever since. The English translation, which is loyal to the original, has been made by Virginia and Frank Vernon, and the latter is producing the play and presenting it in association with Jose G. Levy and Henry Millar. There are three acts, and the six scenes, which have been designed by Aubrey Hammond, range from a square in Moscow, with Lenin’s statue in the background, to a gymnasium in the university.