BRIGHT HOLIDAY FARE

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 678, 1 June 1929, Page 14

BRIGHT HOLIDAY FARE

“DIGGERS” NEW PROGRAMME STRONG HUMiOUR ELEMENT A holiday audience, in holiday mood and obviously well pleased with the fare, provided a well-filled house at St. James Theatre when Pat Hanna’s “Diggers” presented their second programme of the season. “Never Mind Dull Care” provided an appropriate opening number and the company set a merry example. Sketches, vocal and instrumental numbers, ballets and humorous items then followed in quick succession. Stage waits are unknown to the “Diggers,” and the last bars of one finale have barely died away before a ■well-bal-anced orchestra is swinging into the introduction of another turn. In sketches the company is particularly strong, having excellent material and the talent to put them across. Probably the most successful of a very entertaining list were “Rumdoings,” a military episode from the pen of Pat Hanna, “A Near Tragedy,” and the domestic comedy, “Love Makes Fools.” Mention must also be made of the Irish scena, “A Memory of County Down,” which served to introduce a number of Irish airs and dances, and the ballet, “The Willow Pattern Plate,” artistically interpreted by Thelma Pittard, Stan Lawson and ballet.

Joe Valli’s spontaneous and quietly effective humour was always successful. In the sketch “Love Makes Fools.” the little comedian was particularly popular, and in his various solo numbers he was always well received. Pat Hanna is also as droll as ever. In character roles he is invaluable, and his turns are waited /with interest. His casual rambling rhyme, “When Richard the First was King,” in which Auckland affairs, civic and otherwise, were introduced to the> keen delight of a discriminating audience, was a noteworthy contribution to a programme particularly strong in humour. Hilda and Jessie Meadows provided a few minutes of entertaining melody, and Adele Taylor, Iza Crosslev. Ernest Kopke and Jock Thomson also contributed to the musical side of the entertainment with well-chosen songs. Mickey Phillips, the “Diggers’ ” vest pocket comedienne, was well received in several solo and concerted numbers. An artistic and w T ell staged turn was the song scena, “I’m Sorry Sally,’ sung by Adele Taylor and Ernest Kopke, and accompanied by Madge Conaghan at the piano, and Roy Brinsden on the saxaphone and xylophone. In presenting their items the “Diggers’ certainly ' have a way all their own. The programme is well suited to the holiday season and during the next few days the “Diggers” should prove a big attraction. _ TIVOLI AND EVERYBODY’S “RED LIPS” Charles Rogers and Marian r>ixon make a youthful and refreshing costarring pair in “Red Lips,” the ultramodern picture of young people and college life, now at the Tivoli and Everybody’s Theatre.

The director was frank with many of the scenes, but he was also honest in telling them, so the Universal picture is both entertaing and very real. The exploits of young people may sometimes seem a bit too extreme to their elders. These same exploits are translated to tne screen, but Brown has tpld them with real understanding. Jack Mulhall, one of filmdom’s foremost “kings of comedy-drama,” proves in “Children of the Ritz” that he is a master of pathos, too. This highly entertaining picture of New York's ultrarich is the second feature at both theatres. It has plenty of fun for its backbone, but there are pathetic moments in which Mulhall does some of his finest work. Dorothy Mackaill is co-featured with him, and a splendid cast headed by James Ford, Kathryn McMGuire and Lee Moran support the leading duo.

At the Tivoli Theatre, Miss M. Anderson’s orchestra plays “Pirates of Penzance” selection for the overture, and the following incidental selections: “Betty in Mayfair” (Fraser-Simson), “Whispering Willows” (Herbert), “Tell Me More” (Gershwin), “Bric-a-Brac” (Finck), “Princess Charming” (Higgs), “Vive la Danse” (Finck) and the foxtrots, “I’m Sorry Sally,” “Red Lips,” “Sentimental Baby” and “Dusky Stevedore.”