“LOMBARDI, LTD.”

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 893, 10 February 1930, Page 14

“LOMBARDI, LTD.”

HIS MAJESTY’S ON WEDNESDAY

There was a very large demand for seats when the box plans were opened this morning- for the season of Leo Carrillo, the greatest persor ality on the stage today, in the remarkably successful and entertaining comedy, “Lombardi, Ltd.,” which opens at His Majesty’s Theatre on Wednesday next and continues for the seven following nights. Matinees will be staged on Saturday next and op. Wednesday week. There was a popular demand that the season should be still further extended, and while they could have acceded to this request, J. C. Williamson, Ltd., to keep faith with New Zealand theatregoers (who have always extended generous and enthusiastic support to the firm’s productions) have sent Leo Carrillo and company across the Tasman. Xew Zealand is not to be deprived of the opportunity of witnessing one of the most remarkable characterisations ever seen in this part of the world, though the great Carrillo is hastening to London, where “Lombardi, Ltd.,” will be presented for the first time —and this, too, under the firm’s aegis.

It can in all truth be said that the appearance of such a famous actor in the play which was specially written for him by Frederick and Fanny Hatton, is the biggest theatrical event of the season, for Carrillo is one of the greatest personalities of the stage today.

There are many characters in the play and they have been most carefully cast. Two noted artists in the persons of Margaret Cullen-Landis and Barbara Luddy, who have been associated with Carrillo in his Broadway successes, will play prominent parts, and the high-grade company will include such favourites as Brandon Peters, Xatalie Moya, Leslie Victor, Henrietta Cavendish, Cecil Mannering (first appearance), Rowena Ronald, George Kensington, Maidie Hope, Elma Gibbs, Beatrice Kendrick and Daphne Bairn. There are also several beautiful girls who appear in the great fashion parade in the artistically appointed atelier of the great Lombardi—the excitable, lively, romantic and lovable designer of fashionable frocks, whose business methods are the despair of his horrified and pessimistic business manager.