ONE PERFORMANCE

Sun (Auckland), Volume IV, Issue 968, 10 May 1930, Page 29

ONE PERFORMANCE

Fate of London Revue LEADING LADY SOBS After one performance at file Duchess Theatre “The Intimate Revue” was taken off. Oscar Asche was the producer. Writing in the London “Daily Mail” Alan .Parsons says: If anyone needed conclusive proof of the value of first-night applause here it was. for a passer-by, happening to look in for the last five "ninutes, would have carried away the impression of a big success. There was a fine showing of “friendly” applause (rumour had it that someone had taken a trifle of SO stalls) and bouquet after bouquet, including a grand piano in red blossoms, was handed up over the footlights. I said that it was “inexcusably under-rehearsed”; as a general rule I think it unfair to dwell on first-night hitches, for, as often as not, they have nothing to do with the worth of the play and will not be allowed to recur on the second night. But Tuesday night was one long procession of hitches; scene-shifters were to the fore in every scene, the leading lady was in tears during one number, and poor Mr. Morris Harvey, grotesquely attired as Eros, had to shout three times for his music to begin. Oscar Asche was the producer, bu r the man who produced “Kismet” and “Chu Chin Chow” should never have allowed “The Intimate Revue” to see the light in such a form. I can only repeat, it was inexcusable. Mr. Asche informed a reporter: “I am too old a hand to under-rehearse a production. I actually spent more hours rehearsing this revue than in rehearsing either ‘Chu Chin Chow,’ Kismet’ or ’Cairo.’ ” The trouble, Mr. Asche added, was due to a breakdown in the stage staff.