LONG RUNS

Sun (Auckland), Volume IV, Issue 1070, 6 September 1930, Page 24

LONG RUNS

“Chu Chin Chow” Still Holds Record

PLACE FOR “JOURNEY'S END’

The long run by which plays are usually remembered, is of fairly modern growth. Dion Boucicajilt set the fashion with “The Colleen Bawn,” in 1860, when that play was staged for 231 consecutive nights at the Adelphi Theatre, London.

The first play in England to secure a run of 600 successive performances was “Our Boys,” and although later surpassed by "Charley’s Aunt,” the famous old play held the time record of four years and three months’ continuous performances for over 10 years, when this and all other records were passed by Oscar Asche s production of “Chu Chin Chow.” No other play comes within measurable distance of the extraordinary run of this piece, which was performed at His Majesty's Theatre, London, 2,238 times.

Here are some of the plays that have secured continuous runs of more than 1,000 performances: “Chu Chiu Chow” (2,238), "Charley’s Aunt” (1.4G6), “Our Boys” (1,362), “The Maid of the Mountains” (1,352), “A Little Bit ■of Fluff” (1,241), “A Chinese Honeymoon” (1,075), and “Romance” (1,046). »

"Journey's End,” still going strong in London, is making a bold bid for inclusion.

In the period of the Great War alone no fewer than four productions were able to record more than one thousand performances. In these days of the talkies, a mn of 100 consecutive performances would be regarded as “something out of the box.”