"WHAT HAPPENED TO JONES.”

Taihape Daily Times, Issue 219, 30 January 1917, Page 4

"WHAT HAPPENED TO JONES.”

Mr. George Willoughby and his newly organised musical farce comedj company will appear in Taihape on Friday next, February 2nd, at me Town Hall. Everyone has heaxo. or “What Happened to Jones,” it being the most successful farce George Sroadhurst has written, but now playgoers will have -the .opportunity of witnessing this play in another sphere, that of a musical farce. There are songs and dances introduced in me right place which will keep the auui ence in a merry mood from the rise cc the fall of the curtain, and the laughing pace will be so well kept up tha. there will not be time for faces to grow straight. The whole action of the play takes place in the drawingroom of Professor Goodly, who is rushed by a prospective son-in-law into surreptitious attendance at a prize light. The police raid the assemblage, and the professor escapes to his house in a very dilapidated condition. He is in momentary dread of a visit from the police when a stranger, “Jones,” who “travels in hymn-books with playing cards as a side-line,” runs in. He had been to the fight, and in es- j caping had assaulted the police, who | were in close pursuit. On that day i the Rev. Dr. Goodly, Bishop of Baiiar at, a brother whom the family had not seen for many years, was expected and some now clothes for him bavin arrived, Jones speedily gets into them, and on arrival of the police impersonates the Bishop. From this out the play turns on the calm assurance ancrcadiness of resource with "which Jones maintains the character while a cordon of police are surrounding the house. He has to be introduced to the wemen-folk as the long-lost brother, and finds complication in a secret engagement of the Bishop to an elderly spinster. When the real Bishop arrives he is hustled to his room by the j impostor, and his clothes got away to j “press,” and when he comes down- ; stairs in a blanket to seek them, he • encounters an escap'ed lunatic similar- j ly attired who insists on decorating him as a Red Indian. Finally he gets into Jones’ cast-off clothe^ - in despair, and is arrested by uie waiting police on a charge of assault in connection with the prize fight. The box plan opens at Sherwin’s, and wc advise intending patrons to secure their seats early, as the play, the prices, and the company are popular. ; and a large audience is expected.