AMUSEMENTS.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LIII, Issue 120, 30 August 1910, Page 7

AMUSEMENTS.

BIOGRAPH PICTURE CO. AT STRATFORD. On Thursdav evening next the Biocrraiph Picture* Co. will present an. excellent programme to Stratford Theatre goers In addition to a series of educational, scenic, dramatic, and comic pictures the management intend to, put on two very clever turns, one by the talented balancer and gymnast Miss Fanny Halle, and the other by The Ardells," equilibrists and comedian*. Either, of the exhibitions if given alone; would be quite worth the price of ad2*. These clever artists have drawn we audiences in New Plymouth, and as the respective performances are as rnique as £y are "meritorious patron* should not miss seeing them at Stiat ford on Thursday evening next. Last night's new programme of pictureVproved to be a very •acceptable ™ L, turns by "The Ardells" and M ts linnv iWle were enthusiastically receivedl, the cleverness of their work being much admired.

NEW ENGLISH FARCICAL COMEDY COMPANY. "THE BRASS BOTTLE." After lon* and markedly successful rumt and New YoAaivdi-e----entl/in Sydney, "The Brass. BotU ,1. A Anstey's famous whimsicality, will w> fw for one night only on Monday Sepfemir 12th, at the Theatre Royal here The setting of the piece » in every way admirable, and the illusions necessary to the appearance and disappearance" of Fatash-el-Aamash, the "Jinee of the Green Jin," are clever and puzzling to a degree There is a delightful toilet interpolated m the second act, and at times there is traceable a distinct "flavor" of pantomime such as "The Forty Thieves," or.musical comedy like ."Morocco Bound." Briefly, the story of the play /runs Venti.more, a young architect, in love with Sylvia Futvoye (daughter of the la--1110119 Orientalist and scholar, Professor Futvoye), goes to an auction on. toenail of his prospective father-in-law, and there purchases the fatal "Brass Bottle " which contains the Jinn, who 3000 or '4OOO years (before, has been enclosed in it by order of King Suite-man;.;. the. Great "(the Hebrew Solomon), together with thousands of his brethren of the Blue and Green, Jinn, and they had all been cast, imto various waste -places of the earth. Farash, for instance, had been found at the bottom of the Sett, !of El Karkar., It was his-fate to be sold, bottle and all, for £1 in a London I auction room. When Ventjmore releases him the Jinnee is full of gratitude, and he sets about it to see that his unintentional benefactor shall be full of benefits. In two senses Horace is very "full." A caravan of camels colli 1 at his "rooms" at Ennismore Gardens', ' and there deposits about a billion • pounds' worth of diamond®, rubies and I emeralds about as large as emus' eggs, which are, of course, entirely valueless J —being so valuable that nobody could ] afford °to buy them. A client—the., first he has ever toad-fin the person of, Mr. ' Samuel Wackerbath, a very wealthy ' estate agent, flies. in at Ventdmore's j window, and promptly gives him a contract worth about £IOO,OOO. Horace j intends to build his new client a really fine mansion, and in his enthusiasm tells the Jinn of his purpose; the Jinn, only too ready to help, runs up a sort of aliph's palace for Wackerbath in one night! But, alas! though most imposing and ornate, there are no modern "conveniences," and not a yard of drains to the place. A little dinner at his rooms, which the embarrassed young architect intends., to give to his fiancee and her family, is metamorphosed into a typical feast from the "Arabian Nights "—upon, which, by-the-bye, the play is founded. And so on until the Jinnee's generosity—being always declined—turns to malevolence, and his , wonders become more than embarrassing, Only iby playing on his fears of "Progress and Civilisation" —two "monarchs" that are * represented by Ventiinore to be greater than Solomon himself—does the young man save his life and finally induce the Jinn to re-enter the Brass Bottle. The play is original and clever, and quite out of the common. The box plan wil be opened at Collier's Piano Depot on Thursday, September 8.