ENTERTAINMENTS.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LVII, Issue 168, 22 December 1914, Page 6

ENTERTAINMENTS.

THE EMPIRE THEATRE. "Sixty years a Queen," a remarkable historic animated picture of a character never previously attempted, was introduced before a thronged attendance at the Empire Theatre last evening. The subject ia more than a mere cinematograph enactment, it is a moving chronicle of famous landmarks in national progress during the longest reign of any British sovereign. The reign of Queen i Victoria wag singularly notable for the vast strides made in literature, science and arts. The film 13 the work of the Barker Company, a British fifirm, and is a creditable achievement from many standpoints. There are no palpable stage make-belief, no ill-fitting disguises or obvious scenic fakes. The mounts aro magnificent, the costumes elaborate and carefully adapted to the various periods, and the principals have been so carefully selected that one could almost imagine that the real persons have been conjured up from the past to act their parts over again. The screening of the work was punctuated by frequent outbursts of applause. It would be impossible in the limited space available to detail every event or epi[sode. The prelude to the work constitutes the death-bed scene of William TV. Then follows the hasty journey on horseback of the Archbishop of Canter, bury and Lord Conyngham from Windsor to Kensington to announce to the young Princess Victoria that she is the Queen of the British Empire. Everything is quite natural, whether it be the young Queen holding her first council at Kensington Palace or mounted on her white charger watching the her first re- * iew in Windsor flrcat Park. A cfw «..f the most impressive spectacular scenes are the coronation ceremony, a State ball, the marriage of Queen Victoria If. Prince Albert of Saxe-Ccburg at St. James's Palace in 1840, the christening of the Prince of Wales, opening of the first international exhibition at Crystal Palace, the Queen receiving a body of wounded soldiers home from the Crimea, presenting medals to the. Crimean troops, a heroic incident in the Indian Mutiny, presenting the Victoria Cross, marriage of the Prince of Wales, Queen opening Parliament for the first time since the death of her husband, and the jubilee service at Westminster Abbey. The running commentary by Mr Barrie Marchel is instructive and entertaining. |^«'"Tm«>