"THE LITTLE STRANGER."

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXIX, Issue 8323, 3 January 1907, Page 7

"THE LITTLE STRANGER."

Mr Allan Hamilton arrived in Masterton on Tuesday to complete arrangements for' "The Little Stranger" season, of one night only, viz., Tuesday next, January Bth. The Wellington season has been phenomenally successful. In conversation with, a pressman Mr Hamilton said: —"I have always maintained that Wellington, for its population, is the best show town in the world, and this last experience makes my belief still more solid. Theatrical 'records' are fairly elastic, as you know, but in the case of 'The Little Stranger' the cold,; hard fact remains that out of the eight-nights season—at the very worst time of the year (just prior to Christmas), and in face of great opposition at the Town Hall —we turned money away on five occasions, while the remaining three houses were quite as full as the place could comfortably hold. And this was done with one piece, 'The Little Stranger,' which, according to all Press opinions, has caught the taste of the playgoers infinitely more than did 'Charley's Aunt,' 'The Private Secretary,' and 'What Happened to Jones.'" Here is what the Wellington paper had to say about our child wonder, Willie Parke, and the farce itself:—'"Baby' is decidedly one of the jolliest acquaintances we have made for many a day. He and his first night's audience got so speedily on to good terms with each other that the little 'stranger' was an absolute misfit in no time. It bceame a case of intimate friendship, the parties to which settled down to enjoy a huge joke that] lasted all the evening. There is no doubt about it, 'The Little Stranger' is a ridiculously funny farce-comedy. The idea is absolutely new. It is far-fetched, absurd if you like, but withal cleverly conceived and impossible to resist as a provoker of laughter."