VERY LIGHT BUT VERY BRIGHT

New Zealand Listener, Volume 11, Issue 282, 17 November 1944, Page 12

VERY LIGHT BUT VERY BRIGHT

2YA Camp Entertainers ERHAPS I am low-brow, and pefP haps I have no brow at all, but it is a long time since I enjoyed anything so much as I did the 2YA Camp Entertainers in the Wellington Town Hall last week. Fresh from showing to the Armed Forces, they gave @ packed audience in the Wellington Town Hall an opportunity to recapture the thrill of the variety stage in a nonstop show. It was a fine voluntary job in aid of the Leper Christmas Appeal. Everybody in the show had reached specialist status, and the term "nonstop" was fully justified-especially the pace kept up by compere Will Yates, whose original type of humour found patrons leaning forward in their seats to catch every sparkling word. Every musical artist realises the value of a polished build-up in accompaniments. And this is where Henry Rudolph and his Variety Orchestra scored -a compact and _ excellentlymodulated musical body. Mr. Rudolph, as well as being conductor, is a top-line performer with a variety of instruments. The nicely balanced full chorus produced from its capacious musical pocket everything from musical comedy to opera, with a dash of "swing" now and then as an interesting sideline. Soloists were Audrey McNamara and Joyce Izett. Elizabeth and John Tait, xylophone duettists, gave unusual arrangements of well-known melodies. Doreen Calvert and Yvonne Andrews were decidedly attractive as vocal duettists.

_ Then there was Leela Bloy’s violin in Sarasate’s "Gipsy Airs," and her clever performance of the fast-moving "Ragamuffin." Jeane Horne’s School of Dancing pupils (soloists, Kathleen McDonald and Alex Grant) glided gracefully through their ballet contributions. As for the show’s baritone, Ken Macaulay, it must be a long time since anyone made "Boots" more dramatic. Will Yates’ researches into osculation must have carried him through some dangers, while his "Snores," and exposition of nocturnal camp noises, displayed extraordinary powers of remembrance. The Auckland performer, Sybil Phillipps, carried the whole house with her in Gounod’s "Ave Maria." Short-statured, and using the confidential style of comedy, Walter Marshall did the famous bass song, "Drinking," and followed this with a laughgetter, "Bungin’ "Em In" (words and music by the late W. Graeme Holder). The Harmony Serenaders (Doreen Calvert, Yvonne Andrews, Sylvia Devenie and Dorothy Kemp) whose numbers were "Isa Lei" and "Swiss Bellringer," and The Four Musketeers (Ken Macaulay, Walter Marshall, Ken Strong and Len Hopkins) provided the kind of harmony that every crowd enjoys, So did Jean McPherson with her attractive and original arrangements of popular songs of the day-‘Boy in Khaki," "I Love a Lassie," and "Out of the Bluegums." It seems only the other day that I saw Heather Wright embarking on her acrobatic career in Christchurch. To-day she is the complete artist in spine and leg-cracking contortions. Responsible for the show were: General director, Will Yates; programme organiser, Malcclm Rickard; stage manager, Bernard Beeby; musical director,

Henry Rudolph,

E.R.

B.