"CRAZY COMMUNITY"

Radio Record, 4 September 1936, Page 12

"CRAZY COMMUNITY"

Vincent Ryan is an .OldHand at Whooping | ‘Em Up |

munity sings are crazy, especially when the audience drags out so unromantically a song like "Isle of Capri’ or "Love in’ Bloom." Indeed, until I heard community singsters at it, I used to quite like those two numbers. But I’m sure that those who go to the sings enjoy themselves immensely, for although there’s no charge for admission-if you escape before the collection tin tinklesthere must be some special appeal. about this singing in hearty if heartless unison. And most of the community. singsters, too, probably have more real urge for music than those who attend symphony orchestral concerts because it’s fashionable, The second time Vincent Ryan appeared at Wellington’s community sings, the big Town Hall was more than packed ; it was wedged. Apparently the word had gone round the city walls since his first appearance that Vince Ryan was worth going to sing under. Well, he ought to be, in view of the experience he’s had on the other ‘side of the Tasman"The world of ‘community’ just appeals to me," confided Vincent Ryan the other week, "but I’d felt like a rest until I came here and got going with Wellington people. We used to put on some special concerts occasionally, called. ‘crazy community. We'd announce it a couple of weeks beforehand to warn the public for surprises. P ERHAPS some people think that all com-

"When the curtain goes up the stage is found littered with such things as clothes horses, washing, brooms and buckets, and a verse is done as to what a ‘community’ should. be. Then when Mille Hansen is announced, for instance, she’s wheeled in aboard _akid’s trolley. We let her do a couple of numbers without interruption, then on her third we start abusing her from the auditorium. She invites the detractor onto the stage and.throws him about something horrible-and the audience just loves: it." The most unrehearsed things used to happen’ sometimes in these shows. Gifts from the audience on crazy nights would range from: eggs ‘and needles to underclothes and so on-deuced embarrassing, according to the Australian comedian. But even though it might be crazy night, they gave the people- entertainment-let the artists do.a share of straight work before the fun started on each -of them. "Hokum is what they look for, and they certainly get it," he continued. "We usually finished these crazy nights with an impromptu sketch in pantomime doggerel, so to _ speak-tell the artists. the ‘plot’ of the story, and leave them to it. Gets the audience howling, too, some of the lines that occur to the artists on the spur of the moment."