TO LOVE AND TO LAUGH

Radio Record, 29 April 1938, Page 14

TO LOVE AND TO LAUGH

by

EMILE

Scottish Comedienne Dora Lindsay Finds Her Race a Joy and an Inspiration

Fe love people blindly and see none of their ' faulis may be romantically glorious but it is also very stupid. To see every one of their faults clearly and still love them is to be wise, tolerant end humen. This, without doubt, is how Dora Lindsay, Scottish comedienne now on tour with the NBS, sees her own race.

HEN Dora Lindsay, Scottish comedienne, left Dunedin after her last tour of New‘ Zealand, some eighteen months ago, the five Scottish societies there amaleamated at a

gathering in her lionour in the Town Hall. ‘They "played- in" the haggis and they "played-in" Dora Lindsay in her Highland costume. , At the end, the whole audience stovd up amd sang "Will Ye No Come Back Again?" "And now," Dura Lindsuy told me last week in Wellington, "like the Australian boomerang, I have come back." Ber though she loves her Seottish race, she cau laugh at its queer little ways and crack jokes about them, They do it themselves, of coursé, 7 t It is perfectly true, she says, and no legend whatever, thar seeing the commercial possibilities in baving a reputation for parsimony, the good people of Aberdeen sef out to make the reputation pay. She showed me a calendar that is written. printed and published from Aberdeen, with a joke for every day of the year. I read the first one.

Her Father: Are you quite ceriain you can support a family properly? Cautious Suitor: Hoo mony is ihere 0’ ye? ‘¢ S1Ii told me perfectly true stories of her own experiences on the stage iu Seotland, where she first appeared on the hoards of the old Britaunib at Glasgow at the age of ten. }ier mother lad been on the stage befere her, und her grandfather bad given a command performance at Bal-’ moral for Queen Victoria. She herself has done stuge and vaudeville work in Glasgow, London, New. York, Canada, South Africa and Australian. as well as New Zealand, "And in the Mast?’ 1 usked. "Not with my uaeeent," she said. There is an engaging twinkle in her. eves as she speaks. . THERE was the time’ the was’ play"ing a revue shit in Glasuow, for which she Was using a bundle of old umbrellas, One day, in a tram-car in the city, she ubsent-mindedly pieked | up another lady’s umbrella. "The woman pulled my dress and, said, ‘Where are you going with that? "T was full of apologies: I snid, ‘TReeally, madam, To have no need to take your umbrella. 1 bave plenty at home? "She paid, ‘It's no wonder, if. that's" how you get them.’"*

AND in one Scots town, she assured me, she was in the boxoffice taking the tickets for a community sing. when a man asked her how much it was to go i). "Two shillings," said

Dora Lindsay.

And he said, "Can [I get in for one shilling if I don’t sing?" T'S true, what I'm telling you, she told me. I believed her. I believed her again when she told me of the time she was touring some two decades ago in the Highlands and ler company came to a smull town full of people whu heid theatricals so ungodly that no one could be found to give them lodging. In the finish, the only rooms the actors could find available were the cells of the local police station. "Wei had great amusement calling to one another through the bars," "And did the people come to the show?’ I asked. "Oh, yes," she said, "We had a full house, They would go to the performance, It was just that they didn’t want to be coutaminated."

"But it’s not that the Scots are mean," says Dora Lindsay, "It’s just that they’re thrifty. They are an independent race. They are careful simply so that they won’t find themselves dependent on other people." She has played with Harry Lauder aud Will Fyffe. When she was touring New Zoaland, billed as the female Harry Lauder, she found herself in Christchurch with Harry Lauder in the theatre opposite under engagement to a rival company. She went over to see him. "IT went in and said, ‘Well, Sir Tlarry, how are you getting on?" "Harry said, ‘Drop the sir’ "I said, ‘ Hope you don’t mind> them billing me as the female Harry Lauder? "He said, ‘Look here, my lassie, if my name is going to do you any good in any part ef the world, don't forget to use it." ‘ This week Dora Lindsar visits Cbristebureh, aud on to Dunedin, and then to Christehurch, Auckland and Wellington again before she sails for Sydney. In October she intends to come back to New Zealand to tour with her own company of artists. She has lived in Australia for twelve years vow, but. sbe never forgets Scotland, aud. sbe still holds the box-office record in a ‘double turn with Hart for the Glas s0w Pavilion,