ENTERTAINMENTS.

Ashburton Guardian, Volume XXXVIII, Issue 2732, 30 July 1915, Page 2

ENTERTAINMENTS.

HAYWARO'S PICTURES.

1 There was\ a- fairly good house at His Majesty's . Theatro . last. ■ evening, wjien tho management submitted; a fresh programme of iiiins. Taken all round, the series was one that gave -patrons a thoroughly good evening's entertainment. '„''' The programme opened with one of the over-welcome topical budgets, which provided instructive pictorial -.tit-bits of news connected mostly with the present great war. The first scene was:.one showing Red Cross nurses going aboard | Sir Thomas Lipton's pleasure yacht, the Erin, which for the nonce ,has been converted into a hospital ship. The veteran yachtsman was seen seated in the centre of a merry group of nurses-and medical officers. A number of Belgian refugee, children we.ro shown ' leaving ' the country of their birth for Algeria. The King and Queen of Greece were soon entering church to attend Divine worship, and then followed several war photos. A lonely sentry, "somewhere in France," was pictured passing the weary hours on guard, and a French Territorial regiment was shown on parade. An excellent scene was the Archbishop of Canterbury reviewing the King's Royal Rifles (the Church Lads' Brigade). 'Very interesting were the views depicting the damage caused at Colchester by bombs dropped by a Gorman aviator and a first-class portrait of the baby who so narrowly escaped 'death and" whose perambulator was wrecked, was shown in the arms of her soldier daddy. Victims of the German submarine "blockade" were featured, some of the views showing the waves j breaking over the beached vessels. I "Tlie Phantom Thief," was a fairly j good drama, dealing with the love story of an artist. "Picturesque California" was a decided acqumton to the :W Q gramme, the films featuring the wide' difference between. the early -aird m)l----orn times in the civilisation of that-]-art of the American Continent. "William Henry Jones's Courtship" ;.'a? a I comedy. i "Lil o' London," was tho chief attraction. Lil cr London is a quaint character taken from real lifo and part of her history woven into a j drama,' which for characterisation and' realism has seldom been equalled. Lil, owing to the tenement which she has known as home being burnt down, while her father is being pursued by the police,finds herself, with a tiny tot of a'sister > homeless and starving. A yonng society chap, taken by the motherly way that she looks after the tiny child, takes her to his flat, and tells his valet, a man of the strictest code, so far as society customs are concerned. The 1 young man's mother is soon placed with the facts, and sho objects strenuously, but tho situation is-relieved'by a young lady, a particular friend of Tommy Mordaunt, the young man of society, adopting the children. Lil grows very fond of Tommy, and begets a most unreasonablo jealousy. This leads to many complications, some of which are comic, some tragic. The end of the play is gripping in its intensity. Lil's •father burglarises tho house,' and Lil struggles with him. Neither recognises each 'other, till Lil falls stabbed. " Tho lights are turned up. Then the.father recognises his daughter.. The end is. ojie that will rank as an artistic triumph, tlie audience feeling a glow of satisfaction that things happened as they .should'; The. production -,va.% an excellent one, and the audience was not slow to demonstrate its appreciation of it.

Tho remaining item on a good all-, round programme was a Keystone farce-comedy entitled "Hogan's .Aris^ tociutic Dream." The pictures will be re-screened this evening.