ME CLIFFORD WALKER'S ENTERTAINMENT.

Auckland Star, Volume XXXIII, Issue 204, 28 August 1902, Page 2

ME CLIFFORD WALKER'S ENTERTAINMENT.

It is net entirely easy to classify correctly, and to describe adequately, the somewhat unique and wholly delightfnl entertainment which Mr Clifford Walker, the London actor and coci«ty entertainer, gave before a. very large audience at the Choral Hall last evening. Monologue artists, or as the vulgar have it, "one man shows," have come and gone, but they have not been many, and during the past decade, at all events, present deponent recollects no one whose recitals at all resembled those of Mr Walker, or even distantly approached them in merit. True, there was that strong man Snazelle, with his "song and story" evenings, which linger not ungratefully in memory. But Snazelle's methods were not those of Mr Walker. He had a robustious, boisterous manner, and a superb voice, and he drove his points and his stories home with a sledge hammer, as one might say. Mr Walker prefers more delicate tools,. and handles: them lightly. Again, Snazelle had a magic lantern (he called it a stereoptieon, or some such name, but it was an ordinary magic lantern all the time), and when he told the story of Enoch Arden he would show illustrations thereof which vulgarised the poem, and to the imaginative robbed the story of its beauty. Mr Walker spares us the magic lantern. And here, after all, is the chief characteristic of his performance. Not only does he spare us the magic lantern, preferring1 to conjure up mind pictures for us, but he also spares us what may be aptly described as magic lantern methods. He does not flin^ his points at us, as the crudely-coloured slide is flung on the flaring white screen—he gives them gently, naturally and pre-Eup-poses some amount of intelligent appreciation and intuition on his audience's part. He makes no pauses for applause, and never spoils a good thing by dwelling on it with that lingering, undue emphasis which so often disfigurfes really good things from good actors on the stage or recitation platform. To change the simile, Mr Walker uses the rapier, not the sabre, in his art, and scored a palpable hit every bout. To describe in detail the various items would be beyond the limits of our space. Mr Walker steps on to the stage in evening dress—a quiet, youthful, almost boyish personage, with a keenly intellectual and refined face, and without preliminary palaver describes wittily and well a public dinner, and the speeches and songs which follow. It is any public dinner —the last which you attended yourself. He gives th» speeches of the pompous old party who speaks for the army, and of the sea dog who answers for 'the navy, of the young masher who responds to the volunteer forces. All these wii-h interspersed songs are brought before you, clear, sharp, definite, and greatly do you enjoy the fun you get out of them, till the young man who responds for the ladies follows, and after a capitally humorous speech describes the sort of girl he wants to marry himself. The whole item was last evening exceedingly well done, and won rounds of well-deserv-ed applause. From gay to grave. With but a moment's pause, Mr Wafker sits at the piano, and sings a duo between a little crossing sweeper and a student of the eternal social problem of why such things as starvation, pain and misery should be meted out to some, and to children, and comfort and luxury toothers. It is exceedingly effective, and Mr Walker never strains his pathos. Consequently he touches the heart. This remark is also true of the character sketch, "One More," where in the person of an old self-willed skipper he tells the story of his daughter and her sweetheart, Charles 'All—how the laftter is driven off to the 'war by his obtuseness, and believed to be killed, and how he returns from the dead after all, to bring joy into all their lives. In this, with its flashes of humour, its deep human sympathy, and its pathos, all rapidly alternating, Mr Walker is at his best, and it alone would stamp him as an artist of a very high order indeed. A fresh programme will be given to-night, when Mr Walker will again be assisted by lirs E. Queree, wiio played two piano solos last evening*