THEATRE WORK OVERSEAS

Press, Volume LXXXVII, Issue 26393, 11 April 1951, Page 8

THEATRE WORK OVERSEAS

Mr Maxwell Oldaker’s Experiences ASSOCIATION WITH IVOR NOVELLO Musical comedy, operettas, plays, radio and television work have formed a valuable background of experience for Mr Maxwell Oldaker, who is appearing with the Gilbert and Sullivan opera company at present in Christchurch. Mr Oldaker, who is a Tasmanian, went abroad some years ago with the Westminster Glee Singers after they had toured New Zealand. With them he toured Australia, British Malaya, and China, and then went to England. For about nine years there, he gained experience in a wide variety of theatre work. He played for a season at the wellknown Birmingham Repertory Theatre; appeared at the Drury Lane Theatre in a West End revival of “The Beggars’ Opera”; and played in Noel Coward’s last big musical production, “Operette,” in which he took the singing juvenile part. While he worked in the theatre, Mr Oldaker was also a student at the Royal Academy of Music, where he held a scholarship. There he studied with the New Zealand soprano, Miss Rosina Buckman, who has since died, and her husband, Maurice L’Oisley. While at the Royal Academy, he gave two performances as Walter in “The Meistersingers,” conducted by Sir John Barbirolli. He also won the Sir Arnold Bax Prize for pianoforte and singing. Mr Oldaker may be better known in New Zealand as a composer than in his singing and acting roles. He has composed several works/or the pianoforte. One of them is “A Bird Market in Peking.” Record Melbourne Season Mr Oldaker returned to Australia in 1940 for J. C. Williamson’s Gilbert and Sullivan season. He appeared in leading male roles in numerous revivals of the “Maid of the Mountains,” "The Merry Widow,” “Lilac Time,” and “Die Fliedermaus,” and as Red Shadow in “Desert Song,” which ran for seven months in Melbourne—the longest known season for any revival. In this he played opposite a New Zealander, Joy Beattie, who is now achieving fame in England. In 1946, he appeared in Ivor Novello’s “The Dancing Years,” as Rudy Klaber, the part which Ivor Novello wrote for himself. In 1949, he again played Rudy Klaber in London, at the request of Ivor Novello. Within the next few weeks, the film - version of ‘‘The Dancing Years” will be shown in Christchurch. In this, Rudy Klaber is played by Dennis Price, who is a friend of Mr Oldaker, and with whom Mr Oldaker appeared in London in “1066 and All That.”

"Ivor Novello’s death was a terrible loss to the theatre,” Mr Oldaker said yesterday. “He was the only Englishman in the last 20 years to nave written musical comedies of any value. Also he was tremendously popular throughout Britain, and was a good friend to so many in the profession “I am very much interested to find that the Christchurch Repertory Theatre Society is in a position to buy its own theatre and keep a producer from abroad fully occupied.” Mr Oldaker expressed pleasure that the smaller communities in New Zealand were so well informed about the theatre overseas. “Perhaps in Australia and New Zealand we are a little inclined to look down on local products,” he continued. “There should be facilities here and in Australia for young people with talent, to develop it in their own land. There should be room for one first-class, well-estab-lished company of New Zealand’s best artists.”

It was rather early for the introduction of television in Australia and New Zealand, he considered. "Considerable funds are needed to present television shows,” he said. “With the competition of the films, they will have to be very good shows.”