“TANGERINE”

Dominion, Volume 23, Issue 110, 3 February 1930, Page 6

“TANGERINE”

A MUSICAL COMEDY SATIRE

• For the concluding week of their season, Freddie Forbes, the eminent English comedian, and his musical comedy company could hardly have chosen a more excellent production than "Tangerine, which opened at His Majesty’s Theatre on Saturday night, and which Will continue throughout the present week. The company has been producing excellent musical comedies for several weeks now, and each of their extensive repertoire has, been different in atmosphere and setting from the rest. Versatility is, of course, the keynote of their work, and they combine with their versatility a marvellous sense of comedy which has been very much to the tasto of local playgoers. On Saturday night.it was clearly a case of saving the best play until the last. It delighted a full house and burst after burst of applause greeted the efforts ot those on. the stage. Freddie Forbes has an urbanity and poise which are very refreshing after the boisterous methods ot many a lesser man. He brings oft a gag In an effortless manner, and the result is pandemonium. In his own unassuming and diffident way, he deals subtleties. It is a tribute to him that the audience seizes the jest as ’ soon as it leaves his Ups, and he must derive more satisfaction from this than would a comedian whose mind works on plainer and broader lines. Only once or twice in the course of "Tangerine he flipped into a broad and irresistible slapstick comed), which showed ’ him as a master of this lesser art in addition to his other quailfleations. ’ . The play itself is described as a musical comedy satire—and a „ sat . lr %?? tainly is. It gives the excellent cast wonderful opportunities for'. screamingly funny comedy work, and is hy‘Construction a frame of incongruity, upon which many extraordinary things, depend. Iruc humour, someone has said, comes from incongruity, or from unusual and ,. l " <l ‘ c b r ° l * a associations. In "Tangerine, this thesis finds a great deal of support. Ihree husbands incarcerated in the Ludlow Street alimony gaol, find themselves attracted to a scheme which is proposed by an unattached friend of theirs, Dick Owens. He suggests that they all leave for a South Sea island called Tangerine, and take up residence there with their wives, who will be brought to the island unknowingly on a pleasure cruise. The peculiar merit-of the scheme lies in the fact that upon this island a new and topsy-turvy regime has been established by Joe Perkins, who went to the Island permanently several years before Under this state of affairs, the women do all the work, provide all the necessities of life, and are in point of fact nothing but slaves. When the three husbands and their wives reach Tangerine, they find Joe Perkins, the king, in easy command of the whom temale population, including his own eight wives. The lady visitors are shown that things must be reversed, and they fall in with the laws of the island. Where, however, the native women are accustomed to work, the American visitors must needs build a.“ Main Street," with up-to-date shops. It is at this point that the audience are treated to the plain spectacle of the customary relations of the sexes in the social system altered completely. Up till now, and from now to the end of the performance, the play is extremely amusing. Betty Lambert, who plays the part of Shirley Dalton, and Catherine Stewart, who makes a vigorous burlesque of Kate Allen, are the leaders of the feminine cast. Each is niost attractive, and wins her full share of applause. Aster Falre. Vera St. John, and Verna Bain, do sound .work, the last proving herself an excellent dancer. One of the main attractions of the show is “The Big Four,” a male quartette consisting of Fred Webber, Frank Wignail, Charles Perrin and Cliff O’Keefe, who are wellknown for their wonderful recordings of popular songs. They sing together at different parts of the play, and do a special turn by themselves in their own renowned manner. They were greeted and farcwclled with tumultuous applause. The orchestra, under the direction of Frank Crowther, do their work in a manlier that leaves very little to be desired.