TIVOLI SPECIALTY CO.

Evening Post, Volume LVII, Issue 33, 9 February 1899, Page 5

TIVOLI SPECIALTY CO.

The speciality business is somewhat overdone nowadays in the colonies, and to compete successfully with romantic and spectacular drama, modern comedy, pud other theatrical attractions, it must be new and good. The Tivoli Specialty Company, which began a short season at the Opera House last night is a fair specimen of the class. It possessesjin amusing and clever entertainer in Mr. Harry Crawford, already known in these parts as a h;ghkicker of some quality, and he appears in the present company as a general utility man — "tambo," a singer of comic things, a grotesque, comedian, and an example of flexible humanity. Altogether he would be quite indispensable from the present programme, and being so, we would suggest that he, in turn, should dispense with the rude passage in a parodied song if called upon to give it again. It is not funny, and may offend some people. The company also brings out a young lady •with an excellent contralto voice, Miss Mallie Bentjey, -whose rich notes, exhibited in the ballad " Just tell them that you saw me," and Molloy's "Love's old sweet song," indicated that she has a very valuable asset if her voice is put into careful training. The programme, which began with the time-honoured "chair business," wants a little paring, the b r et thing, for instance, about the Irish sketch by Miss M. Mowbray and Mr. Charles May being the dance at the end of it. The sketch was much too long, and devoid of humour. Miss Polly Robertson, Mis* Eve Towers, and Miss MoWbray provide the serio-comic business, but one of the best of Miss Towers's songs was spoilt by the indifferently played orchestral accompaniment. Mr. Charles Naylor is evidently popular -with a "specialty" house, as his two well-sung tenor ballads brought him in front each time, and there were loud- and incessant calls for " Cookoo," which item he was not prepared to give. Mons. Salvino, though not quite the "world's greatest juggler," as announced, is clever in his particular line, which was exhibited last night in juggling with gilded balls — he kept five going in the air at one time — knives, firebrands, and plates. The performance finished up at a reasonable hour with the usual nigger farce, the characters beinf taken by Miss Robertson, and Messrs. lOrawford, Naylor, and Bradford. The company will appear again tonight, and company will appear agan to-nght, and ;will change the proaramme to-morrow..