DIX’S GAIETY COMPANY.

Evening Star, Issue 11678, 10 February 1902, Page 4

DIX’S GAIETY COMPANY.

On Saturday night there was another large audience at the Princess’s, and the performance gave satisfaction. Mr Dix’s local managers so carefully study the tastes of the public that the ordinary programmes are always interesting, and when, as is the case now, specialties of world-wide celebrity are obtainable, the entertainment reaches the London level. That is saying a good deal, but no more than the truth. Dunedin is better supplied in the theatrical way than a place of its size would be in the Old Country. The great guns of the profession have enough engagements in the big centres, and do not bother about the smaller provincial towns. The Craggs, for example, would not be seen in any 50,000 city in England. Our people, we think, appreciate their privileges. During the current season, at any rate, they are thanking the management in the most practical way, by steady and interested patronage. The Craggs are all that they have befin made out to be. Their combination acrobatic feats are mostly new in design and all quite fresh in the manner of their execution, that is to say in regard to quickness and sureness. Individually, also, the members of this clever family do surprising feats, as, for instance, the rapid high somersaulting. Five or six come in from the side on a run and somersault across the stage so fast as to bewilder the eye. They seem to spin over and over without, touching the floor, and in the somersaults they apparently keep erect, the impression being that so many sticks are whirling across. We have never before seen any work of the kind so smartly performed. A word is also due to the ventriloquist, Mr Keilderson, who works his figures very well and excels himself in the “blue-tailed fly” and other imitations. The same programme is to be repeated this evening.