COMEDIAN’S STORIES

Greymouth Evening Star, 16 January 1928, Page 10

COMEDIAN’S STORIES

OF S. AFRICAN TOUR. The famous London comedian, George Robey, recently toured South Africa. Here are some impressions related by Hannen Swaffer. in the “Sunday Express.” It seemed only a few days before that George Robey had gone to Africa. He asked Lord Dewar and myself to meet him at lunch with his son the rising young barrister, as they call them, and his daughter, who, for the moment, has forsaken portrait painting to v go in for commercial art. I had been at the farewell. This was the reunion. “Commercial art is where the money is,” said Robey. He should know. “His three months’ tour in Africa broke all the records. He tries to keep his profits a secret even from himself.”

Lord Dewar was recalling his first visit there 43 years ago, when he was a, young whisky salesman; with no idea of the great wealth he would accumulate. “It’s a fine ’day,” said young Dewar, when’ he arrived in Capetown. “Only congenial idiots talk about the weather here,” was the reproof he got. ' “It’s always fine in Africa.” Robey had reproofs of other kinds one, for instance, when he was going to a civic reception in Johannesburg and he found himself confronting a guard of honour, which he was supposed to inspect! His first instinct was to make one of his famous funny faces. The glaring look he encountered on an official’s face made him try to appear dignified as the Prince ( of Wales - . “Fancy me being dignified,” said George. “Yet I had to go through with it.” • \ On another occasion when 5000 Zulus, were drawn up to make him their chief, he was so overcome at seeing an army of assegais and war shields that he gave another of his famous looks. “Be careful,” shouted a friend. “If you excite them, they’ll start charg- . ing, and then we shall both get killed.” At Kimberley, Robey made the great mistake of his life. They gave him a wonderful- suite of rooms in the best hotel, and he found, to his surprice, that, at every meal time, numerous bottle of champagne were put on the table and everything that was expensive was spread out.

Very tremblingly at the encl of his stay he asked for the bill. “There isn’t one, sir,” was the reply. “You are the guest of De Beers.” “Heavens, if only I’d known,” said Robey, “I would have eaten diamonds. By the way, one man gave me two unregistered stones. I did not know, but by handling them I was liable to seven years.” Robey’s famous look might have brought about a catastrophe at Port Elizabeth where he visited the home of a man called Fitzsimmons, who cures snake-bite, and who has in his grounds hundreds of poisonous snakes, puff adders, cobras, and fearsome reptiles that make you bleed to death Inside if they bite you. The native in charge o£ them was holding up half a dozen to show Robey when again came the famous look. The native was so staggered that he dropped the snakes, and might have been.bitten to death, except that the snake' doctor had cured him 14 times already! It seemed, however, that Robey’s musical conductor had the worst time at this snakery. While the black man was holding up snakes of every deadly kind, Robey waited his opportunity and then prodded his musician suddenly in the leg with his walking-stick. ’ “The poor fellow thought he had been bitten,” said Robey. “He nearly gave one of my looks.” At Durban Robey nearly found a wife against his will. In a public market he saw a Kaffir woman and her good-looking daughter. “Tell the girl that I’ll buy her some beads,” said Robey to a native interpreter. “She have no sweetheart,” replied the native. “Give her father 10 cows and she yours.”

“I protested, and said I did not want her,” said Robey, ‘‘but they looked so serious that I though the gift of beads was perhaps a form of betrothal ceremony. For all I know, the girl would leave all her relations, put my belongings on the top of her head, and follow me to the end of the earth. When we left by train I looked round to see whether they had not brought her to the station. I wasn’t so much afraid of her as her father’s assegai.” George is not quite sure of which tribe he is now the chief. The battleaxe and knobkerrie that they gave him arrived as a. present for the Savage Club.