ENTERTAINMENTS.

Hawera & Normanby Star, Volume LXXII, Issue LXXII, 13 February 1917, Page 7

ENTERTAINMENTS.

THE WORLD'S

A decidedly attractive programme, which met with, that measure of cordialty it well deserved, was showiTat the World's last night. The big dramatic picture of the evening was the Bluebird production, "Bobbie of the Baiiet," a story delightfully told of theatrical life behind the scenes. Ie was a splendid film, comprising many exciting and pathetic incidents. Tlie seventh episode in the serial drama, "The Broken Coin," was unfolded, and interest in the production was.again maintained. The supporting films included a very fine scenic, showing many of the beamdes of the European alps, two_firtsL-rate comedies, and a Topical War Gazette. The. programme will be repeated to-night.

OPERA HOUSE.

FOX FEATURE, TO-MORROW NIGHT.

To-morrow night the management of the Opera House will present the second Fox production in Hawera, entitled "Blue Blood and Red." The second star will be the Triangle feature, "The Step-ping-Stone." It was designed by Thos. H. Ince to give Mr Frank Keenan, an opportunity to display his remarkable powers. The character is in reality wholly that of a villain of the deepest dye, and if the heroine really considered him the noble creature she told her husband he was. all .that can be said is that she fully deserved the ultimate fate of becoming his wife. The plot, in a few words, is that a''financial giant finds in her a woman in a million. He takes the husband up with a view to elevating her position in society, but the weakling is wholly incapable of appreciating the method by which his fortune is secured and, thinking all is due to his own astuteness, eventually decides that another woman would suit his purpose better. The "hero" (in reality a villain) sees how the game will go, and plays his trump card. The wife leaves her husband unencumbered, but the magnate destroys the man, who commits suicide. Events are so worked out that 12 months later the magnate once more meets ths woman, and a marriage ensues. A strong programme has been se. lected to support the big feature.

"THE SENTIMENTAL BLOKE."

Mr Lawrence Campbell, the accomplished elocutionist, gave the people or Hawera a treat of a very high order Rist n:-ght, when he recited, very humanlyand with fine dramatic insight, the prin_ cipal portions of Mr C. J. Dennis's "Songs of a Sentimental Bloke." Anyone who 3-eproduces and interprets such an admirably true human document as Mr Dennis's singularly fine popin, as admirably and appealingly as Mr Campbell did last night, makes all who hear him his debtors, lor by means, of his insight and talent he brings them into more intimate relations with the author's work than casual reading is ever likely to do. This is especially so in the case of poetry so original and racy, so peculiarly personal in its delineation of character, in its description of what is humorous in incidental actions or situations, and in the expression of feeling, as the work of Mr Dennis, who also, in a sense, further handicaps the average reader by his use of a dialect or slang, natural to his characters, but also next of kin to a foreign language to" many of his readers. But this difficulty or drawback disappears in the recital of a dramatic interpreter like Mr Lawrence Campbell, who therefore, lasfc night, made many of the people of Hawera acquainted for the first time with one of the most humanly interesting, most humanising poems ever written. All who were thus bencnrerl will ever be grateful to Mr Campbell for enabling them to enter fully into the beauty of Mr Dennis's work, and realising how liberally Nature has endowed the no.et with genius. W e hope that Mr "Campbell may come a<jvtin to Ka-.vera, especially if he fojiips as ilio interpreter of such rare ''rhyming wfiu/' ns that of I\U- C. J. D^.ini.s, or anything approaching it, in ■imo^ or vorr, ?-nr its interest and c::-el!; i!co as n human document.