DRAMATIC GOSSIP.

Lyttelton Times, Volume LXXV, Issue 9446, 22 June 1891, Page 6

DRAMATIC GOSSIP.

Barry Sullivan, whose death was lately announced by cable, lingered for months on milk and lime water. A contemporary states that there are rumours in London of a coolness between Ellen Terry and Henry Irving. The plush curtain of the London Lyceum was presented to Henry Irving by the Baroness Burdett-Coutts, and cost one thousand guineas. Baruum's will covers one hundred pages of legal foolscap. He left J 81,000,000, of which his wife receives i!22,000 absolutely, and .£BOO a year. The rest goes in bequests to various institutions. Referring to Richard, Savage, the play by J. M. Barrie and H. M. Watson, the London correspondent of the Melbourne “ Argus ” writesAs to its merits critics are somewhat divided, but the general opinion was that there was “no money in it.*’ Our London correspondent, writing under date April 24, sends us the following items:— Miss Genevieve Ward, who has gone in for teaching, will introduce a promising pupil, “ Miss E. Burney,” at a special matinde performance of Serge Famine at the Avenue Theatre on May 7. Olivia was revived at the Lyceum on Wednesday evening, with Irving, Terries, and Miss Terry in their familiar parts. I like the first-named as the Yicarof Wakefield, it is certainly one of his happiest roles. Miss Terry was once an ideal Olivia, and even now she looks wonderfully young, but girlish characters are getting a little beyond her. The Corsican Brothers is in preparation. Our Daughters, by Willie Edouin and T. G. Warren, which was tried at a matinee last Wednesday week, has been put into the evening bill at the Strand Theatre. There is nothing new either in the main idea of the piece or its details. In order to disgust a finicking young man whom her tyrannical “Pa” wants her to marry, the heroine dances, smokes, swears and sings music-hall songs. This part was specially written in order that Alice Atherton, who has been ill for a year, might display her undiaainished versatility. Miss Atherton has grown fat (it is a way actresses “resting” have), but she still possesses surprising energy and agility. Her «swear words ” and music-hall songs are admirably realistic! Here ace a few items about old friends. The Hubert O’Gradys have been doing big business in the north, with Famine, Eviction, Emigration and The Fenian, Mr O’Grady advertises that in a tour of twenty-four weeks these pieces drew houses to the tone of .£10,968.

Grade Warner is playing the heroine of The English Bose, with Gatti’s Adelphi Company, in Manchester. Poor Mrs Bandmann-Palmer has organised a legitimate company of her own, which performs Mary Stuart, The School for Scandal, &c., in the smaller theatres of such towns as Northampton, Leicester, &c. Mr and Mrs Walter Bentley are touring Scotland with Lured to Ruin, a successful melodrama that has been on the road since August last. Clarence Holt announces the twelfth year of his New Babylon, tour, and Horace Lingard is still doing well in the Provinces with Falka and The Old Guard. He announces, however, that he has secured the English rights of Messager’s Fauvette, now approaching its two hundredth night at the Poliea Dramatiques.