DRA MATIC AND MUSICAL

Free Lance, Volume XIX, Issue 1029, 17 March 1920, Page 22

DRA MATIC AND MUSICAL

By Footlights

ONE of Wellington's leading amateurs, Mr / W. Crawford, is being tendered a complimentary "farewell concert in the Town Hall next Tuesday evening; Mr Crawford is leaving xor Australia to try his luck, on tne professional stage over there. The. programme that is being prepared is an unusually strong and attractive one. This speaks well for the popularity of the main performer. Amongst those taking part are Messrs Stan Lawson, Oliver Perkins, . Laslett Exton and Tana F'ama (of "The Diggers")? Misses Helen Gard'ner, Teresa McEnroe, Daisy . McLennan, Mr's Dallas and Mesrs Hamilton Hodges, Albert Russell, Rupert Meates, Eraser Thompson, Verdi McKenzie, Martin Duff, Culford Bell. ■ Messrs Norman Aitken, Paul Latham and Co. will stage " Cockney Camouflage" (written by Mr Harcus Plimmer). The Caledonian Society's _t\pe Band and the Savage Club's Or-chestra-will also assist. ; p - * * "The Digger Pierrots" leave for Sydney shortly to play an Australian tour under J. C. Williamson, Ltd. It is not, often a complete New Zealand company secures such an engagement as tnis and the progress of their tour will be watched from this side with interest. Mr Bert Royle, the New Zealand representative for J. C. Williamson Ltd., was much impressed with the really first-dlass entertainment presented by these " Digger Pierrots," and no doubt he was largely responsible in Securing for "them this engagement. - *- * -x- * Barry Lupino, who plays the Dame in the J. and N. Tait, Bailey and Grant production of " Mother Hubbard," at the King's Theatre, Melbourne, likes Australia so,much that he never wants to leave it again. •* * '* ' " Kissing Time," now running at Theatre Royal, Melbourne, has been described as the best-dressed musical play ever staged in Australia. -Leslie Jtlolland plays the hero's role, viz., a French soldier returned from the war with a fierce bunch of whiskers on .his face which do not, however, deter his young and pretty godmother from kissing' him. Certainly, he ultimately shaves them off when he gets into fashionable raiment, and discards his muddy uniform of the trenches, but even to go one act with whiskers is a stage novelty in these days. It is boasted that there are twelve different kinds of kisses in " Kissing Time." * ■» * * J. C. Williamson Ltd. have secured the, Australian rights of "Bay Bunting," the musical play in which Dor-' othy Brunton has made an enormous success in London, and in a command performance of which ' she appeared before the King and Queen. " Baby Bunting" is one of r the outstanding musical successes in London.'

There are at present about a thousand "show girls" employed on the Australian stage. But the supply is by no means exhausted. The Melbourne Tivoli advertised for twenty additional beauties the other day for the chorus. The rush of applicants quite overwhelmed the management. * * ■* * Mrs Brough-Bell, well known to New Zealand theatregoers, states that she has returned to Australia for . good. .London she describes as» "a place where one is fighting for everything— for food, clothes, and all else. ' Everything there is in a state of congestion, and even to get afternoon tea in a restaurant or tea rendezvous one stood m a queue." '