Amusements.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 1032, 11 December 1891, Page 14

Amusements.

The Theatre.' Mr aud Mrs Vivian, well known in the Colony as theatrical caterers for tho public amusement, are now in Wellington endeavouring to arrauge for a dramatic season in Wellington at Christmastide. Their company is at present in Auckland, awaiting the result of Mr Vivian’s negotiation. Hugo’s Buffalo Minstrels concluded their season on Saturday evening at tho Theatre Royal, when a benefit was tendered *0 Mias Priscilla Verne. There was a good attendance, and a capital programme was presented. Miss Verne, in the course of the evening, addressed a few words of thanks to the audience for their attendance, adding that she regretted having to say farewell to her friends, as she would be leaving for Australia on Thursday. THEATRICAL NOTES. Grattan Riggs has been doing good business in the Manawatu district, and is now moving on towards Napier. Laurie Dunbar, late of the Baby Ogden combination, lias joined the company. Mr MacMahon passed through Wellington the other day on his way io Auckland, where he hopes to meet his company to open in that city on Boxing night with ‘ Evangeline,’ to be followed by ‘ The Corsair.’ The latter production is well staged and well mounted, and the harem j scene is very lively. The company will be here early in the new year. Horace Chester, the Maccabean artist, has been doing lately ilie smaller towns in the Taranaki district. Jack Foley and his compact little company have found Irish Diamonds a profittable trade in the upper parts of the Wellington province. . The Dobson-Kennedy Company were , last week in Nelson, for a season of six nights. They then go down the West Coast, opening in Reefton for Christmas, and Greymouth on New Year’s Day. The Auckland critics give great kudos to Bland Holt and his clever company for their splendid productions, but somehow the public do not respond in sympathy. On his two previous trips Bland Holt found that the northern city was his worst show town. He again proves the truth of this on his present visit. The weather was not unfavourable, there were no other attractions of pressing merit, and yet the dress circle night after night was not crowded. Yet here in Wellington the company could have played another fortnight to crowded houses, upstairs and down. Possibly the warm, enervating climate of Auckland makes people fight shy of crowded theatres, and yet at a church bun-worry they roll up in crowds. The drama is discounted in Auckland. H. M. Stanley averaged T 250 a night at his lectures in Melbourne, and but very little less in Sydney. It will be a Land of the Golden Fleece to him. By the same token, the energetic much travelled will have a good handful of wool out of the self-same golden fleece. Stanley not only drew large crowds, but he got oceans of applause, and his lecture upon how he founded the Congo State touched the business part of the crowd, while his vivid word painting of the horror of that dreary journey for months through the dense tropical forest fetched tears of sympathy for the intrepid traveller. Mrs Frances Hodgson Burnett, who created the charming Little Lord Fauntleroy, has produced a comedy which first saw the light in the ancient city of Worcester, on October 12th. The piece is styled ‘ The Showman’s Daughter,’ and contains a great deal of vigorous characterisation, and is well constructed, while the theme, though not novel, is treated with a natural freshness and delicacy that have a charm of their own. Lord Tennyson’s play, to which I referred a short time back, is on the subject of Robin Hood and his Merry Men, introducing a fairy element, giving scope for very elaborate mounting. The title at present given is ‘ Maid Marian,’ and this part, which is a very prominent one, will be, of course, entrusted to Miss Ada Rehan. .. An unluckly performance was recently given at the Globe Theatre, London, which caused more amusement than was intended, and must have ended in some mortification to the ‘ vaulting ambition both of the authors and performers. The play was a melodrama of the most serious description, called ‘The Wings of the Storm,’ and written by R. J. Barlow and W. North; but so ridiculous were the situations, so weak and extravagant the dialogue, and so absurd the efforts of the performers, that the largest part of the audience was in fits of laughter from beginning to end. A more entire fiasco has probably never been witnessed m a theatre ; but, on the other hand, seldom have the critics left the house in a better humour, for they bad mostly been holding their sides all the evening, and an entertainment which they had feared might prove deadly dull had enlivened them by its undesigned absurdities more than many a performance specially arranged to be fU To y kiss Ellen Terry belongs the secret of perpetual youth. She is a widow with a son and daughter taller than herself. But her children still call her ‘ mamma, and the nearer you get to her the younger I she looks. She is still the most fascimt-

ting woman in London. He manners are exquisitely soft and gentle. She seems as though she could not say a harsh or an unkind thing. Always working, never tired, always in society, the brightest, merriest woman in the room. There are those who say that she bears a very strong resemblance to the heroine in William Black’s novel, ‘ Macleod of Dare.’ She is one of the few women in the world on whom sorrows seem to leave no impress. Some couple of years ago one Kennedy, a mesmerist, did immense business in Melbourne and Sydney. For over twelve months he drew crowds nightly at the Royal Aquarium, London, and since then has travelled the provinces literally coining money. A recent police case in the city of Bath, throws a light upon the tricks of professional mesmerists. One Charles Cooper, aged thirty-five, formerly connected with Mr Kennedy, the mesmerist, was charged with stealing a Gladstone bag, an overcoat, a piccolo, a signet ring, and other articles, the property of Edward Elliott West. The prosecutor, a seaman on the eve of leaving for Monte Video, said he became acquainted with the prisoner in Bristol about two months ago. Cooper was connected with Mr Kennedy, and when he went to Bath witness accompanied him. After some discussion at the bar of a public house one day witness fell asleep. When he awoke Cooper had disappeared, and with him his (West’s) Gladstone bag. Subsequently he met the prisoner on the station platform, where he admitted having taken the articles, but said he was so drunk that he did not know what he had done with them. Witness asked for his assistance to recover the things, but prisoner made for a London train which was just going out, instead of waiting for the Southampton train by which he and the other ‘ subjects ’ were to travel. In reply to the clerk, West alleged that prisoner was one of the ‘subjects’ dotted about the audience to be called up on the platform. He himself had never been a regular ‘ subject.’ He had once mounted the platform for a lark ; a fellow said to him, * You come up on the stage and do just as I do, and it will be all right.’ He received pay for this, but he didn’t care to drink castor oil and paraffin for 15s per week, and therefore did not continue it. Prisoner, who pleaded not guilty, was remanded for a week.

Very interesting are the reminiscences of the late Mr E. L. Blanchard, _ the dramatist. I gave last week one item which referred to this colony. Another sad story is that of his ‘ hai’d up ’ days. In his early days ‘ E.L.B.’ had to resort to many shifts to earn a few shillings. On one occasion he ventured to remonstrate with a newspaper proprietor tip the smallness of his salary. ‘ I don’t dispute it, sir,’ was the reply. ‘ You send me a great deal of copy for 15s a week. It is small pay, but so regular 1’ In the early ‘ forties ’—Blanchard was born in 1820 — he was induced by a small printer and publisher in Holywell street, named Bostock, to write him a novel. The venture was not unduly lucrative. ‘On a certain Saturday Bostock entered the room in which the author was hard at work, and with a rueful expression of countenance, said, “ I’m going to take a great liberty, but could you lend me a little money ? I only want a pound. My paper merchant wants something on account, and until I pay a trifle he won’t send me the ghost of a quire.” The historian of Barnwell’s perfidious doings informed Mr Bostock that he was “ stumped.” “ Have mercy on me, Mr Blanchard I You don’t know the straits of mercantile men. You’re at work in your shirt-sleeves, let me have your coat and waistcoat to raise a few shillings on them. Sparks will soon close his warehouse, and if I don’t work tomorrow we can’t get the novel out next week, and I have no paper at all. Your things could bo taken out a little after six, as my boy, Ezekiel, is going to bring home some money.” The author took off his waistcoat, and then Bostock hastily remarked, “ I am ashamed to moke such a request, as you are so kind and affable, but could I beg your boots, too 1 With an illustrated Bible upstairs and your things I can easily get the sovereign.” “ Have you a pair of slippers ?” “ No, but there’s an old rug in the next room. Can’t you rest your feet on that ? I’ll have everything out at the time I’ve named.” “Well don’t spoil the ship for a ha’porth of tar,” laughingly exclamed the author. “ Mind, boots, waistcoat, and coat by a quarter past six, as I have to get up to the Yorkshire Stingo to hear Bob Glindon and Kitty Tunsfall sing.” . . . The hours rolled on, but no Bostock appeared, and the end of the matter was that Blanchard had to pass the hot night in the printer’s stuffy little office.’ Although he was invariably ‘ hard up ’ in those days, Blanchard was never backward in acts of hospitality and charity. Occasionally his generosity was allowed to be its own reward. ‘ E.L.B. used to tell with great gusto a story of an American, to whom he acted the hospitable cicerone throughout one day, engaging a cab to drive about in and show him as much of London as could be seen in the time, lunching and refreshing him entirely at E.L.B.’s expense. The American had to return to Southampton that night, and so they had to cross Waterloo Bridge, which was not then free, E.L.B. put his hand in his pocket for the toll, when the American stopped him, saying, “No, sir, allow me; you have been bearing the costa all day, it|s my turn now,” and magnanimously paid the penny.’ Imber.