CHEVALIER DISAPPOINTED.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 21264, 19 February 1931, Page 12

CHEVALIER DISAPPOINTED.

The songs which Maurice Chevalier, the £4OOO-a-week French screen and stage star, sang at the Albert Hall, London, have been considered unsuitable by the Chief Constable of Cardiff for a Sunday evening Welsh audience which was to have heard him at the Capital Theatre,, CarThe concert was accordingly cancelled. Permission for the function was only granted by the Watch Committee on condition that Chevalier submitted the songs he proposed to sing for the Chief Constable’s approval. The information that the latter did not approve the programme was conveyed in a formal letter to the artist’s manager. The only song to which the Chief Constable made particular reference was “ Sweeping the Clouds Away, but'he did not suggest that this was the only song objected to (says the Daily Mail). , , . , Chevalier, who spent the week-end at his villa at Cannes, was unaware for some time of the Cardiff decision. He had arranged to sing there only because he had received so many letters asking him to devote one day to Wales , Speaking on his behalf, Mr Clinord Whitley, Chevalier’s London director, said; —“ Sunday, January 4, was the only date available, and as he sails for the United States on the following Tuesday I am afraid that Wales will not be able to hear him. “Every one of’his songs has been sung in music halls and theatres all oyer the country, and they are being sold in their thousands on gramophone records. ’ The Chief Constable of Bristol, Mr. C. G. Maby, also asked for copies of the songs which Maurice Chevalier proposeu to sing at a concert at the Colston Hail, Bristol, on January 3. If he objected to any of them he would submit them to the Watch Committee. The Cardiff City Council unanimously endorsed the action of their Chief Constable in objecting to, the French songs Chevalier was to sing at a concert there cn Sunday, January 4. . ' ' The Chief Constable did not object to the English songs, which included “ Sweeping the Clouds Away.” . , t Maurice Chevalier smiled his famous smile when, he discussed Cardiff’s objection to his songs. . “ i S ee,” he declared with a chuckm, “they had to have one song translated before they could understand it in Cardiff. Surely a song they cannot understand would not harm the Welsh people.