THE GHOST WALK

Otago Witness, Issue 2663, 29 March 1905, Page 61

THE GHOST WALK

The Valdares, cyclists, are at present on the Keith circuit in America.

The Musgrove Dramatic Co. commences a Christchurch season on April 7.

Harry Rickards sends another variety company to New Zealand next month.

"Williamson's Tittell Brune Co. have been doing splendid business in Perth. A letter at thi* office for Mr Fred Foley (Zamoni). Please forward address. Mr Harry Diver, the well-known actor, has Opened a school of acting in Sydney. Miss Sara Hyman, of the Royal Comics, has departed for England and matrimony. Irene Franklin and Bellman and Moore are on the Oipheum circuit m America.

Harry Jewett has lately been appearing at the Knickerbocker Theatre, New York.

Miss Marie Lloyd, who lias been seriously ill for some months, is now convalescent.

Pollard's Liliputians, after a season at Manila, proceed to Vancouver, 8.C., via Hongkong.

The Timarn Amateur Operatic Society produced "La Mascotte" with great success last week.

Reported that Walter Melville, the melo--drama writer, has gone on the music-hall stage~in London. Estimated that the expenses connected with tittle Tich's appearance in Australia amount to £200 per week.

Ardo, the Human Frog, opened with Fuller's Entertainers at Dunedin Alhambra on Saturday evening.

The theatres of Hobart and Launceston are Still closed, and are likely to be so until the Lenten season is over.

Little Tich, out from England for Harry Eickards, is paid from the day he left England to the day he returns. Miss Eugenic Duggan is ambitious to play Camille, and the drama is now in preparation at the Theatre Royal, Melbourne.

Actor-musician Van Biene is reported to have refused £2000 for the 'cello upon which lie plays in "The Broken Melody."

"The Orchid," in which comedian Percy figures, as an excitable Frenchman, is blossoming to splendid business in Sydney.

Mrs Patrick Campbell, has left the hospital at Philadelphia, having quite recovered from the effects of the recent accident to her knee.

While in New Zealand Miss Nellie Stewart and the dramatic company will rehearse "Dorothy Vernon" for their next Australian season.

Henry Lee, the "Great Men" impersonator, who was partner in the "World's Entertainers' Company, has taken a company to Cuba and Mexico.

Mr W. F. Hawtrey will shortly make his appearance at Rickards's Opera House, Melbourne, in short sketches, assisted by Miss iWinifred Austin

Miss Lena Burleigh, of "The Broken Melody" Company, wears a curious ornament on her corsage.* This is .a, live chameleon, brought by the actress from South Africa.

Mr James J. Corbett, the famous pugilist, is (says an exchange) about to play Hamlet in America. He expresses the intention of bringing the part thoroughly up to date.

3£. Jan Kubelik, "the famous violinist, will €ive 30 concerts in Australia and New Zealand. The tour begins at Melbourne in September. M. Kubelik' is tffider 25 years of age.

Miss Frances Ross, of Mr Holt's Co., is still confined to her room, and it is doubtful whether she will be able to appear during the remainder of the Sydney season.

Bland Holfs Co. is producing that sensational melodrama, "Woman and Wine," at Sydney KoyaL The dancing Bicknells, favourably known here, are wi£h the combination. At the latter end of January, as the results of the strikes and revolutionary movements in St. Petersburg, only one theatre, the Mariinski, remained open out of the 12 houses in the city.

Maurice Farkoa, the handsome Frenchman -who was out in Australia with George Edwardes's Gaiety Company, has married DeKa Mason, one of the most popular lnemLers of the company.

Mr George Mathe3on, of Mr J. C. Williamaon's staff, arrived in Wellington by the Waikare from Sydney, to act as advance representative for the Opera Company now engaged on the Gilbert and Sullivan revival.

A Sydney paper says that Little Ti«h receives a salary of £120 per week from Mr Bickards. The same authority adds that the vaudeville entrepreneur contemplates importing George Robey at a salary of £100.

The Martin Sisters, duettists and dancers ; Stirling and Stewart, English sketch artists ; and Jean de Lacey, the last-named billed as the "great American baritone vocalist," have been added to Bain's Entertainers at Hobart.

Principal actresses in comic opera receive from £40 to £60 a -week. But a clever lady who can sing and dance and act is generally wiser in essaying the music halls. Her remuneration there, in case of success, is proportionately greater. It is said that after playing Sydney Mr Geo. Stephenson's Musical Comedy Company will gr to North Queensland, en route for the East, opening in Calcutta early in December. Miss May Beatty and Mr Edward Lauri will probably go on from there to London.

The Johannesburg correspondent of the Otago Daily Times, writing on February 13, stated that Miss Gertie Campion was progressing so well towards convalescence that if she improved as she had been doing she would take ship, with her sister (Miss Kittie), for her home in Melbourne this month.

A music-hall impersonator was one time doing Nat G-oodwin a good deal. A friend of the actor's was in raptures over the impersonation, and continually worried Goodwin to hear him. Goodwin went. His friend met him next day. "Well, what do yo think of it?" "Well," answered Goodwin, "one of us is pretty rotten." A small New Zealand paper gravely announces, says Melbourne Dramatic News, that Delwyn and Tye, "serious-comics," have been engaged by the Messrs Fuller: — Of pathos and humour a blend, Delwyn and Tye can't offend, For one-half of them's laughter, And sadness comes after, Grave humour they have without end.

Mrs Brown-Potter, who is busily rehearsing "Madame Dv Barry" at the London Savoy Theatre, has (according to an exchange) secured as an item in the Louis XV mounting of the play a genuine seventeenth century harpsichord. Mrs Potter has lived at Versailles, and resided for a number of years in France, 60. she is well acquainted with the mise-en-ecene of the Dv Barry's career.

Little Tich is complete master of the situation on the boards at Sydney Tivoli. If he Xrere to respond to all the recalls which greet his efforts, it is probable his turn would mean an all-night performance. The Figaros and Mr Millis, the ventriloquist, still retain their popularity; indeed, the company as a ■whole is rated as "first-class variety."

A hundred pounds a week and upwards is frequently paid in the provinces at the music hallo and in pantomime. Performers who have

always received "three figures" are Miss Vesta Tilley, Miss Marie Lloyd, and Messrs R. G. Knowles, Little Tick, George Robey, and Eugene Stratton. The last-named once refused a pantomime engagement at £150 because he had promised to go home to America to see his mother.

The marriage has been arranged, says an exchange, and will shortly take place, between Miss Noni Rickards, eldest daughter of Mr and Mrs Harry Rickards, of Sydney, and Mr Edward Maas, youngest son of Mr E. J. Maas, formerly of Great Yarmouth, Norfolk, England, and late of the Penins\ila and Oriental Steam Navigation Company. The acquaintance between the young couple is said to have started during a trip which Mr Rickards, accompanied by his family, was making to England.

Another old identity of the theatrical stage in London passed away last month in the person of Mr George A. Cooke, who was for so long a member of the firm of Maskelyne and Cooke. Mr Cooke, who was 83 years of age," joined Mr Maskelyne in 1865, when the firm gave its entertainment at Cheltenham, and he afterwards took an active part in the managing and directing of the Egyptian Hall show, where he also played in most of the humorous and semi-scientific sketches.

The death is announced of Miss Sophie Burlette (Mrs "W. Bryant), who passed away at Windsor, on Friday, the 27th ult. The deceased artiste, when in her teens, was one of the Oxford Four, principal dancers in the ballets produced there by Mr Paul Valentine in the eighties, and was one of Mrs Conquest's pupils, her contemporaries being Kate Vaughan and Alice Dunning, better known in the theatres as Miss Lingard, the original representative of Sister Mary in the play of that name, and also of Pauline March, in "Called Back," produced at the Prince's Theatre, May 20, 1884. Later in her career Miss Burlette became associated with principal parts in sketches produced at the halls by the late Mr Ambrose Maynard. That tuneful comic opera La Fille dv Tambour Major," which is to be produced at the New Royal Theatre on the Bth prox , says Melbourne Dramatic News, will have a very capable cast of performers to interpret it. In the name part, Miss Jeasie Ramsay, a prinia donna new to Australia, is said to be in the very first flight of operatic vocalists, and she will he supported by Signor Achille Rebottaro as Capitaine Robert, Mr George Majeroni as the Due de Delia Volta, Mr A. M'Nicol Turner as the Marquis Bambini, Mr Con Burrows in his old character of Monthabor, the Tambour Major ; Miss Maud Thornton, favourably known from her connection with Messrs Williamson's and Musgrove's companies as G-riolet, the drummer, and Miss Ettie Carlisle, a well-known English soubrette, who will make her first appearance in Melbourne as Claudine the vivandiere. Old Ab6 Johnson was one of the most phlegmatic and stolid of men. It was said of him by his admiring wife that "uothink never flus-trated him— fire, floods, and famine never budge him an irTch." On one occasion, however, a conjurer visited the village and performed startling tricks. Presently he asked one of the audience to step up on the platform, and, Mrs J. giving her husband an aggressive nuage, he rose and went forward. The man took yards and yards of ribbon out of Abes pockets, handherchief s from his ears, and eggs irom his boots, and Abe looked on with solemn, indifferent mien. At last the conjurer, nettled by the old man's calmness, extracted three rabbite and a hen out oi the yokel's beard. There was a loud burst of applause, and for a moment it seemed as if Abe was about to forfeit the reputation of a lifetime and show surprise. Then he stroked his baard caressingly, and remarked, Well, dye know, I've somehow suspected they was there this two months!"