“NIGHTS OF JOY”

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 838, 5 December 1929, Page 16

“NIGHTS OF JOY”

FUN AT ST. JAMES

The new show at St. James Theatre, featuring Jim Gerald in “Nights of Joy,” provides some of the tunniest stage hits seen here for some time. In “Nights of Joy,” Jim Gerald has a great deal of the comedy work to perform, and last evening he set the ball rolling with a few alcoholic gyrations after the reunion dinner of the old regiment, and later brought tears of laughter as the silly youth who simply will not be tempted into bad ways. His pet hobby was coirecting birds’ eggs, but when Linda Fov, the little lady with the wicked eye, began to vamp, him, things began ~to move more speedily than she imagined. Perhaps the cleverest turn was the duelling scene, in which some particularly amusing situations develop—but nobody gets seriously hurt. “Nights of Joy” includes some of the best dancing and vocal numbers which the well-known members of the Gerald Company have yet performed. Mercia Elliott gave a little of “It Takes a Good Woman to Do That,” with appropriate settings, Lily Coburn sang of sure-fire vamps in “Flamin’ Mamie,” Linda Foy took a pleasant turn in a picturesque Romany scene as the finale to the first half of the programme, and Essie Jennings appeared here and there in a nicely selected vocal part. As a rollicking maid of the sea she gave a breezy whiff of the ozone. Letty Craydon, as usual, produced something bright and led the Twinklers in an appropriate ballet. The men, too, did their parts with great credit. Howard Hall, as the Count at the garden fete, and Reg Hawthorne, in some popular song and burlesque, were prominently billed.

Clever dancing and vivacious ballet work add to the general tone of this Gerald change programme.