ENGLISH COMEDIAN

Taranaki Daily News, 4 June 1929, Page 9

ENGLISH COMEDIAN

FROM £lO TO £2OO A WEEK. One morning about four years ago an audition was given for artists who were wanted for a little London pierrot show (says a London writer). The comedian’s job was a £lO a week one, and it went to a thin little young man —he would have been about thirty then —with a pale face and somehow a touch of pathos about him even when ho laughed. That little man was Mr. Bobby Howes, now musical comedy’s newest popular comedian, with, it is said, a salary of £2OO a week, or some such agreeable sura.. It . has been a quick rise, but it was clear that it would happen. For Bobby Howes has not only technical skill at his work, he has the agility of a cat with his feet in dancing, a natural flo l • of humour, and originality; but he has that priceless gift in a comedian —sympathy. He can make you feel sorry for him if he wants you to; underneath his fooling and his nonsense there are tears. He belongs to the real clowns of tho stage, although his fun docs not come out of a string of sausages, a bladder, or a red-hot poker. It is a master quality in a comedian. Dan Leno had it, and so had that fine farceur James Welch. Among living comedians the greatest example of it is seen in Mr. Charles Chaplin. Another great comedian, Mr. Seymour Hicks, possesses it and expresses it. Mr. Howes is entirely a post-war star. He may have been on the stage before he became a soldier, but if so it was in a very obscure way. Nobody had ever heard of him. Even four years ago, when he got that £lO a week job, people thought his name was “Hawes.” And wherf he .first began to attract notice and to be in demand he was half terrified le.t it was all dreams—drcams that were not really going to come true. Moro than once he has said in that half-hopeful, half-fearful way of his, “It’s wonderful! But do you think —?” Bobby Howes is like that. He has loved getting on and making his name, but he has not let success make a fool of him. He is still the eager, young, spirited, grateful, immensely likeable little man that he was before people began to couple his name with that of Leslie Henson as one of the two best comedians in English musical comedy.