ENTERTAINMENTS.

Taranaki Herald, Volume LXIII, Issue 144669, 1 May 1915, Page 4

ENTERTAINMENTS.

THE “COURT CARDS.” ,

Four years of excellent experience with the'Scarlet Troubadours convinced Edgar Warwick and Sydney Mannering of the possibilities lying in wait for a first-class musical comedy company ambitious enough to undertake a complete tour of the British Empire. Just over two vears ago, with the pick of English artistes to select from, they formed tho “Court Cards,” thus naming them from the elaborate costumes of playing cards adopted for introducing tho performers to” their audiences. India was the first place visited with this company, and in a few weeks tiio fame of the “Court Cards” was on tho lips of every Englishman from Calcutta to the remotest Ijill stations on the great frontier. Tho people of tho East are quick to recognise real talent, and so much did they appreciate the excellence of the “Court Cards” that a tour estimated to last six months took two years to complete, and extended right to Japan. There arc probably few if any of the sixty thousand British officers and men from India now at the front in Europe Who have, not relished the highly-diverting entertainments that the “Cards,” by the high ability of each member and the excellence of all their concerted work, wore able to produce on such a scale of perfection as had never previously been experienced. In Shanghai, the biggest European centre of tho Ear East, tho three weeks' season of the “Court Cards” broke all records in tho way of theatre takings for that city. *

Now tho “Cards” are on tho second stage of their world-encircling tour, and New Zealand is greeting them ns enthusiastically as more tropical countries did. In all the centres critics have,declared this latest company tho finest seen in Australasia. Their eomediefinc, Maude Eane, is being raved about, the humour of Edwar Warwick and George Titchcner has the charm of brightness, freshness and originality, yocally, through, tho efforts of Sydney, Manncring, Renee Maude, Albert Keats and George Graystdnc, their work is on a plane far above that of their predecessors, while Miss Mitchell provides talented novelty with her instrumental work.

Locally, as elsewhere, tho “Court Cards” are sure to boom, and there is certain to be an extraordinai-y demand for scats for the opening performance on Monday, May 10.