THE LORGNETTE

Observer, Volume XXXIX, Issue 43, 28 June 1919, Page 6

THE LORGNETTE

(By Pbompteb.3

AT Fuller's Opera House the glittering array of talent continues to extort the merry "Ha Ha" from the contented crowd. The two Campbells, with their two concertinas, have appeared, and are adepts with the instrument that can either be made as painful as a boil on the back of the neck or as sweet as honey. In this case the honey has it. The Campbells, likewise, have instruments of a hybrid variety— string and wind combined. They make soft music with the hybrid. Sa Hera, the mind-reading lady, has re-appeared, and is just as astonishing in her arithmetical and other answers as she was on a former occasion. She maintains a perfect accuracy in all her divinations, and the air is thick with mystery- Again we are honoured with a return visit of the illustrious De Car, the comic waiter. As a laugh merchant, he is skilled and welcome. His sartorial display gives the extra <cachinnation. Nellie Kolle is doing a song by Lew James and Al Bigwood, "Because I Long for You," and Nellie does the longing in quite a touching fashion. It is quite a good song, and ought to be popular. Miss Kolle also sings a soldier song about getting back home, and how nice it is, and this also goes big. Fred Bluett, the ever-popular, has a trio of new songs and a quartette of encores, and it is hard for him to get off and refresh himself. The public give the thoroughbred, draught horse work. "The Bottom Button" produced the merry shriek. Brull and Hemsley do a bright sketch, "A Chemist's Shop in Ireland," and do it well. Victor, the legerdemain artist; Ward Lear, the comic gentleman; and the equally welcome Emerson and Hasto, are all getting the welcome they earn so well.

"A Wife By Proxy" is the fascinating feature of the Queen's Theatre picture programme this week, and Mabel Taliaferio, one of the most vivid movie actresses, is in the lead. Under a will the testator devises a fortune to his heir only if the- heir marries at. once. Hence the endeavour of the heir to fulfil the conditions of the will by a proxy wedding, a form of marriage legalised by scenario artists. Miss Taliaferio, as a sweet Irish girl, is remarkably good. She saves the sainted hero from being ensnared by the wicked woman, and (of course) snares him herself. Sally Chute and Robert Walker are in the excellent cast. There is a two-act comedy and a fine Pathe news film.

Hornung's vivid crime yarn defying the burgling scoundrel "Raffles" is having even more success than "Stingaree," which also went big. The picture play is to be seen at the Strand Theatre, and the real satirical humour that Hornung brings out in the book is to be found also in the picture. Nothing in the nature of a thief story has ever been done quite so well as "Raffles," and although Raffles is a polished it is impossible to regard him as anything but a clever, humorous, cool, and well educated person stealing things for fun in the same way that the virtuous "Stingaree" did it. As a lesson to incipient burglars who bungle along breaking tijls and that sort of common stuff, the play is an inspiration in the higher branches of an art that is greatly neglected in New Zealand. . The social perfections of Raffles are adequately shown in this

splendid production, and. how a mar may burgle himself into matrimonj with a peer's daughter is set oul with great skill. If you can burgh with delicacy, refinement, and aplomb the ladies will admire yon and the detectives adore you.

"Society for Sale" is a quaint thing, and is seen at the Princess Theatre. A girl aches for society, and buys her way into it with the aid of an aristocrat without any money but an "entree." He haughtily permits her to give it out that they are engaged, don't you know, but ultimately they fall in love with each other. The Hon. Bertie is frightfully annoyed when an old peer pays attention to his girl, and there, is a great deal of vinegar about for a while. But after some time it is discovered that the old peer is the poor girl's pa, who lost her or something when she was young, and didn't know where to find her. The poor old chap'is chopped up in a motor accident ; and Bertie and the girl get married, and Bertie becomes a peer, and is married to a peer's daughter, and all is well. There's a good comedy, too.

At the National Theatre there is a picture, "A Parisian Romance," in which the kind of life believed by American scenario writers to be common to France is shown- A baron chap is remarkably fond of the ladies, and he pours his wealth out on the usual dancer. ' Scenario writers always choose dancers as a symbol of diabolism. The baron man ultimately marries a nice society girl who isn't a dancer, but keeps up his intrigue for she of the twinkling toes. The queer baron bird even has the temerity to toast the health of his wife at a banquet he gives to the dancing people, and while doing it Time nips him off per apoplexy, and he dies in Al fashion. Dorothy Green and Cooper Cliffe play leads. An even better picture is "Blue-Eyed Mary," with nice June Caprice as Mary.

Mr James Glover, who recently fulfilled his twenty-hfth engagement as musical director of the Drury Lane pantomime (with twenty-two of the years, consecutive), recalls that in that period he has composed "480 bits of waltzes, 180 short ballets or divertissements, 100 marches, 'slows and hurries/ 40 patriotic songs, and over 3,000 bits of 'agits'. (agitato passages), and "pathetics.' " He considers that popular songs of the music-hall order should have a leading place in pantomime music, as catchy tunes are preferred by the majority of those in the audience, both children and adults.

The theatrical managers of Australia are having a harassing time through the epidemic- Not only are the theatres of Sydney closed up, but they do not know from week to week when other cities will decide to close down on all indoor entertainments. Fortunately for them, Melbourne has not been so rigid in its restrictions, and in most cases the theatres have not suffered a great deal. For instance, the Tait Company, headed by Mass Bmilie Polini, was doing capacity business in "The Eyes of Youth" at the King's until the theatre had to be vacated to accommodate the Scots comedian, Sir Harry Lauder, and his new vaudeville company. This necessitated a change for the comedy company to Adelaide, where the new play was received with the same enthusiasm as in Melbourne.