LONDON DRAMATIC LETTER.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 5700, 20 October 1896, Page 2

LONDON DRAMATIC LETTER.

[CORRESPONDENT " CANTERBURY TIMES.'H* LONDON, Sept. 4. ~

Mr E,. G Knowles, one of the very cleverest, wittiest and most amusing artists on the Music Hall stag© iB suffering from a throat affection and has been ordered a long sea voyage to Australia. He and his wife leave this month, probably by' the Cape route. Mr Knowles iB a Canadian by birth, an American by adoption, an Englishman by choice. He was born in 1858 and as a youth entered a commercial house in New York. Mr Knowles describes in characteristic fashion how he forsook the .paths of commerce. "I followed commerce, ill-health followed me and as I did not fancy being a member of such an unlimited liability company I gave up commerce and took to comedy." Success came to Mr Knowles slowly.* But in due time it arrived. Then he was seized by an irresistible impulse to conquer England. " Napoleon, you know, wanted to do • the same thing, but then he couldn't sing a comic song." Mr Knowles can, so he came, sang and conquered. It yet remains to be seen whether tho American comedian will accept the offers made to him by Antipodean caterers aud appear at Melbourne and Sydney. Mr Garner is most anxious to secure him for the new Sydney theatre.

Mr Musgrove has, very wisely, I think, given up the idea of building a /theatre of his own in London. Before very long he will, unless appearances are deceptive, be able to take his choice of three, if not four West End houses.

"Mi "Dot"Bbucicauitis also said to be looking around for a theatre. He appears to have but a poor opinion of London managers, and thinks that a smart man from the colonies might put them up to a thing or two, 1 . •

■ ■ ■ ■ The London manager on this side underrates Australian successes. Mr John Colenian actually suggested to Miss Hilda Spong that it -might be wise -to change her surname for a smart pseudonym as though her colonial career mattered not at all. The lady uncompromisingly rejected the . proposition, pointing ; out that though her name might as yet be unknown to English, f playgoers it'would attract the Anglo-Colo-nial community and Australian tourists, ! besides being familiar to many at this side - who had known her father. . |If Madame Melba sings the part of t Brunnhilde in Wagner's " Siegfried ." next . season, as she proposes to do, she will also sing the part of the vocal bird in the forest r scene. Certainly there is no other living singer who could sing that small, but im- \ portant part with the same wonderful . means that she will bring to it. I Mi Harry Atkinson, the "Australian r Orpheus/ has been engaged to support , Albert Chevalier on his American tour, and , sailed for Now York -.yesterday; - The groundwork of "Boys Together," originally formed the basis of a short story which Haddon Chambers sent to the English Illustrated Magazine when ho first arrived froni Australia, twelve years ago. . Coinyns Carr, who then edited the periodi- . cal in question, refused the tale, but ■ gilded the .pill 'with, a note remarking that , it would work up into a good melodrama. Chambers recently bethought himself of . this, and asked Mr Carr if his riper judgment confirmed the earlier dictum, to collaborate with him for the Adolphi. Mr Carr assented, and "Boys Together" iB the outcome. Lionel Monckton is writing Up the libretto of Lecocq's "Le Petite Mariee " '. for ■WilHainigon. and Mlißgro've, wlio mean rtOTun it through the colonies. '