JUMPED TO FAME.

Waipawa Mail, Volume XLIX, Issue 43, 21 December 1927, Page 1

JUMPED TO FAME.

MISS ISOBEL WILFORD’S TRIUMPH. LONDON, October 25. Our little Dominion has been quite in the limelight this week. At the moment of writing- its capacity to produce worthy exponents of the dramatic art is much in the public eye. Miss Marie Ney goes to Egypt as leading lady of a Shakespearian season at Cairo, and in a night—last night—Miss Isobel Wilford jumped into fame and the front rank in “The Garden of Eden” at the Lyric Theatre.

Miss Wilford, of course, is not unused to playing lead, for during her four years’ work with J. C. Williamson’s companies, that was her part, but since coining here, into this new, highly competitive centre, she has had to make her way. - She has been understudy to Olga Lindo, to Ruth Terry, and in “ The Garden of Eden ’ has been playing a small part and understudying Miss Tallulah Bankhead. Miss Bankhead’s illness while on a week-end in Paris was Miss Wilford’s opportunity, to which she rose so splendidly last night. She was cheered vociferously at the end of the first and second acts, and then she retired to her dressingroom to change for the third. The audience just refused to allow the orchestra to begin, and called and called again for Miss Wilford, to such an extent that the stage manager wondered what was going to happen. By the time Miss Wilford had changed, the call was so insistent that she went before the curtain again to satisfy the cheering audience. And there they kept her until at last in a moment of breathlessness the orchestra managed to make itself heard, and after playing for two instead of the scheduled five minutes the curtain was rung up on the third act. Miss Wilford is, to-day, radiantly happy. She confesses to, having felt frightfully nervous last night, for the applause after the first act made her so scared she felt she might not be able to carry on as well as she had been doing. But she went on from strength to strength, and the young New’ Zealander lias added one more to the list of those who have conquered London in a night. Her friends both here and in New Zealand will look eagerly for her further progress in this, one of the most difficult, centres of the world.