Pollards Opera Company.

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume XXXXVII, Issue 11740, 18 September 1902, Page 7

Pollards Opera Company.

"THE MESSENGER BOY."—TONIGHT. "The Messenger Boy" will be introduced to our notice for the first time this, evening, and it is safe to predict that long before the curtain rises standing room, only will be the order, as the fame of the 'Boy' has long reached us, and numbers are anxious to make his acquaintance and account for his marvellous, success elsewhere. There must be something good in a musical .comedy that can run for 16, performances in Wellington to excellent business, for on a population basis it would be equal to something like 1100 nights in London. The music of "The Messenger Boy," which is by Ivan Caryll and Lionel Monckton, is of a bright and .catchy nature throughout, and full of swing, and the concerted pieces are admirable. The lyrics are clever; but what makes the comedy go is that it is genuinely funny and full of comic dialogue and situations of hilarious absurdity ali framed in the most appropriate o fsettings. There are no less than 17 distinct characters in "The Messenger^ Boy." Although the characters of Tommy Bang (Mr W. S. Percy), Mrs Bang (Miss Alice Edgar), Captain Pott (Mr H. Quealy), Rosa (Miss Gertie Campion), and Nora (Miss. Connie Buttel), stand out more prominently than the others, :'c is as much the evennessi and excellent "nanner in which the less important pai' ; hlo filled that accounts for the success of the "Boy." everything going with a swir™ from tho rise to the fall of the curtain. "Patience, or Bunthorne's Bride," a comic opera by u-'bert and Sullivan, will be staged tomorrow evening, and should prove a strong source of attraction. The Gondoliers will, bo produced on Saturday the season concluding on Monday with "The French Maid," with Miss Gertie Campion as Suzette, a part peculiarly suitable to this bright and clever young actress; while Miss Alice Edgar is cast for Lady Hawser.