VOICE FROM THE GODS

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 76, Issue 105, 6 May 1933, Page 18 (Supplement)

VOICE FROM THE GODS

HUMOUR IN THE THEATRE PLAYERS AND AUDIENCES The voice of the gallery is not so active in the theatre to-day as it was at one time, but it has been responsible for some classic laughs, especially in heavy melodrama. When a version of “Alonte Cristo” was produced at the Adelphi—says Mr. John Aye, in a collection of amusing stage stories entitled “Humour in the Theatre,” —the play dragged badly. At last the curtain rose on a darkened bedroom in which an old man sat beside a bed with a lighted candle. ‘‘l say, mister,” shouted one of the gods in the ominous silence, “we’re not keeping you up, are we?” Arthur Roberts was once persuaded to take part in a romantic play with Florence St. John, and came on in, the likeness of the starving poet, Chatterton. The audience, however, preferred

Arthur Roberts the comedian. “Chuck it, Arthur, old sport,” came a voice from the gallery, “and put a bit of red on your nose, me lad.”

A rapt audience watched with bated breath the plight of the heroine. Deserted by her lover, cast off by her family, dogged by the villain, she was at her last extremity. “I must indeed end it all; but where can I buy poi-