MR ALEXANDER WATSON

Waikato Times, Volume 94, Issue 14767, 5 October 1921, Page 6

MR ALEXANDER WATSON

A GIFTED ENTERTAINER Mr Alexander 7 " Walson musl have been gratified nf. Ihe size of Ihe audience in the Town Hall. Hamilton, lasl night. The >l>uilding was crowded. For two hours the eminent KnglHi elocutionist, single-handed and with no since accessories, held his hearers enlhrdiing and fully justified his billing as "'he incomparable Watson." Mis entertainment was not. merely a profeat of memorising and an oxnibitio'i of perfeci elocution, though it was striking enough in those respects; hut he went, further, and gave a series of vivid word-picture in which each character, clear-cut and distinct, actually lived. Mr Walson opened with a littleknown sketch by Sir J. M. Barrio, "A Hobday in Bed." the delightful humour of which, with its many human touches, pleased the audience greatly. By special request Id' then veiled, "The Guards Came Through," a thrilling episode of the late war. Kipling was represented hy "The Ball,id or Hie Bchvar." "The Bell Buoy," "The Glory of the Garden." "Mandalay." and "Oonts" —all rendered perfectly. In two dramatic excerpts from Dickens' ■works —"The Flight of Little ivm'ly." from "David Copperfield," and "Nicholas Thrashes Squeers," from "Nicholas Nickleby" —Mr Watson differentiated the characters with striding realism. A thoroughly interesting and entertaining programme was brought to a close with Mark Twain's "Punch, Brothers, Punch," which the entertainer with truth described a? a "nightmare," and the audience left the h;!i with the haunting jingle firmly fixe,! jn its mind. Hajnillon would like to hear Mr Watson again.