SHOWS IN SYDNEY.

Waikato Times, Volume 108, Issue 18159, 25 October 1930, Page 17 (Supplement)

SHOWS IN SYDNEY.

“THIS THING CALLED LOVE,” A BRIGHT LITTLE COMEDY. In scene 1 of “ This Thing! Called Love,” the new comedy which succeeded “ Bird in Hand ” at the Criterion Theatre, we enter straight into married life, says a Sydney paper.

Standing aloof and studying coldly the results of a love-match five years after the wedding is the sister-in-law, Anne- She has sized up Harry and Florence Bertrand and decided that what is the matter with marriage is too much love. When the bailiff goes into her tearoom-she is still happy because, while she has a bailiff, she has no husband.

So when the Peruvian millionaire arrives and proposes marriage to her she declines, and then consents to a business arrangement. She will be a hostess to him and give him comfort in his house, but there is to be no love.

Of course, such an arrangement is bound to discover a flaw. One may fall in love, or both. If one, then the arrangement must crash; if both, then the abrogation of the compact does not matter much, as it leads to happiness. This being a comedy, the final result may be foreseen by the acute playgoer. The characters of the cast spoke their lines well, bringing out the humour of the situations naturally arising from this business-marriage contract. Mary MacGregor realised the part of Anne, its hardness ■ touched later into emotion. Campbell Conelin Rept the character of the husband on the humorous plane. Good work was done by Harvey Adams and Dulcie Cherry as the cat-and-dog husband and wife of the first scene, and Frank Bradley made a capital butlerIvy Parker was the semi-foreign "vamp,” Roger Barry the homewrecker foiled by a spirit he could not recognise, and John Fernside and Agnes Doyle were a suffering husband and a talkative and foolish wife with a C 3 intellect and the manners of a child of seven. , It is a bright little comedy with witty dialogue, and, taken all round, capitally done. Success of “ Sons o’ Guns.” “ Sons o’ Guns,” the new musical comedy with a war flavour, promises to settle down into a long run. Gus Bluett has one of the best parts of his career, and Elsie Prince, Bertha Riccardo, Cecil Kelleway, Leo. Franklyn and others help in the funmaking. “ Sunny Skies ” is to he the new revue at the Tivoli Theatre, where Hugh D. Mclntosh is drawing huge crowds at cheap prices. The two previous revues, “ Pot Luck ” and “Happy Days,” crowded the theatre nightly-