ENTERTAINMENTS.

Waikato Times, Volume 111, Issue 18623, 29 April 1932, Page 9

ENTERTAINMENTS.

TO-NIGHT’S PROGRAMMES. THEATRE ROYAL. “Misbehaving Ladies’’ is a most amusing comedy, and keeps the audience chuckling. The scenes are laic in an American small town and in tin mediaeval vastness of an Italian castle Ellen, niece of Aunt Kate and Uncle Jc Boyd, and sweetheart of Phil, £ dreamy, impractical youth who is the butt of village jokes, goes abroad, and after several years marries ai: Italian prince. Ellen’s prince dies, and she sends word that she is coming back to the old home town. Excitement runs high. Aunt Kate is in her glory. Preparations are made on a grand scale for the reception of the great lady. When Ellen, simply dressed and subdued, arrives she is taken for a seamstress and put to work sewing for the royal guest. Ellen meets her old lover, who keeps her secret, and the’ natives are duly impressed when she dons her regal regalia and appears at Aunt Kate’s reception, to be eulogised by the Mayor and to meet all the prominent people of the little town. How things finally get adjusted makes a very good entertainment. CIVIC THEATRE. For sheer buffoonery and robust knock-about farce few English comedies have surpassed “Splinters In the Navy,” the naval burlesciue to begin a season at the Civic Theatre to-day. From the opening scene there is no halt In the pace of this riotously funny film. Sydney Howard, the forlorn comedian of the original “Splinters” and lan Hay’s “Tilly of Bloomsbury/’’ with his escapades and elephantine antics in the boxing ring, is the mainstay of the production, but then every other member of the famous war-time concert party is a comedian of infinite resource. There is the burly Alt’. Goddard, who makes an admirable foil for the defiant timidity of the leading character, in the part of a vindictive pugilist regarded with nervous terror by the remainder of the battleship’s personnel. Fred. Bentley (who was in New Zealand as principal comedian in the stage version of “Rose Marie”), Lew Lake, Hal Jones, and Reg. Stone, and the inimitable “beauty ballet,” are others w’ho add to the gaiety. But it is undoubtedly Sydney Howard who dominates the humour from first to last. He is extremely amusing and uses his extraordinary hands with the most hilarious results. There have been uproariously funny boxing bouts in films before, but few can compare with that in which Mr Howard, as the helpless Joe Crabbs, meets the naval champion (Mr Goddard).

STRAND THEATRE. “Rebound,” now being screened at the Strand Theatre, Is in every way a polished production. Ina Claire, whose every inflection of voice, every word, every gesture counts, contributes a magnificent performance as Sara, “a heroine who is as real as she is unheroic." She is admirably supported by Robert Williams, and the pair give as fine and delicate a piece of acting as the screen has seen for a very long time. “Rebound” is from first, to last a battle of wits and repartee, in which words are used to cover feelings rather than to express them. Mr Griffith is extraordinarily clever in his handling of the subtleties of interplay between genuinely sophisticated people, and in Ina Claire he has a star whose gracious femininity and sparkling Intelligence are exactly suited to the role A critic says: “Not only is Miss Clf.ire supremely delightful, but the film itself is one so delicately balanced, so trenchant in its treatment of the story, and so poised in its sophistication that it is entertainment that will appeal to all, and particularly to those who admire Intelligence and polish, situations that would generally be trite are given a dramatic significance through the wit of the dialogue and the resource of the direction.”

ROXY THEATRE. “East of Borneo," filmed partly In the picturesque jungles of Sumatra and the Malay Peninsula, is in no, sense a travelogue, but a dramatic story filled with suspense and exciting action. The film tells the story of an American doctor who has literally burled himself in this wild region, where he, the only white man in the entire countryside, is the personal physician of an Oriental rajah who rules his people from a ruined castle. Into this desolate spot comes the divorced wife of the doctor. It is when her late husband spurns her and the rajah casts covetous eyes on tire beautiful white woman that the drama reaches its climax.

OPERETTA "SHERWOOD’S QUEEN." Members of the St. Andrew’s Girls’ Club have excelled themselves in ihe production of “Sherwood’s Queen,” an operetta, to be staged in the St. Andrew’s Ilall to-morrow evening. The. work gives ample scope for clever acting anil melodious singing, and if rehearsals arc any criterion the entertainment will lie an outstanding success. The chorus work is particularly good, while the. solos and group items ■ire admirably presented. Xo pains have been spared in the making of appropriate costumes and scenery.