PLAYS AND PLAYERS.

Waikato Times, Volume 115, Issue 19272, 2 June 1934, Page 16 (Supplement)

PLAYS AND PLAYERS.

COWIINQ EVENTS. May 30 to June 2— Waikato Winter •Show Competitions. June 11.—Hugo Larsen (Poulshnoff. pianist, and Harold Stevens, baritone). June 15 to 18—Tom Katz Jazz Band. Clem Dawo In Auckland. •Clem Dawe and his revue company opened another New Zealand tour at •Auckland on Wednesday night with ■‘‘Strike Up the Band.” An Auckland paper says:—Comedy, naturally, is the essence of revue entertainment, and with Mr. Dawe at the head of affairs fun never flags. The popular Clem is as successful as ever, and he is aided by perhaps the strongest company that has ever been associated with him in Auckland. A ■large audiOnce greeted old favourites and new artists vyjth enthusiasm, and the band, struck up so successfully, •should continue to play for a long season. There are brightness and speed 'throughout the production, and the applause which greeted Mr. Eric Edgley’s curtain speech showed that the popularity of well-staged revue is far from waning. Jom Katz Band for Hamilton.

Tom Katz and His Saxophone Band, « sextet of master musicians, syncopate their way through a programme •surprising in its. novelty and nality, 9nd with blackened faces, their smart bell-boy uniforms, their music and gay routine offer an act seldom ‘surpassed in this country, says a Wellington paper. . . The band will appear at the Theatre •Royal, Hamilton, shortly.

yvilllamson Musical Comedy Company : The Williamson Musical Comedy •Company that was in New Zealand earlier in the year, headed by Romola Hansen and Herbert Browne, Is touring the northern part of New Sduth 'Wales, after a long season at Newcastle. A tour of Queensland will be undertaken shortly. Miss Hansen was recently indisposed with an attack of influenza.

6tage Booming In Australia. V. Clem Dawe, the well-known comedian, interviewed at Auckland on his arrival from Sydney, said that all classes of entertainment from revue to drama were booming in Australia. " With big plays like' ‘ The Dubarry,’ * white Horse Inn,’ ‘ Fresh Fields,’ and the Intensely dramatic ‘Ten-Minute Alibi’ booked for showing in. New Zealand after the best seasons enjoyed " on the stage in Australia for. three years, the situation cannot help but go ahead,” he remarked. “ New Zealanders have become more educated, perhaps with the aid of the übiquitous cinema, to appreciate subtlety at its true worth. The old system of experimenting with shows is ended, and only established successes will .be offered to the public in the future.

“Ten Minutes Albll” In Sydney. For most of the time (says Sydney Sun) the quickness of the author’s hand deceives the eye in “Ten Min-utes-Alibi” at the Criterion. It is a most exciting and ingenious play. In the “thriller” tradition, it is a tale of a murder, but, unlike many,, it preserves the dramatic tension. Twice the audience sees the murder, and eaoh time' catches and'holds Its breath. On the first occasion it is committed In a dream induced by a fugged cigarette; on the second it is translated, with certain modifications, into faot. The alibi turns on a rearrangement of the hands of a dock by which the Wiurderer steals an all-important ten minutes. The author contrives expertly to avoid an anti-climax, and, still departing from the beaten track of thrillers, makes the love interest the cause of the crime and not merely an irrelevant and not infreqently irritating side issue. The heroine’s is a tenuous part, of ■which there is not much to be said, but Thelma Scott succeeded in making her innocence seem interesting. George Thlrhvell, in his first Australian appearance, revealed himself a very competent a’ctor, of rare restraint, who brought nervous strength to Colin Derwent, just as ’Arundel Nixon brought the right kind of effrontery to the scoundrelly Phillip Sevilla. Frank Bradley and Bussell Chapman were delightfully' human and surprisingly shrewd detectives. Annette Kellerman for Paris. Miss Annette Kellerman, at one time a champion diver, who for nine months has been living on the Great Barrier Reef, making a scries of motion pictures, and has been spending a little time in Sydney before leaving for abroad, gave a farewell party last week at the Hotel Australia. She sailed by the Mongolia, and will go first to Paris, where the pictures will be completed in several 'languages.

Joso Collins Still Popular.

Topping the bill at the Victoria ’Palace (says a London paper) is Jose 'Collins, "that famous musical comedy star" who sings old and new numbers. If one may judge by the applause, Miss Collins still retains the warm affections of audiences, who arc not satisfied until she has given her wellknown number from " The Maid of the Mountains." Miss Collins look the title role in the live years’ run of “ Maid of the Mountains” during the war period. Cloanor Shows Wanted. »q’]ic day of Ihe nude ballet girl and the style of comedy to which a man would'not lake Ids tlancee is deJlniioly finished, even before it really started in New Zealand.” said Clem Dawe. Ihe well-known comedian, on arrival in Auckland lids week. “Sydney has witnessed die ‘undressed ballet'’ for a while, but Ihe trend there Is for honest sentiment and romance, bright, music, and cheery entertainment, or else first-class drama.