AUSTRALIAN HAPPENINGS.

New Zealand Illustrated Sporting & Dramatic Review, 10 November 1910, Page 18

AUSTRALIAN HAPPENINGS.

(From Our Melbourne and Sydney Correspondents.)

With somewhere about £lOO.OOO in stakes already to her credit, the gallant little filly, who gives the name to the big sporting drama at Her Majesty’s Theatre, Melbourne, is still adding to the sum of her winnings, and ere the popular attraction is withdrawn, the total will be still further increased. Of course the holiday makers during the Racing Carnival have availed themselves of the opportunity to see the piece with its many sensational features and excellent scenes of which they have heard so much, and the big theatre has been a scene of extra animation and excitement during the past week. The management, however, fully realising- the work that will be entailed in transferring the production from Melbourne to Sydney, where it is to be the Xmas attraction, have decided to withdraw it for the last few nights of the season, and replace it with a big revival of “The Harbour Lights” which is always a very popular production.

There are no less than three films of “The Squatter’s Daughter” Pictures being shown in Australia at the present time; at the Athenaeum Hall, Melbourne, the new Olympia Theatre, Sydney, and in Queensland. The picture is to be shown in New Zealand in a few weeks’ time.

In speaking the other day of the many and various places she had visited during her vacations from her arduous work as one of London’s leading comediennes, Miss Marie Illington remarked that she had never been to Paris. Always some other city or Continent seemed to call her and always she had missed the gay French capital.

An actor of the wide experience of Mr. Ambrose Manning naturally has a fund of humorous happenings to relate in connection with his theatrical career, and his last story concerns a “stock” Company which he remembers and which had a decidedly novel way of entertaining its patrons. The manager did not trouble about securing any manuscript for the production, he pinned his faith on to a bundle of old printing and a couple of ancient swords. Every Monday morning he would gather his Company together and spread out before their gaze a series of startling looking

pictures, and from these pictorials they had (according to their imaginative and histrionic powers) to make up a good, bad or indifferent part for themselves. Naturally under such circumstances it not infrequently happened that the dialogue did not run as smoothly as it might have done, but whenever any one of the actors found himself in trifling difficulties like these, he just rushed for one of the swords and fell upon one of his brother artists with a fierce onslaught and “brought down the house*”

The New Comic \»pera Company opened their Melbourne season with “A Knight For a Day” last Saturday evening (October 29) and the irresponsible laughter producing medley proved a veritable holiday attraction. Miss Toby Claude with her piquant methods and her eccentric style of dress, sprang at once into high favour and Mr. Bert Gilbert and the other laughter makers and talented artists in the Company met with the warmest of receptions.

Mr. Bert Gilbert is out of humour with himself just now, and the trouble is that he was overruled by caution and did not take advantage of the Bullfinch boom while in West Australia. Some friends tried to persuade him to do so but he declined, and now he is sorry he did not avail himself of their advice.

A really fine, up-to-date re-produc-tion of VThe 'Harbour Lights” is promised for the last few nights of “The Whip” Company's stay in Melbourne. The well known nautical drama has always been a favourite from the time it was first produced out here, and on this occasion it will have the advantage of a really splendid cast, and will be mounted and dressed in such a way as to bring it right up to the high standard set by the big Drury Lane sporting drama. The various members of the company are specially fitted for the respective parts for which they have been cast.

William Anderson’s Dramatic Company concluded a successful season at Newcastle this week and shifted on to Toowoomba and Brisbane. At the conclusion of the season in Queensland’s capital the company returns to Melbourne and plays a month’s season, during which a new drama will be produced. The company will include Miss Harrie Ireland, Miss Florence Ritcher, Messrs. Conway Wingfield, Frank Gerald, C. R. Stanford, Harry Sweeney, and Walter Dalgleish.

Most decidedly from a theatrical point of view, people are not always what they seem. A striking instance of this fact will be given in “Salvation. Nell,” the new Katherine Grey production |at the Sydney Theatre Royal, by Mr William Desmond, who is to play the part of a miserable drunkard and cigarette smoker. In reality, Mr D’esmond is neither addicted to the one habit nor the other. In America he is known as a prominent athlete, being a fine baseball player, a long distance runner, and the holder of the amateur championship for wrestling for New York State.

William Anderson’s No. 2 Dramatic Company, now touring, opened at Brisbane with “The Chance of a Lifetime,” on Saturday last. After a three weeks’ season the company returns to Melbourne and opens at the King’s Theatre.

Mr Seymour Middleton, of “Our Miss Gibbs” Company, in Sydney, has won laurels for himself lately as the composer of a waltz, entitled “Orvieto.” The well-known Sydney firm, Paling’s, have published it, and its popularity is proved by the rapid manner in which the copies are selling, some thousands having been disposed of already.

The ladies who visit “Our Miss Gibbs,” in Sydney, are deeply interested in the display of fashionable models which make the Garrod’s Store scene so attractive. These goods and models are supplied by Messrs. Lassetter and Co., of Sydney, and are changed by them every evening, so that the same array of goods is never seen twice. This, of course, is a splendid advertisement for the enterprising firm, as well as keeping up a constant vein of interest among the feminine patrons of the dainty musical play.

Some of the pictures depicting certain localities in New York, which will be shown in “Salvation Nell,” are from actual photographs taken in the slum portions of that big city. The play, of course, deals largely with the good work done by the Salvation Army. Miss Grey portrays the character of a girl who has been reformed by the Army, and some of the finest situations are derived from the efforts of “Nell” to win over her lover from his erring ways, a task which she eventually succeeds in carrying through successfully.

On Saturday last William Anderson presented for the first time in Melbourne the famous and picturesque Australian picture drama, “The Squatter’s Daughter.” This pictorial version of the celebrated play is achieving enormous success throughout Victoria, New South Wales, and Queensland, and the Melbourne public (remembering with pleasure the drama Itself) has eagerly awaited its representation. The picture was acted by the leading members of William Anderson’s Dramatic Organisation, and it should be exceedingly interesting for those popular artistes to see themselves as others see them. The film is 5,000 feet in length, and is undoubtedly the finest piece of cinematography Australia has yet produced. It was executed by the expert cinematographers, Messrs Johnson and Gibson; whilst the direction and stage management were in Messrs Bert Bailey and Edmund Duggan’s capable hands. Before the picture was taken many months were spent in touring Australia in quest of suitable settings for the play, and, as the Picture shows, the operator was fortunate enough to secure some magnificently picturesque and representative Australian scenes. All the exciting scenes are pictured: Waratah Station, Ben Hall’s Camp, Jenolan Caves, the Shearing Shed, Waterfall Gully, the great Chasm, etc., etc.

Not only is Mr. Bert Gilbert a good comedian and a first grade photographer, but he is also a crack amateur billiard player. In a match in Adelaide recently for a handsome trophy presented by the New Comic Opera Company in which he met Mr. Claude Solomon, late amateur champion of South Africa, several fine breaks were negotiated, 128, the best, being a compilation of clever all round the table play.

Miss Toby Claude —“Tilly Day” in the highly entertaining musical farce “A Knight For A Day” is a supreme believer in luck. It is a sine qua non that she must have her dressing room embellished and draped in pink, her lucky colour, with flowers, hangings, and nick-nacks to match. Even on one night stands in America, this delectable little lady insisted upon the preponderance of the fortunate tint. The only time she remembers departing from this rule, in San Francisco, the earthquake came.

Some of the characters in “Salvation Nell” are not too particular in the choice of language, as might be

imagined from people frequenting the slums of a big city. One of them, a particularly rough and uncouth individual, was the means of causing a newcomer to the Company to take a hasty departure, when to her amazement at the first rehearsal he told her to “Git to h 1 out of this.”

Melbourne was the rendezvous of no less than three big J. C. Williamson Companies last week, the New Comic Opera Company from Adelaide, the Pantomime Company from New Zealand and “The Whip” Company stationed at Her Majesty’s Theatre.

Members of the theatrical profession will learn with pleasure that the Clarendon Hotel, now under the proprietorship of Mr. Tom Henshaw, has been thoroughly renovated and equipped for their accommodation. The Clarendon has ever been known as a favourite hostelry amongst the companies which visit New Zealand, and Mr. Henshaw extends a hearty welcome to his theatrical patrons.