THE REIGN OF VAUDEVILLE.

New Zealand Illustrated Sporting & Dramatic Review, Issue 1262, 25 June 1914, Page 34

THE REIGN OF VAUDEVILLE.

Two performances a day have been inaugurated at the Sydney National Theatre under the Brennan-Fuller management. “It will come here in time, too,” said Mr. D’Arcey Perry, manager of the Auckland Opera House, to a “Review” representative. “Nothing surer! Look at the picture shows. It isn’t so long ago since they would have been pooh-poohed in the daytime. And for a good reason. There were none to go to! The same must hold good with vaudeville. Our Saturday matinees have established themselves soundly; so firmly, in fact, that we have decided to hold them on Wednesdays as well. It’s an experiment, but I feel confident it’s worth while. With good, clean, wholesome programmes at reduced prices, we hope to supply a public want.”

“No roast beef for me,” says Barry Lupino, who plays Ali Baba in “The Forty Thieves,” plaintively, “the gravy never matches my vest.” And a little later he talks scorn of an acquaintance so mean that he will not even spend Christmas Day. “Mr. Lupino,” says the Sydney “Sunday Sun,” “is so quaint a humorist that by himself he would give success to a pantomime of ordinary merit. But in ‘The Forty Thieves,’ the coming J. C. Williamson pantomime, he is a mirth maker of extraordinary merit. It is easily the best that has been staged in Australia for many years, and possesses features that will be talked about long after other shows have come and gone,”