DUNEDIN.

New Zealand Illustrated Sporting & Dramatic Review, Issue 1289, 7 January 1915, Page 37

DUNEDIN.

(From our Dunedin Correspondent.'

There is more than the usual theatrical fare this festive season, and the temptations for dissipation are very real. Drama at His Majesty’s, vaudeville at the Princess, music classical and popular at the Burns Hall, and pictures everywhere serve to remove depression and keep the multitude in a cheerful mood. All the houses of entertainment report good business and a bright outlook for the New Year.

At His Majesty’s, Willoughby’s Dramatic Company has given us “The Ever Open Door” and “Under Two Flags”—the latter billed as a great war drama on the strength of the hero having gone out to Algiers and joined the Chasseurs D’Afrique, which is a regiment now fighting Wilhelm 11. somewhere in Belgium. It is wonderful what this war has been responsible for! The last night of the Willoughby season is announced, when “Camille,” the weepful drama, will be staged. Mr. Charles Knight, who was last in these parts with “The Rosary”

Company, is back again this time with Willoughby’s Dramatic Company. Mr. Knight will go ahead of the show, and left th.s week for Christchurch, where the company is due to open a seven nights’ season on Saturday, January 9th.

Mr. Victor Beck, the well-known touring manager, passed through Dunedin this week, after having organised the Southern tour of the Florence Young Comedy Company, which company, by the way, commences a Dunedin season at His Majesty’s on January 4. Thg season is a brief one of three nights only. Don’t be astonished when you hear the prices: 55., 3s. and Is. Sounds like a Williamson show, does it not? A private wire from Auckland conveys the intelligence that the Gilbert and Sullivan Opera Company made a great ‘it with “The Gondoliers” on Boxing Night. But to say that it is the finest performance of the favourite opera ever given is too sweeping altogether. In any event we are looking forward to hearing the Gilbert and Sullivan Company in Dunedin, but whether that wish will be gratified I am at a loss to say. Dunedin is still being banned by J. C. Williamson. Perhaps it will be released in favour of the Opera Company. A wire from the West Coast conveys the pleasing intelligence that Stephenson and Linley’s Pantomime Company, which did only fair business in Dunedin, opened promisingly at Greymouth on Boxing Night. Barton’s Circus, which has been touring the Southland districts, passed

through the city on Wednesday, en route for North Otago. This compact little show has been doing good business.