AMUSEMENTS.

Gisborne Times, Volume XXVII, Issue 2652, 6 November 1909, Page 3 (Supplement)

AMUSEMENTS.

HIS MAJESTY’S.

LOCAL FIXTURES.

Patlie Pictures.—Nightly. To-niglit.’—Hugh Ward Comedy Company. Nov. 15, 16, 17.—Pollard’s Juvenile Opera Company. Sarah Bernhardt is writing a play. Justirr iHuntly AlcCarthy has written a Dante and Beatrice play for Mr H. B. Irving. The title is “The God of Love.” Mr Dion Titheradge, son of Mr G. S. Titheradge, was married on Saturday, October 16, to Miss Margaret Bolton, who arrived from England the previous day. The latter comes of an old Northumberland family.

Mr Crosby, a Boston, U.S.A., critic, describing the attire of Miss Kitty Gordon, the London musical comedy prima donna, says it is voluminous where it touches the ground, and scant and filmy near her thorax and spinal column. “And,” he adds slyly, “while thus attired, we shall always be glad to see her back.”

The latest production of the company in which Air George Titheradge, Air Thomas Kingston, and Alisses Dorothy Grimston and Ethel Warwick are the bright particular stars is a successful military melodrama “The Cheat.” The small part of Airs Yaustant is taken by an erstwhile Aucklander, Aliss Aland" Wingfield.

The. sequel to the “Squaw Alan,” hitherto known as “In the Blood,” is undergoing the usual changes cl title, and is now referred to as “These Art Aly People.” The first act will-show the young half breed peer on his English estates; the others will represent him back in the tepees of his forefathers.

Airs Langtry is writing a novel. It is to be called “All at Sea,” and will tell about a pretty woman and her husband who agree to live apart during an ocean voyage, the wife posing as a widow and the husband pretending to be a bachelor. Airs Langtry’s memoirs, now in course of composition, amount already to 60,000 words, and her publishers say the itale is not more than half told.

After singing “Kathleen Alavourneen” as an encore at Cardiff, a few years ago, an amusing little incident occurred to Afuie. Clara Butt in connection with an old Irishman whom she found waiting for her when she left the concent hall. AVith tears in his eyes he caught held of her cloak, and, falling upon his knees, began to bless her in his -rich brogue. “Bedad,” he concluded, “‘I don’t know who wrote the song, but shure, if -he’s dead, ’twould make him turn in his grave to have heard the beautiful way ye sang it to-niglit” —a compliment which some people might think was rather a doubtful one.

At a very advanced age there, has recently passed away Airs Alfred Mellon, better known by her stage name, Aliss AVoolgar, an actress who, half a century .since, was a- popular favorite in such melodrama as “The Flowers of the Forest” at the Adelphi, and in the bright Fairy Princes (with songs) of Planclie’s elegant extravaganzas at the Haymarket.

“I was born,” said Miss Lena Ashwell, in the September “'Strand Magazine,” “on a training ship, the Wellesley of which my father was commander.’“When I was still young my father’s health broke down, and we were all taken to Canada, where we lived a really simple life iu a wooden house on the banks of the St. Lawrence, i think I was about ten years old when I made up my mind to go on the stage, and l my mother was very worried because I used to go into* the woods and recite Shakespeare, un my mother’s death we came over to Europe, to Lausanne, and while I was at school there a well-known organist heard me singing to a guitar one evening and persuaded my father to let me come to England and study at the Royal Academy of Music. At one ot the examinations Miss Ellen Terry heard me reciting, and advised me to give up music for the stage. All the same, I am an F.R.A.M.’

1 Mr Claude Bantock is back in Australia after his trip to England and rejoins the Royal Comic Opera Company for the revival in Melbourne of “The Merry "Widow.”

Harry Lauder’s new song is “They CalL Me Sandy,” in which he describes how Sandy and Shackleton explored the Antarctic in a quest for the South Pole.

Suggestion is made that George Meredith’s novel, “The Egoist,” offers extraordinary material for the dramatist. There is a .star actor or two who could play the title role without strain upon liis personality.

An amusing incident occurred during a matinee performance of “The Honor of the Family,” on a one-night stand in the United States. Colonel Philippe Bridau, the swashbuckling hero of the play, played by Mr Otis Skinner, makes pseudo-love to the mercenary little heroine, and attempts to kiss her on the shoulder —her cress is decollete—and she cleverly repulses him. On the afternoon in question, as this piece of business in the play took place, and the girl slipped away from Bridau’s embrace, a youthful voice from the gallery whispered quiets, but very distinctly, “Stung! _ The au ~ dieiice roared with laughter for several* minutes, and those on the stage were so convulsed that for quite a time they were unable to proceed with the scene.

Clarke, Meynell, and Gunn’s attractions at present comprise the Uscar Asclie-Lily* Bray ton Company at* the Criterion Theatre, Sydney; the English Comic Opera Company, appearing in Miss Hook of Holland,” at the Royal, Melbourne; the New English Dramatic Company, presenting ‘ The Hypocrites” and “Lucky Durham, m AVest Australia ; the Maggie Moore-Ko-berts Co.; the new- comic opera company being formed in London to produce “The Arcadians in Australia ; the farcical company to produce Ihe Night of the Party”; and “Mr Preedy and the Countess,” which Air George Willoughby is to bring to Australia, There are a number of others for which the firm is at present completing negotiations. .