Variety (September 1919)

6 VAUDEYILLL - LONDON &£**•' '■ London, Aug. 23. pit looks as though Percy Burton has struck a big winner with the presen- fftatibn at Covent Garden of Lowell affcotnas with his illustrated travelog " the British campaigns in Palestine, opening Aug 14 was a brilliant r, attended by royalty and other rtant personages. It is given un- the auspices of the English- peaking Union, of which the Rt Hon. J. Balfour is president and the erican Ambassador to England is onorary President. Burton is # a „sod snowman, combining native .shrewdness with American experience, fe Louis Bradfield, once a well known tTnusical comedy a<jtor here, died at ^Brighton this week, aged 53. He was ^L-big:Gaiety theatre favorite. One of Ufi$feeft known successes was as a ember of the cast of "Florodora." e' is survived by a wife, son and (tighter. One of the most popular individuals ■the. American colony that meets ightly at 11 p. m. at the Regent Pai- ge^, (sometimes called the "Regent alestine") is Captain Fountain E. "ard, of the American Army, who is ted here in charge of transporta- &of -returning troops. Personally own to most theatrical folks, and realizing the necessity for show peo- Tj» to get back to "the States" in :, Capt. Ward has been instrumen- in securing passage for a number rtpf American performers, among whom may be mentioned Elsie Janis, Julian "itchell, Rock and White, Doyle and n, etc. Before joining the ser- Captain Ward was passenger t for the Pennsylvania railroad Washington. When "Going Up" closes at the ietyat the end of the current week d goes on tour, Joe Coyne will not a member of the cast. He has de- ned offers for other London en- gements and proposes to take a r^s rest. He intends to visit Amer- in October, with Edward Lauril- iard, to visit friends on his native th. Although he has been here for great many years, and is a prime yorite with London audiences, yne is still an American at heart, d never overlooks an opportunity to yisO. Like Leon Errol, if his dress- g room isn't filled nightly with visi- ors from his own country, he feels eglected. " t *rank Wirth, who is here in the terests of the Ringlings, is about to ^te, Paris via Amsterdam, going bin/there to Marseilles, sailing Aug. 1 on the steamship Roma for Amer- jm£ While here he booked a number if acts with Moss Empires and comes back in November to see them-started, sfnis •■• week Wirth received a cable from the Ringlings instructing him to .secure an attorney to enjoin a color- able imitation of the Barnum & Bailey trademark in this country. It seems here was a touring tent show using ithographs closely resembling the B. £; B. paper, reading: "Sylvester pre- sents greater than" in small letters, followed by "Barnum & Bailey" in iglarge type. Upon investigation Wirth found the organization had already ne to smash. He says there is also band of ex-soldiers on the Rhine resenting a "Wild West" show and illing themselves as "Barnum and lailey." eWith the usual secrecy attending proposed American trips that sur- ds all London producers, Andre lot had booked passage for New n the Cretic sailing Aug. 28, for His Monkman. Re- • for keeping the "■>late, your cor- le over the in- iling had now no further need for failing to impart it to the pal- pitant American public It is denied irksome quarters that the Russian ballet will come to the Empire in September for a three months' engagement. It is true Sir Alfred Butt has the troupe under contract, but the Empire is scheduled to come down in November and if "The Lilac Domino" fails to continue to draw paving patronage there, the Russians will be put in as a stop-gap. . The New Empire, to be erected on the site of the present structure, to- gether with adjoining property, is to be a huge edifice capable of large seating capacity. It will have a roof - garden on top and the idea is to have performers playing, in the' house also appear on the roof, very much like the scheme in vogue at the New Am- sterdam in New York,- The plans were completed some time ago and Jack Hayman, who books the Vic- toria Palace shows, is already looking about for suitable artists. Speaking of booking ahead, Moss Empires has opened its books for an unusually large number of American turns, engaging them from various quarters, not confining themselves to the regulation English agents. Every American in London, claiming to have authority to negotiate for acts from the States, has been accorded inter- views with the booking commit tee-, with that end in view. London, Aug 22. Very shortly Robert Lorraine will have to remove himself and "Cyrano" from the Duke of York's and the ques- tion is, is he going, to finish pro tem with the play or going into a new home? Although managers are grumb- ling at the slackness of things the few theatres to be had—Covent Garden and the Lyric seeming the only avail- ables ones—Lorraine has proved that the play can be just as effective on a small stage as a big one. Ernest C Rolls will very probably remove "Laughing Eyes" from the Strand very soon and put the Tollies" in its place, the resurrected troupe having "come back" wonderfully. When the run of "Tilly of Blooms- bury" comes to an end and Arthur Bourchier returns to the Strand it will be with a new Cromwellian piece by Drinkwater the academic author of "Lincoln." Meanwhile "Tilly's" popu- larity in Bloomsbury and elsewhere shows no sign of abating. When James Bernard Fagan re- opens the Court it will be with "The Merchant of Venice," a Russian trage- dian, Maurice Moscovitch, making his debut before West End audiences as "Shylock." Mary Grey will be the "Portia," Basil Dean, late of the Cheshire Regiment and the Navy and Army Canteen Board, has chosen Liverpool as the jumping off place for his pro- duction of thevAmerican light comedy by William Hurlburt. The Playhouse will be the place, and the cast will in- clude : Iris Hoey, Helen Ferrers, Mar- garet Watson, Hilda Bruce Potter, Franklyn Dyall, Malcolm Keen, J. H. Roberts, and George Elton. Sept. 2, is fixed for The Great Day" at Drury Lane, and on that evening theatre-goers will see one of the big- gest sensations ever attempted even at' the famous home of mechanism. The big* sensation takes place in a thieves' kitchen on the banks of the river Seine. Hero and heroine are in the hands of the villians but the river i^ rising to the rescue. At the crucial moment it overflows, bursts through the walls carrying buildings and bridges before it, and the characters are swept down stream in a swirling fury of rushing water. Villainy per- ishes, or a^good deal of it, but of course, a little it left to help virtue to carry on the story until curtail falls. Other exceptional scenes promised are Night (Subs, Cafes, and even the Peace Conference will not be for- gotten. Fred Barnes is another who is short- ly quitting London to fulfill a series of engagements in the States. The most important of these is matrimon- ial, or that's what his publicity people make out in a half-column story they've managed to get past the edi- tor of one or two Sunday papers. Barnes, a beautiful heroine (said hero- ine heiress to many millions), a deed of wild heroism, the gradual birth of love, and the songs Barnes as the hero is thinking of singing are all cleverly dove-tailed. Billy Reeves is creating a riot with his sketch "The Right Key but the Wrong Flat" This is his first trip to Britain after 12 years in America and when he last played over here it was as an ordinary member of one of the Kamo companies. Although Charlie Chaplin is generally credited with be- ing the original "Drunk" in "Mum- ming Birds" it was Reeves, but since .then the "screen" and America have made him famous. He has no open time at all for many a long month, having been snapped up immediately after his opening at the Empire, Bir- mingham by the Moss Empires, Sir Oswald Stoll, Variety Theatres Con- trolling company and all the other big syndicates. Horace Reeves, the agent here, is handling the turn. The many friends in America of Dave Carter, once the "silver voiced tenor" now the manager of the Vaude- ville Club, will be glad to hear that he beat G. W. Bartletb in the Victoria^ Club handicap final on Sunday at the Hangar Hill golf course by 4 up and 3 to play. G. W. Bartlett is a well- known Australian sportsman, his handicap being she while Dave's is fourteen. Dave, as winner, receives a silver cup, presented by Tom Moore, a prominent member of the Victoria Club. Lee Copeland had entered into an arrangement with Herman Darewski to publish his compositions here and in addition to his music hall engage- ments "Les" will demonstrate during the day at the publishing emporium. Llewellyn Johns and Mr. Crocker, chiefs of staff for Sir Oswald Stoll, are going to America shortly to look over the latest wrinkles in theatre construction and equipment, with the idea of adapting to the new Stoll music halls now in course of construc- tion, such novelties as they deem will aid in up-to-dating the new edifices. Sir Walter de Freece has acquired "Circo's". He will re-open it very shortly as a high-class and exclusive Bohemian club and it's dancing floor will no longer be open to the "half world" and the gilded fool Those "night club" days are over and the few doubtful establishments that still struggle on are receiving more atten- tion from the police than they want Meanwhile the "public dance hall" boom continues, the "Palais Royale" in Holborn_ boasts the gaudiest com- missionaire in London and sounds of revelry can be heard any night An- other of these places is spending a. good deal of money on advertising tor girl instructors in the theatrical papers. . $15 a week is the wage offered, r and as that is now worth about 27/6 the road will be very clearly, indicated for many of the girls whose duty will be to dance with all and sundry. , Charles Coborn at present is divid- ing his time between Monte Carlo and Paris "shooting" scenes for the film version of "The Man who Broke the Bank at Monte Carlo." He returns for a big farewell benefit at the Alhambra Oct. 24, the theatre being let by Sir Oswald Stoll, and every artist of note will rally round to make the veteran's "good-bye" a success. Immediately after his farewell, and he's more hon- est than most people as he does an- nounce it well beforehand, Charlie will start off on a lengthy lecture tour being supported by a first-class vaude- ville combination and one or two of the films that "feature" him. 'Griff intends crossing over to Amer- ica as soon as his present engage- ments admit Just now he is going very big at Maskeleyne's, St George's Hall show with his "Bubble and Squeak" act. When not doing re- markable things with soap bubbles and an ordinary clay pipe he proves to his own and everybody else's satis- faction that he is as good a "cod pat- terer" as ever. Percy Burton appears to have put over a sensational hit with the Lowell Thomas illustrated lectures at Covent Garden. A Variety representative dropped in there at a mid-week mat- inee and found takings to the amount of $1,500. As it is a one-man show, two performances daily, this sort of business represents "important money." Van Hoven has now reached the stage of popularity here where, a few weeks ago, there were no less than three well known artists doing imi- tations of him. The three are Bransby Williams, i Vernon Watson and Jack Morrison. • - Grock, the musical clown, booked here by Edward Darling for America at a thousand dollars a week, is booked to make his New York pre- miere at the Riverside in December. Percy Reiss acted as the broker in the transaction. The only other act Dar- ling actually arranged for while here was Talbot O'Farrel, Irish tenor, booked by Horace Reeves. Albert de Courville is spending his holidays at Deauville, which is the ex- clusive "suburb" of Trouville, in France. Before leaving he exercised his option on the services of Midgie Miller, whom he engaged for the Paris revue which was abandoned. When the Paris .venture fell through, de Courville "tried out" Miss Miller for two performances at the London Hip- podrome, then took her out of the cast and she has been walking about draw- ing salary ever since. , From time immemorial. Americans have been reading of the "Englishman and his tub." The so-called "tub" con- sists of a brass or tin vessel capable of holding about a quart of water: As an example of how they regard all efforts to educate them into the use of modern bathing facilities, the following clipping from the London Evening News of Aug. 19 speaks for itself: HOUSES WITHOUT PARLOURS. Bathrooms to be provided "even if only Used for Curing Bacon." (From Our Own Correspondent.) Peterborough, Tuesday. Under a housing scheme just adopted by the Norman Cross Dis- trict Council, near Peterborough, houses are to be built without a par- lour. Each house, however, is to have a bathroom. One member remarked it was as well to have a bathroom, even if it was only used for curing bacon. in : .«■ 5 ■ '.•-«**&? ' • d "VI ... . ..-. \ ■■•-.<■ I'- "<'■ TWnii'f' 1 fin —