Argus (Melbourne, Vic. : 1848 - 1957), Monday 24 October 1910, page 5


KING'S THEATRE.

"BY WIRELESS TELEGRAPHY."

The large audience at the King's Theatre on Saturday night thoroughly enjoyed itself, as in "By Wireless Telegraphy" it had blood-curdling melodrama entirely after its own heart, and breathlessly sat it out until its conclusion within half an hour of mid-night.

To keep it going dramatically nearly all the commandments are broken, crude sensational incidents thrust in at regu-lar intervals, and buffoonery added of a class that would make any pair of circus clowns look to their laurels. Is is put upon the boards with every attention to stage realism, and the dialogue bears out Yvette Guilbert's theory, that dramatic authors are not now necessary. "Give us the bare outline of a plot," she says, and we will fill in the rest as we go on." As an attraction for the Cup carnival, it should

be the very thing, for sporting men love a sensational finish, and "By Wireless Tele-graphy" has a clever and surprising one.

As the author has "starved" the light re-lief to famine point, Messrs. Bert Bailey and Temple Harrison have to make their own bricks themselves, and very highly

coloured ones they are, too. Their buf-foonery is aided and abetted by the Bashall sisters (Misses Fanny Erris and Nellie Bramley), who also suffer from conversa-tional drought. A song and dance is naturally expected of them all the evening, but it never comes: even their trip to Paris, which gives a little hope of recreation, might be that of two Salvation Army

lasses.

The cast is a remarkably good one and its members certainly neglected no oppor-tunity the author has given them. But the drama is deficient in form, unity, tone and style, being merely a series of jerky in-cidents happening at stated periods with commonplace dialogue filling the staring gaps. This is one of the results that spring from "writing round" events and keeping puppets on directing wires all the time in stead of creating characters and permitting them to work out their own salvation by clash of will. That great manager, Mr.

Vincent Crummles, was really the founder of this method when he bought the famous pump and tub cheap at auction, and com-

missioned Nicholas Nickleby to write a play round them with a particular eye on Mrs. Vincent Crummles and the infant phe-

nomenon.

But with all its faults, "By Wireless Telegraphy" excited and interested the King's audience. The clowning made it laugh immoderately, the crimes created the shudders so necessary to its evening's full enjoyment, and the punishment of the guilty and escape of the innocent were re-sponsible for a world of sighs of relief as the playgoers filed out of the theatre fully satisfied that they had had their money's worth.

The same bill will be continued until further notice.