Gabrielle Ray (Rotary X.S. 321)

 

The Little Cherub (Rotary 4024 C)

Lily Elsie – The Little Cherub – 1906 – The Play Pictorial

Gabrielle Ray – The Little Cherub – The Weekly Journal (Hartlepool) – Friday 30th March 1906

The management of the Prince of Wales’s Theatre, London, writes that during the run of “The Little Cherub” at the Prince of Wales’s Theatre, which is now approaching it’s 100^th performance, Miss Gabrielle Ray has so often kicked the improvised football in the hotel scene into the “prompt” box – which has been christened by patrons of the theatre “the football box” – that she has accepted a joking challenge, and is prepared to back herself to the extent of a £5 note to land the ball into that box on any occasion.

The Weekly Journal (Hartlepool) – Friday 30th March 1906

Gabrielle Ray – The Little Cherub – 1906

The Little Cherub (Rotary 4038 A)

Gabrielle Ray – The Little Cherub – The Daily Mirror – Monday 15th January 1906

“THE LITTLE CHERUB.”

Many Good Turns in the New Piece at the Prince of Wales’s.

 

If the best things had been taken out of “The Little Cherub” and given as a variety entertainment on Saturday evening, the audience would have been even better pleased than they were.

Miss Evie Greene’s song, “I’ve Had Experience,” will soon be whistled everywhere. Mr. Farkoa’s ditties are as sweetly sentimental and as skilfully sung as anyone could desire. Miss Gabrielle Ray’s Cupid dance is very pretty. Mr. Carroll and Miss Clare do a sort of double-shuffle, which is immensely taking. Mr. Berry’s topical song went down well.

In fact, “if it wasn’t for the pieces in between,” the new musical comedy would be a continual feast of melody. Mr. Ivan Caryll, as composer, has done his share very well indeed, but Mr. Owen Hall’s book is utterly feeble, and not funny at all. It gives those excellent comedians, Mr. Fred Kaye and Mr. Lennox Pawle, scarcely any chance.

 

The Daily Mirror – Monday 15^th January 1906

 

Gabrielle Ray – The Little Cherub – The Manchester Evening News – Monday 15th January 1906

A New Musical Play.

Elaborately produced, with the excellent taste and beauty of costume which characterise all Mr. George Edwardes’s productions, the new musical play, “The Little Cherub,” from the pen of that prolific writer, “Mr. Owen Hall,” enjoyed a most successful premiere at the Princes of Wales’s Theatre on Saturday night. The story deals with a sanctimonious peer, who is a most bitter opponent of the theatre and everything connected with it until he makes the acquaintance of a charming little actress. He then throws off his “once guid” character, and gives a grand supper to the whole theatrical company at an hotel where his own four daughters-happen at the same time to be rehearsing an amateur play entitled “The Little Cherub.” There are other complications, but the happy ending arrives with the actress accepting the peer’s proposal of marriage. The principals, Miss Evie Greene, Miss Zena Dare, Miss Gabrielle Ray, Mr. Maurice, Farkoa, Mr. Fred Kaye, and Mr. Lennox Pawle were all very good, and the music of Mr. Iran Caryll and the lyrics of Mr. Adrian Ross worthily sustain the reputations of than well-knows’ composers.

 

The Manchester Evening News – Monday 15^th January 1906

Gabrielle Ray – Thornton & Mawby (Rotary)

 

The Little Cherub (Rotary 4038 B) Advertisement

The Little Cherub (Rotary 4038 B)

Gabrielle Ray (Rotary 2956 A)

 

Gabrielle Ray (Rotary 2956 A)

Gabrielle Ray – A Girl on the Stage – Truth – Wednesday 9th May 1906

 

THE THEATRES.

 “A GIRL ON THE STAGE,” AT THE PRINCE OF WALES’.

 

“The Little Cherub” has grown to be “A Girl on the Stage.” The girl has retained a good many of the attributes of the cherub, but whereas formerly there was no son to the Earl of Sanctobury, that peer of Exeter-Hall-cum-Tivoli propensities is now credited with a son and heir, who loves, becomes engaged to, and eventually marries Miss Molly Montrose. Mr. Owen Hall now makes the elderly peer wish to marry the maiden, and develops the cross-purposes of father and son, ending in a conflict between parental and amorous proclivities on the part of the former. Of course, Lord Sanctobury yields, and Miss Molly Montrose marries Mr. Lionel Mackinder.

The chief charm of Saturday evening last lay in the appearance of Miss Ruth Vincent as Molly Montrose. This lady showed us in “Veronique” that she could sing, could act, and withal foot it neatly, a happy result of the Savoy training, which showed itself clearly in the performance of the latest of the school. This became evident again with the singing of Mr. Ivan Caryll’s ”Rather Nice,” and in the duet of the second act with Mr. Mackinder. Miss Vincent quite won our hearts. Little did we think that those hearts were going so soon to be tried; little did we imagine as Miss Vincent prepared in the last act to sing of “Love and Laughter,” “the best things in the world,” that tears would flow instead. Yet at the very moment that the conductor’s wand awaited the first vocal note, with a tiny cry Miss Vincent fell back insensible on the stage. This was by far the most dramatic moment of the evening, and little attention was paid to the doings of Mr. Edouin, who came forward to continue the piece, until we had a message to say that it was only a fainting fit, and that Miss Vincent would be well enough to continue in a few moments. I shall not forget for a long while the emotion of that pretty blonde pierrette figure with “love and laughter” on her lips, and her audience hanging on these, suddenly, as it were, called back to the vale of tears and carried off the stage insensible. It was as if Nature had said: “I, too, can be dramatic, and I will show you my power in your own human play exactly at the dramatic moment.”

I must not dwell longer upon this incident, which closed so happily with the reappearance of Miss Vincent, hand-in-hand with Miss Zena Dare, herself the very spirit of girlish gaiety, and in the new play provided with an attractive song, “Cupid and the Pierrot,” which she delivers from the rostrum of a high-backed chair with great effect. Miss Gabrielle Ray’s piping treble echoes all through the play, and she, too, has a new song, “Merry-go-round,” which she sings in grey tights, with a background of purple-clad men. Mr. Willie Edouin played the part of the elderly peer with much punctilio, but I seemed to miss the merry twinkle and the apparent irresponsibility which has so often captivated me in this comedian. Mr. Berry, as Shingle, the valet, came out very strong in his topical song of the last act, and fairly won the house. He dealt with all manner of subjects, from the policy of the Government to the disaster at San Francisco, and his description of Signor Caruso seated clad only in his shirt in the garden of the tumbling hotel and singing “Blow, gentle breeze,” was in the best spirit of opera bouffe.

There are two girls less among the principals, but the great principles are maintained, and plenty of others newly and gorgeously attired are to hand, headed by Miss Dunbar, who sings of them as “Currants in a Bun,” “Dairy Maids,” “Bath Buns,” “Currant Buns,” “Girls Behind the Counter,” “On the Stage,” those who leave it to marry peers, etc. – one cannot walk a step without meeting them. But many petticoats do not make talent; that is always rare, though you will see both at the Prince of Wales’ Theatre when you see Miss Ruth Vincent.

 

Truth – Wednesday 9^th May 1906

 

Gabrielle Ray – The Little Cherub – Truth – Thursday 18th January 1906

 

THE THEATRES.

 

“THE LITTLE CHERUB,” AT THE PRINCE OF WALES’S.

 

Mr. Owen Hall is said to have taken from the French play “Decore” the germ of “The Little Cherub,” but be that as it may, one can say with truth that little or nothing of French inspiration now pervades the piece to be discussed. The Earl of Sanctobury objects on principle to the stage, meets for the first time in his life an actress, is fascinated into following her to Dunbridge Baths, and concludes by marrying the lady. He has daughters whose private theatricals are abomination to him at first, but their chance discovery of their father at supper with the actress forces him to look leniently for the future on things theatrical: With this for central idea are connected an Indian Prince, various gentlemen of rank, friends of Lord Sanctobury, and the valet of that peer.

The play is of the musical comedy sort, consisting of trivial developments upon the above theme which serve as pegs on which to hang songs. Mr. Owen Hall’s book contains, as one expects from him, many witty and some mordant lines, such as this; “A good woman has nothing to confide in her husband, and a bad woman daren’t confide in him.” The best characterised personage is Shingle, Lord Sanctobury’s valet, which Mr. Berry made to stand out in relief against a dull background. His song, “A Gentleman’s Gentleman,” was one of the successes of the first act, and in the third act his political warble, “I Wasn’t Engaged for That,” a song with chorus, rightly captivated the audience. The fault of “The Little Cherub” seems to be that we are not sufficiently interested in the story, and the players for the most part fail to interest us themselves. The play suffered also from the slowness of the time at which the dialogue was taken. The utterance of puns and gibes and frivolities should be rapid, should have the crispness of farce. Miss Evie Greene, who played the actress Molly Montrose, was the chief sinner in this respect. She spoke her lines with a deliberation worthy of Epictetus, due, perhaps, to a difficulty in remembering them, or to nervousness, for this lady does not do herself justice at first performances. Her singing in some respects atoned for the monotony of the rest, and the air of her song “Experience” as of her song with the Rajah entitled “Pearls,” are likely to haunt the barrel-organs of the future. Where the chief woman’s part is taken with such gravity, the others perforce are also impeded in their progress, but Miss Zena Dare was an exception. As Lady Isabel, daughter of the Earl of Exeter Hall, she brought into her part some of that lightness and gracious vivacity which made her “Catch of the Season” a creation of its kind. Her singing and saying of the lyric “I should so love to be a boy” ending with the melon off the supper table turned into an impromptu football for Miss Ray to kick into the stage box, was a bright moment. Lady Isobel is accompanied in all her doings by three other young ladies, daughters of the Earl. Of these, Miss Gabrielle Ray, with her shrill treble voice, is the most prominent, and to her must be accorded the triumph of the evening. This was a song called “Cupid’s Rifle Range,” coming late in the last act. Habited as Cupid with a gun slung bandolier wise across her shoulder (of course, it should be a bow and arrows), attended by four tiny maidens, she sings to a melting melody and shoots as she sings at a row of marionettes pendent from a framework of flowers. A victim falls with each discharge. Mr. Adrian Ross and Mr. Frank Tours, the writers, and Mr. Ivan Caryll, the musician of this lyric, deserve credit for their performance. Of the other ladies, Miss Elise Claire as waitress at the hotel has a dance with Mr. Arthur Hope as the waiter, of which they make a success, and Miss Lily Elsie a song, “Baby Bayswater,” not without pungency, to which she adds grace.

Mr. Fred Kaye played with deliberateness the part of the Earl, and evoked a smile from time to time. But that deliberateness! Mr. Lennox Pawle, as the aristocrat chaperoning the daughters of the Earl to Dunbridge Baths, might, with advantage, appear less soused with less dirty water than in the beginning of Act 11. when he has saved a professional swimmer from drowning. The sight of him is not agreeable until he changes his clothes, but apart from this he has moments of humour and drollery in his diction. Mr. Maurice Farkoa, as the Rajah, is simply Mr. Maurice Farkoa. He warbles ditties of the girls to be taken out to tea, lunch, and supper, of the only girl he ever loved; he combines with Miss Ida Lytton in a duet that does credit to both: “The Invitation to the Waltz.” Mr. Farkoa imparts into his work that elegance, refinement, and lightness of touch which is the heritage of his race.

The curtain fell upon the “Little Cherubs” amid much applause, while with the applause was mingled the fog – horn of the first – nighter in the gallery. Mr. Adrian Ross, whose music deserved it, bowed thanks before the curtain. Mr. George Edwardes, in response to calls for a speech, also came before the curtain and saluted with the eloquence of silence.

 

Truth Thursday 18^th January 1906