AustLit

A comedy sketch comprising lots of physical slapstick, the story revolves around Chic and Joe meeting Joe's girl and her family.

Original military episodes in two panels: 1. 'What we say' and 2. 'What we would like to say.'

A series of comic dialogues between Chic Williams and several other diggers, an officer, and a 'Tommy' (English soldier).

The sketch begins with Chic looking for his battalion. He tells the officer his name is Billy Hughes and that his father 'has got a Gas factory' in Australia. Chic then tries to trick a Tommy into letting him carry his rum jar. The Englishman replies, ' I'd trust you Australians with my life, but not with a rum jar'. The sketch then sees Chic back with his battalion, where a series of Chinese whispers takes place: 'We are going to advance' eventually becomes 'We're going to a dance' and 'There's a reinforcement missing' becomes 'There's 3/4d. [three shillings and four pence] missing.'

A theatrical sketch based on the iconic World War One song 'Mademoiselle from Armentieres' (aka 'Hinky Dinky Parley Voo'), this presentation is believed to have continued the tradition established by soldiers from other countries of adapting the words to reflect their own experiences and perspectives of the war.

The Argus theatre critic writes of the 1925 Athenaeum production, 'With a touch of pathos and well-staged, 'Mademoiselle from Armentieres' was another of the items which gave exceptional pleasure. It was sung by Mr Ern Kopke, and the chief acting parts were taken by Miss Jessie Hanna, Mr Clyde Fields, and Miss Rosette Powell. With the song most people who patronise amusements are now familiar, it is the acting and the stage effects which make it so well worthy of a place in a programme of the kind' (7 September 1925, p.14).

The Age theatre critic was similarly taken with the theatricality and sentiment of the piece, recording, 'The little sketch, admirably conceived and carried out, is heartbreaking in a way; and yet the heart does not break, but is stirred to beat faster. There are diggers - real diggers - in that little rest house somewhere in France, and when the call comes and they move out and pass the window in a long file, some never to come back, one feels that there is a truly simple little relic from the ghastly past now happily over - a relic crowded with the dogged spirit and the incomparable valour of those who were men. Nothing quite as touching, quite so simply grand has ever been presented here before as that picture of those war-weary men filing past the window in the dusk, bound for the inferno of the trenches' (7 September 1925, p.12).

The Daily Mercury (Mackay) records, too, that 'The parting with the Digger's "Froggie" sweetheart, and her heart-broken prayer and mourning when she was told that he had been killed in battle, presented "Mademoiselle from Armentieres" in a light totally different and more fitting than has ever been heard before' (13 May 1925, n. pag.).

Hop O' My Thumb was staged by the Famous Diggers a little over 12 months after the start of its two and a half year engagement at the Cremorne Theatre, Brisbane (1923-1925). It was also possibly the troupe's first ever pantomime.

Although advertising for this production indicates that it is an adaptation of the Grimm brothers fairytale (also known as Thumbling), the list of characters suggests that Middleton may have also been influenced by Charles Perrault's 1697 story. In that tale the tiny hero defeates an ogre thus saving his older siblings after they have all been abandoned by their parents. In the Grimms' story Hop O' My Thumb is an only child who is also abandoned by his parents but finds himself being swallowed by various animals until he finally escapes by tricking the final animal - a wolf.

One of the local settings was 'The Village of Humpybong' (formerly situated on the Redcliffe Peninsula). The The Brisbane Courier 1864 theatre critic records that the villages only residents were beer-hums and ballet girls (20 December 1924, p.16). A character referred to in a later review of the production but not named in advertising was Baron Bombastikulostikos (2 January 1925, p.7).

Among the songs incorporated into the production were 'I am a Wandering Troubadour Bold' and 'Humpybong' (sung by Iza Crossley), 'Dear, I Love You' (Ern Kopke), 'Slumber Song,' and 'Down in the Forrest' (Wynne Macoboy), and the quartettes 'Good Night Beloved' and 'There's a Rong Around the Moon' (Crossley, Macoboy, Kopke and Lawrence). Middleton's song "Coo-ee" was also performed during the course of the production.

Two of the features of the production were said to be the children's ballet and the final scene - 'The Giant Christmas Cake.'

[Source: Australian Variety Theatre Archive]

A one-act Cockney comedy sketch, set in London.

Having been granted Christmas leave but without the necessary passes, Chic and Joe use all their ingenuity to try and board a transport ship bound for 'Blighty.' In spite of all their attempts, they fail to get aboard.

Billed as 'an original military episode', this sketch is played out over three scenes: Pay Office, London; On the Way to Essex; and The Home of the Ipple Family (Pat Hanna Collection program No 3 - 1927/1928, Performing Arts Centre, Melbourne).

Described in the Adelaide season program as 'an original military episode.'

In a trench in France in 1917, during a heavy artillery bombardment, two diggers are about to go over the top when a shell lands nearby. They are joined by another soldier, just returned from leave, who conjures a genie from a whiskey bottle and asks him to bring them Napoleon Bonaparte. The diggers discuss the war with Napoleon before another shell explodes nearby, and they are buried under a pile of dirt. When a sergeant major pulls the men free, they continue their discussion with the French emperor. The first two diggers are subsequently sent to a clearing station as shellshock cases, while the third is sent on fatigues.

Described in advertising as a soldier sketch with old Chic and Bert.

Comic sketch.

Described in advertising as 'a Hebrew farce [that will] make you laugh until you positively weep, and then laugh again' (Argus 18 March 1922, p.26), and reviewed as a 'satire on puritan meanness (Daily News 16 April 1923, n. pag.).

The program for the 1927-1928 Adelaide season (Garden Theatre) records that 'Side-splitting laughter is a hackneyed phrase, but it is an apt description of the condition of the audience during its enactment. Several bottles of rum, a Lancashire Tommy and three Diggers' (Pat Hanna Collection).