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Show Long- Musical Comedy Run. A few nights ago "A Chinese Honeymoon" Honey-moon" was played In London at the Strand theater for the 1000th consecutive consecu-tive time, thus bringing Jt Into moderately moder-ately close rivalry with tho.e other two successes of recent years, "Our Boys," which was played 1362 times, and "Charley's Aunt," which holds the record rec-ord with 1-1C6 consecutive performances in London, although the last-named was played at two theators, tho Royalty Roy-alty and the Globe. There Is a fair chance that the musical comedy may come abreast the other two plays, since these arc aU yet few signs of falling popularity. Such long runs, however, arc not n novelty to the London stago. Burnand's "Black-Eyed Sce-usan; or, the Little Bill That Was Taken Up," ran from 18GC to 1SGS, In which period it is estimated esti-mated that Patty Oliver sang "Pretty See-usan" 1775 times. Other plays which had very long runs were the progenitor of this, Douglas Jerrold'r, "Black-Eyed Susan" In 1329, which was played simultaneously sim-ultaneously at the Surrey and Covent Garden In 1S29. In 1S21 Pierce Egan's "Tom and Jerry" was being played simultaneously sim-ultaneously at ten London theaters. As much as five guineas wero paid for admission ad-mission to the original production at the Adelphl. Another play which had an enormous run In tho twenties in London was Mrs. Crowe's "Susan Hop-ley; Hop-ley; or the Trials and Vicissitudes of a Servant Girl." In 1875 it was claimed for Edmund Falconer's "Peep o' Day" that It had been witnessed by 20,581,000 people. In this country "A Chinese Honeymoon" Honey-moon" has been played over 1000 times. It was at the Casino for a year, and since that time has been played by two companies. Companies have also played it in the British provinces, and If we mistake not. in Australia. So It must come near to holding a record, as its total number of performances must closely approach 3000. |