3 MARCH 1933, Page 6

It has been rather distressing to find that even the

beautiful ballets organized by the Association of Operatic Dancing could not save the Coliseum as a home of ballet and vaudeville. I went in there a day or two ago when an accomplished performance, in which the great Adeline Gen& herself was taking part, was being given to a house where three-fourths of the seats were empty. And so the Coliseum goes the way of the other famous and long- established theatres which were known as " Music Halls " —the Empire, the Tivoli, and recently the Alhambra— and on Monday will be reopened as a cinema. It is true, Non-Stop Revues have come into being to provide employ. ment for variety artists. The success of one or two of these ventures suggests that the public will not go to variety unless they can get seats at the popular prices charged at the cinemas—or unless, in contrast with the cinemas, they can get the intimacy, the closeness, of a small theatre, denied in a vast building like the Coliseum,

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