The Century Serenaders, after a season at the Woodlawn Café, proved perfect vaudeville stuff, with a cast, variety of musical nonsense and character comedy dancing and weird manhandling of the instruments, holding the house solid and hitting.
Lewis and Norton have a pastel production and four episodes of quiet but punchy humor called “cost to cost,” staged in four resort hotels from coast to coast in the four seasons, typical of {illegible}, Bar Harbor, French Lick and Palm Beach. With many laughs neat dress delightful deportment and a sweet dance to close, they drew the first hit of the night.
Fred Lewis, a fast coming singer, is a chap that will bear watching, Lewis is doing a different act than when last seen around here dressing it in a comedy manner. He has some smart talk and gets laughs through his entire 14 minutes. Here’s another act that could get away on the two-a-day.
Bobby Adams and Jewell Barnett, a blonde and a red-head came on for the first hit of the evening. Miss Barnett, a good looking auburn haired beauty, officiates at the piano, while Miss Adams, a patootie of the blonde type sings songs with a little different twist. Both girls do a single numbers and harmonize on their ballads. For an encore the girls did a number called “Uhu” that proved a riot. Here’s an act that is ready for the big time for an early position having youth, looks and talent.
The show was opened by Hall, Levan and Miller, a three-man tumbling act with one of them, apparently Levan doing black-face comedy. They mix straight tumbling with a lot of comedy falls and neck spins.
Walter Ward and Ethel Dooley, in “What We Can Do,” doing just about everything, closed. They open in “one” with a song of introduction, then go to full stage, where a very pretty special setting is employed. They do some fast and snappy clever stunts on the bicycle then do some rope whirling. Ward imitates Fred Stone and Will Rogers with several interpolated gags. The pair finished with a whirlwind dance that put ‘em off to a hefty hand. Miss Dooley makes three very pretty changes, one for each number. Held 100 percent of the crowd in. They were recently at the Palace and proved that big time caliber always shows whether playing big or small time.
Morgan and Gates came next and proved the laughing hit of the bill. These two artists dished their stuff out to the audience in showmanly style and just made ‘em howl. For an encore, they impersonated two old-time dramatic actors, that proved themselves performers of the first waters.
Eddie Allen and Grace Brinkley, in a neat little turn, followed, and showed themselves to advantage. Eddie is a handsome juvenile, sings and dances with too much ability, but Miss Brinkley, a winsome doll, equals her beauty with her songs and dances. Their chatter brought gobs of laughter.
15 Mins.; One.
Clean cut, personable youths, they affect an eccentric make-up only as to shelltex “cheaters,” which they maintain until the final bend. The turn is built for comedy, and good comedy means plenty of laughs. They delivered on both ends in full measure. While a portion of the crossfire listens familiar its treatment lent it a nascent sound. The Windy City review also makes no mention of the burlesque instrumentailzation on “kazoo” saxophones, and since this consumed some six or seven minutes, it must be something new to the act. The response It earned warrants its retention permanently.
