[
    {
        "id": 209597,
        "series_id": 26,
        "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine",
        "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊",
        "series_use_hku_proxy": false,
        "document_key": "RAS-1982",
        "page_number": 254,
        "title": "RAS-1982",
        "content_text": "232\n\nCARL T. SMITH\n\nThe opportunity to give a world premiere came about in this fashion. Early in the year Mr. Sinclair directed students at the University of Hong Kong in two Dunsany plays. They did not attract much public attention, but Sinclair sent photographs of the production along with some newspaper notices to Lord Dunsany. As a result, he wrote a play about the Gold Isles and sent the manuscript to Mr. Sinclair with the intention that it also should be performed by the students. Unfortunately, they were not able to do so, so Sinclair, as one of the popular A.D.C. directors, decided to have a Dunsany evening and include \"The Compromise of the King of the Golden Isles\". It was full of colour, filled with pomp and ceremony. It is interesting to note that the late Noel Croucher served as a bodyguard in one of the crowd scenes and that Sinclair had consulted Sir Robert Kotewall and Mr. Fung Yuk-shum to get authenticity for the Chinese costumes and other details.\n\nIn 1926 the A.D.C. performed Dunsany's most successful play \"If.\" His plays have been described as \"decorative drama\". Many of them had settings in the Near and Far East.\n\nW. Sinclair was both an innovator and a man of cosmopolitan tastes. During the years he produced plays for the A.D.C., the repertoire ranged from Shakespeare to the future and from fantasy to realism.\n\nThe Hong Kong Mummers presented \"Twelfth Night\" in 1913. It was directed by Mr. Siegler, a name assumed by Mr. Sinclair for some of his early productions in Hong Kong. He later abandoned this pseudonym. \"Twelfth Night\" was billed as the first amateur production of Shakespeare in the Far East. This claim was corrected by the Tokyo A.D.C., which had presented \"As You Like It\" in 1906, \"Midsummer Night's Dream\" in 1911, and \"The Merchant of Venice\" in 1912. The Hong Kong A.D.C. had assisted Miss Janet Waldorf and her small company of professionals in \"As You Like It\" in 1899. It was scheduled for an outdoor performance on the Parade Ground, but this was rained out and it was held in the Theatre Royal. Weather did permit a second performance on the Parade Ground. In 1922, the A.D.C. under Sinclair produced \"The Tempest\".\n\n\"The Blue Bird\" by Maeterlinck was given in 1914. It was",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1982.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mk61z420p",
        "rank": 0
    },
    {
        "id": 211181,
        "series_id": 26,
        "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine",
        "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊",
        "series_use_hku_proxy": false,
        "document_key": "RAS-1987",
        "page_number": 242,
        "title": "RAS-1987",
        "content_text": "217\n\nA letter appeared in the Daily Press endorsing the idea of a contribution to the Imperial Institute. The correspondent claimed that a contribution from Hongkong could benefit both the donor and the project: \"If Hongkong can help to prevent (the institute) being a failure, it would be rendering an invaluable service to the Empire, and a double service to the Colony.\"\n\nThe double benefit, for Hongkong would be that of promoting the Colony's trade and of “getting us out of our mess.\" The mess, of course, was the inability of the community to express common agreement on a memorial. It was making the people of Hongkong look foolish.\n\nHe suggested to the proposer and the seconder of the park project that they withdraw their motions, for surely “they will not miss the chance that withdrawing their proposal would give them of making a friend of the Queen as well as remaining (signed) 'Friends of the Governor'.”\n\nAgain, the proposal met little response, but Hongkong's lack of interest did not materially impede the project. Other sections of the Empire were more liberal and enthusiastic.\n\nIn May, 1888, the Queen granted a charter of incorporation to the Imperial Institute of the United Kingdom, the Colonies and India and the Isles of the British Seas. A building was erected in South Kensington.\n\nIt served as a centre for scientific research and a bureau of economic resources for the Empire. In 1962 a new building was erected and the name changed to the Commonwealth Institute.\n\nHOW SPORT CAME TO THE VALLEY\n\nIt was usual for a planning committee to predetermine the agenda for public meetings in the Hongkong of the nineteenth century.\n\nIt was decided that at the public meeting on March 2, 1887, to plan Hongkong's observance of Queen Victoria's Golden Jubilee a",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1987.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/rx919b522",
        "rank": 0
    }
]