SHOWS VIEWS.
By Victor Who-goes-Everywhere.
Rather a Close Shave.
The Arabian Nights, at the Globe, is a piece chiefly remarkable for the performances of Messrs. Hawtrey and Penley, and Miss Lottie Venne. The play is an adaptation from the German. It has been "done into English" at least once before, when, under the joint authorship of a lady and gentleman, a version was produced with the very appropriate title of The Skeleton. The Comedy in Newcastle Street, Strand, is more than a framework, for it has sinews, and resembles, to some extent flesh and blood. Miss Lottie Venne has not been seen to so much advantage since she embodied Betsy at the Criterion; and Mr. Penley, in his get-up, suggests that he has not altogether forgotten a character he played years ago in Our Club. The part now taken by Mr. Hawtrey was, I believe, originally intended for Mr. Wyndham. The plot is of the usual character. A married man, in the absence of his wife, gets involved in a more or less innocent flirtation with some one else, and, to escape from this entanglement, on the return of his better half, has to trust to his power of invention as a substitute for a plain statement of facts. Mr. Hawtrey, as the embarrassed husband, was guilty of verbal equivocation (to use a pleasant substitute for "lying") with an earnestness that insured success. This is very like somebody's piece called Truth at the Criterion. The Arabian Nights is a kind of piece that will be the better for "working up," and indeed it is a joke which will be improved by repetition. Some of the lines are so daring, that only a male Grundy could have written them. If the well-known lady of the same name had heard them, I fancy they would have been erased by request. On the first night, however, all went well, and I can only trust that every succeeding audience will be equally appreciative, and not more exacting.
I frankly admit that the Royal Westminster Aquarium has a terrible fascination for me. It is not the fact that years ago it was opened by the Duke of Edinburgh, as a tribute to the memory of the late lamented Prince Consort, that attracts me, nor do I think that the recollection that the Survivors of the Balaclava Charge take their annual dinner in commemoration of the battle of the 25th of October on the second-floor back favourably impresses me—no, I imagine that I am drawn towards it by the posters. Certainly the hoardings persuaded me to see La Belle Fatma and to assist at a séance with the Wolves. The other evening I was lured within its highly illuminated walls by the announcement that those who were present in the stalls in front of the Central Stage at ten o'clock would see a Shaving Contest. Two barbers were to shave a number of members of the public for the stakes of £50 or £100 (I forget which) a side. I arrived in good time and was told (I fancied rather contemptuously) that the contest was to come off in "the Balloon Room." I made my way to this mysterious apartment, which proved to be a hall decorated with charts and maps and not too brilliantly lighted by one gas-jet. A small man, assisted by a smaller, stood in front of several chairs, behind which were ranged toilet necessaries. A mildly-spoken gentleman in evening dress and a neck scarf then addressed the audience (chiefly composed of persons in pot hats), and told them (so I understood him to say) that "the Management" had considered it better to have the entertainment in the Balloon Room instead of the Central Stage as more appropriate. He then was loud in his admiration of a patent American razor, which was passed from hand to hand for inspection amongst the audience. After a while some youths were induced to come up to be shaved, and were shaved by the small barber whose eyes had been covered with a bandage before the commencement of the operation. When the first youth was "done," the mildly-spoken gentleman observed that he had great pleasure in announcing that the gentleman had been shaved by Mr. So-and-so, (I forget the barber's name) blindfolded, without having been cut! This encouraging information was received with cheers, but I could not help fancying that the audience was not subsequently quite so eager to assist by submission to the razor in contributing to the blindfolded barber's triumph. Then the mildly-spoken gentleman announced that the contest would not come off, for some reason that was not quite clear to me. Hereupon a rather aggressive person claimed to be shaved—and shaved he was, also another person of an older growth than the first applicants. The aggressive person turned upon his co-shavist (if I may be allowed to coin a word) and feeling his chin declared him to be only half shaved. Then several other persons felt the man's chin and expressed the same opinion. Then there was a "scene," which I understood the mildly-spoken gentleman to declare to be "an unseemly altercation," and officers of the institution in uniform were introduced. The aggressive person continued his aggressiveness, and claimed to be the Champion Shaver of a large territory including (I think) both the inhabited and uninhabited portions of the globe. Then a gentleman in morning dress, connected with the Management appeared, and we were all requested politely to leave. I followed with the crowd, for I had an idea (no doubt it was a foolish fancy) that if I had not I should have been "chucked out." I spent the rest of the evening in admiring a lady who claimed to be one of the strongest women, if not the very strongest woman in the world, and wondering why, before having a cannon fired off, from the support of her shoulder, she should think it necessary to wave the British flag and appear in the costume of Britannia.
The Lord Mayor's Procession was also a "Show," and a very important Show of the week. It has been so fully described that it requires only a passing notice. The cars on their return were more pleasing than on their first appearance, for when seen with the horses' heads turned westwards the poor creatures, engaged to grace our London holiday, were shivering in the heavy downpour. Even Father Thames (who should have been in his element) seemed dissatisfied. When dismissed at the Royal Courts, and told they might make the best of their way home, the thinly-clad representatives of Music, Prosperity, and Commerce, were allowed to assume shawls and wraps, and other protections from the weather. Why before starting were they not all supplied with umbrellas? It is true that Britannia would have looked a little incongruous with a parapluie.—I put this in French in honour of the Brave Beige Mi Lor de Keyser,—but, on the other hand, she did not seem much like England without one. The Show was like all its predecessors, inasmuch as it served once more as an excuse for a subsequent luncheon party in pleasant company, and again afforded the populace a glimpse of the Lord Mayor and Corporation in their not very frequently assumed characters of the wealthy Unemployed.