CHRISTMAS IN TWO PIECES.
Pantomime! Pantomime!! The only DRURIOLANUS, and the only Pantomime in the Tame West. Therefore, it is almost a duty, let alone a pleasure, on the part of Parents and Guardians to take the young gentlemen from school, schools public and private, and the young ladies freed awhile from their Governesses, to see Beauty and the Beast at Drury Lane. "Is it a good Pantomime this year?" "That," as Hamlet once observed, though at that particular moment he was not thinking of Pantomimes, nor even of his own capital little drawing-room drama for distinguished amateurs, entitled The Mousetrap, "that is the question." And Mr. Punch's First Commissioner of Theatres can conscientiously answer, "Yes, a decidedly good Pantomime." If pressed farther by those who "want to know" as to whether it's the best Pantomime he ever saw, the First Commissioner answers, "No, it is not Beauty and the Best," and he is of opinion that he must travel, in a train of thought on the line of Memory, back to the PAYNES and the VOKESES in the primest of their prime, if he would recall two or three of the very best, mind you, the very best, Pantomimes ever seen in the Tame West. For real good rollicking fun, the Pantomimes at the Surrey and the Grecian used to be worth the trouble of a pilgrimage; but it was a trouble, for the show used to commence early and end late, and indigestion was the consequence of a disturbed dinner and the unaccustomed heartiness of a most enjoyable supper.
Drury Lane Pantomime commences at 7.30, and is not over till 11.30, and yet in these four hours there rarely comes over you any sense of weariness, except perhaps when the ballets are too long. From first to last the audience is expecting something, and is ready to accept every transition from one scene to another as a change for the better. Mr. HARRY NICHOLLS and Mr. HERBERT CAMPBELL are, of course, funny to look at as the conventional proud sisters; only, as they admit in one of their duets, "it's been done before," in Cinderella, for example; and, by the way, in choosing this subject of Beauty and the Beast, all resemblance between the two stories should have been got rid of, as, up to the Ball Scene, except for the absence of the Pumpkin and the Mice, it is difficult to distinguish between the two fairy tales. But, when last I saw Cinderella, wasn't ROSINA VOKES the sprightly heroine, and her brother with the wonderful legs the Baron? I think so: but I will not be too much of a laudator temporis acti, and will be thankful that one of the youthful Commissioners thoroughly enjoyed this Pantomime, though he was not absolutely certain as to what might be the effect of ghosts and skeletons on his very little brother, aged five or six, if he were brought to see this show. For my part, had I at an early age seen these skeletons which pervade the piece, and of whom two become elongated ghosts, I should have lain awake o' nights, seen horrible reproductions on the wall by the glimmer of the fire-light (spectral rush-lights were used when I was a small boy), screamed for help, and perhaps given my own private and practical version of the Ghost Scene in Richard the Third by not leaping out of bed and shouting, "Give me another horse!" (there was only one in the nursery, and that was a towel-horse), but by putting my head under the bed-clothes and shivering with fear till my nurse returned from her supper. Such on me, your present brave First Commissioner of Theatres, was the effect of merely seeing the interior of the Blue Chamber in Skelt's Scenes and Characters, with which I used to furnish my small theatre on the nursery table.
Well, this is all private and personal, and not much about the Drury Lane Pantomime, it is true; but, as everyone will see "The Only Pantomime" (we have reached the era of the "Onlys"), and be only too delighted, what need I say more than that the libretto is written by Mr. BILL-OF-THE-PLAY YARDLEY conjointly with Mr. DRURIOLANUS AUCTOR, and I daresay it was very witty and rhythmical and poetical, though I didn't catch much of it, and the songs were neither particularly well sung, nor remarkably humorous,—one, introduced by Miss VESTA TILLY (and, therefore, for this our joint authors are not responsible, except for permitting it to be done), being a distinct mistake, and utterly out of character with the part of the Prince, as written, which she was representing. And, à propos of songs, the music of this Pantomime lacks "go." WAGNER borrowed from pantomime his notion of dramatic music to carry on the action and tell the story of serious opera; but we don't want our Pantomimes to become Wagnerian; or, at all events, as the lamented GEORGE HODDER would have said, "Let's have plenty of the 'Wag,' and none of the 'nerian.'" What he would have exactly meant by this nobody would have known, but everyone would have laughed, as he was one of those self-patented jesters at whose witticisms the company laughed first and wondered afterwards.
DRURIOLANUS MAGNUS, not content with his own special pantomime-pie and a Drama at Covent Garden, has had a finger,—only a little one, perhaps, and not the thumb, with which JOHANNES HORNERIUS extracted the plum,—in the Christmas pie at the Prince of Wales's Theatre, of which the Manager is HORATIUS SEDGERIUS.
Now, Ladies and Gentlemen, patres et matres, et tutores, if you want to know what to take your little children, your bigger children, your boys and girls to see, and what you yourselves, familiar with your THACKERAY as I take you to be, would enjoy seeing, I say emphatically and distinctly, without any evasion, reservation, or mental equivocation, "Go and see, and take them all to see, The Rose and the Ring, written by SAVILE CLARKE, with music composed for it by WALTER SLAUGHTER, put on the stage by Les deux Ajax CAROLUS and AUGUSTUS HARRIS,—Christmas CAROLUS being facile princeps at this difficult business."
There is an excellent orchestra here, playing the musical game of "follow my leader" to perfection, and kept together, as sheep, by a CROOK. Mr. HARRY MONKHOUSE is very droll in the little he has to do. Mr. SHALE's speech as the Court Painter is capitally given, but there isn't enough of it. A touch more, a few more good lines, and the speech, as a showman's speech, would have been encored. Mr. S. SOLOMON as Jenkins, the Hall Porter, is made up so as to be the very fac-simile of THACKERAY's own illustration, and to reproduce that Master's sketches with more or less exactitude has evidently been the aim of all the actors; but Jenkins has been peculiarly successful, as has also Prince Bulbo, of whom more anon. As Polly in Act the First, and General Punchikoff in the Second, Miss EMPSIE BOWMAN was delightful, and her elder sister, Miss ISA BOWMAN, made every sharp point tell, and into the gold, of which success the name of BOWMAN is of good omen: and this is almost a rhyme. The part of Prince Giglis, in the absence of Miss VIOLET CAMERON, was satisfactorily rendered by Miss FLORENCE DARLEY. Miss MAUD HOLLAND looked and acted prettily as the Princess Angelica, and Madame AMADI was quite Thackerayan in her make-up as Countess Gruffanuff. Miss ATTALIE CLAIRE entered fully into the spirit of the merry piece; her rendering of a song with the refrain "Ah! well-a-day!" being deservedly encored.
I must not forget, indeed, I cannot forget, Mr. LE HAY as Bulbo, who, not only on account of his make-up being an exact reproduction of THACKERAY's sketch, gave us as good a grotesque performance as I've seen for some considerable time. To see him on the ground after the fight, tearing his hair out in handfulls, is something that will shake the sides of the most sedate or blasé, and among the audience that will crowd to see this juvenile show, there will be very few sedate (I hope) and still fewer (I am sure) blasé. It is an excellent performance throughout. But, my dear Mr. CAROLUS HARRIS, one word,—when you had that capitally-arranged and highly effective scene of Bulbo going to be beheaded, why did you not carry it a bit further, and make Bulbo on the point of kneeling down, and the burlesque axe poised in the air, and then, but not till then, the moment which, like the present winter, is "critical,"—then, I say, enter the Princess with the reprieve? As it is, the effect of this dramatically grouped scene is lessened by the absence of action, and Bulbo is off the scaffold ere the majority of the audience realise the peril in which his life has been placed.
I must not forget the army of children appearing from time to time as courtiers, cooks, fairies, soldiers, who will be the source of the greatest pleasure to children of all ages, from "little Trots" upwards. Nothing in this genuinely Christmas Piece is there which can do aught but delight and amuse the young people for whom primarily it was written. Let "all concerned in this" excellent piece of Christmas merriment accept the congratulations and best wishes for crowded houses—which they are sure to be for all the Matinées—from theirs truly, MR. P.'S FIRST COMMISSIONER.
GREAT DISAPPOINTMENT.—Sir FRANCIS SANDFORD has created a profound feeling of disappointment among all classes of society by not having added, "and Merton," to his title. "Lord SANDFORD OF SANDFORD" is weak; but "Lord SANDFORD-AND-MERTON" would have been truly noble.
SIR JULIAN PAUNCEFOTE's reply to President BLAINE: "The point o' this here observation lies in the Behring of it." (Captain Cuttle adapted.)