AT ANCIENT DRURY.
Druriolanus Magnificus has given us something gorgeous this year in "The Hall of a Million Mirrors," the tenth Scene of his Pantomime entitled Little Bo-Peep, Little Red Riding Hood, and Hop o' My Thumb, who are three very small people,—"small by degrees and beautifully less"—to make so big a Show. In the Hall of Mirrors appear all the well-known representatives of ancient Nursery Rhymes, and all the heroes and heroines of the universally familiar Fairy Stories. Down the Palace stairs they come, group after group, until the Stage, even of Old Drury, can hold no more, and there is scarcely room for them all to move, much less to indulge in any "kicking up ahind and afore," as was the wont of the Ancient Joseph, whose fame is hymned in Nigger Minstrelsy. A most brilliant scene, never to be forgotten!—that is, until next Pantomime Season, when Sir Druriolanus will, in all probability, show us something equally magnificent, and as perfect in design and colour.
There is such a galaxy of talent, specially of Music-hall talent, with the two Maries, Loftus and Lloyd, the Campbell of that ilk, comical Dan Leno (who looks so comically Thin O), and the amusing Brothers Griffiths, but without the donkey, and with no quadruped to equal him, though they do make beasts of themselves by appearing as wolves, who will not be kept from the door of Granny Green, Mr. John D'Auban, utterly unrecognisable. Besides these is a Variety Show of other Stars, including ever-graceful Emma D'Auban, and Miss Mabel Love, of the "skirts-so movement," both rightly reckoned in the programme as among "the Immortals." Only one fault can be found with the Pantomime, and that is, that there are too many brilliant Stars in it. They can't all of them, each and severally, get an opportunity of showing how he or she can shine in his or her own particular bright way; and so it happens that the earliest scenes, which are less crowded, are the best for fun, though in the latter, and specially in the one just preceding the transformation, there is some capital comic business, and "Little Tich" is at his best in his burlesque of the Skirt Dance. We wonder that this clever diminutive person has never appeared as "the Claimant par excellence." But perhaps his name is not "Tich" at all, and so, on his first appearance on the world's stage, he was not a "Tich-born."
The Extravaganza portion of the Pantomime—formerly styled the "Opening"—gave us great pleasure, and the two "Comic Scenes"—(what are all the preceding ones? Are Campbell, Leno, Williams, and "Little Tich," all tragedians?)—gave us Great Payne—yclept Harry Payne, the good old Conservative "Joey."
If the possibilities, "per variation et mutation" of gorgeous modern Pantomime, are exhausted—"which," as Euclid observes, "is impossible"—except we may "add a rider" (as the Clown in the Circle might observe) that Pantomime is, in itself, a reductio ad absurdum—then, perchance, Sir Druriolanus Magnificus may give us next Christmas a Shorter Opening, say ten Scenes, to be followed by six Harlequinade Scenes, treating, by way of "Review," all the leading topics of Ninety-Three. Nous verrons—at least, such is our hope. And so a Prosperous New Year to Sir Druriolanus, and all his works.