An "Up to Date" Young Man.
"'TWAS IN TRAFALGAR"'S THEATRE.
As in the case of the old farcical play The Three Hunchbacks, on which an opéra bouffe was founded, and of all plays ancient and modern depending for their success on the exact physical resemblance existing between three distinct persons, directly the audience has grasped the fact, they enter heartily into the humour of the complications. Now, in Tom, Dick and Harry, the audience, having once mastered and allowed the given thesis, viz., that Mr. Charles Hawtrey, Mr. Ernest Percy, and Mr. Arthur Playfair are so exactly alike that even their own wives and sweethearts are unable to distinguish one Antipholus from another Antipholus, and both or either from a third Antipholus, then the fun of the confusion gains upon them, and Mrs. R. Pacheco's three-act farce at the Trafalgar Square Theatre gives the spectators fits, which assume the proportion of convulsions of laughter absolutely dangerous to the safety of various individuals. For this deponent can testify to the effect of the fun of the farce on a small boy in a box, who literally jumped with joy—quite a little Jack-in-the-Box—and in his excitement would have precipitated himself into the stalls, but for the united energies of the family party, which retained him amongst them by sheer force. He had been less wildly enthusiastic about Pickwick, owing, perhaps, to the restraining appearance of Tommy Bardell, whose presence on the stage the Boy in the Box might, perhaps, have been inclined to view with disfavour, though giving a rapturous welcome to Miss Jessie Bond's charming impersonation of Mrs. Bardell, to Mr. Little's life-like Pickwick, and to Mr. Charles Hawtrey's sentimental but sulky Baker. However he made up for any show of envy towards Tommy by cordially applauding Mr. Edward Solomon's catching melodies, which are not less humourously than skilfully orchestrated; and his (I am still speaking of the Boy in the Box) genuine applause throughout the evening quite led that of the house, and was a real treat to witness, culminating as it did in a volcanic eruption of irrepressible joy at the conclusion of the second act of Tom, Dick and Harry. Miss Vane Featherston, the Misses Esmond and Williams, the ever-clever Miss Sophie Larkin, in a difficult part, Mr. W. F. Hawtrey as Dr. Wagner, the Specialist—specially good—and Mr. John Beauchamp, who quite revives the otherwise worn-out peppery stage-Indian General of old Haymarket and Adelphi farces,—all do their very best, and, with Mr. C. Hawtrey,—make the piece what it is, a thorough-going success. At least such is the opinion of
The Other Boy.
THE WESTMINSTER PLAY.
Scene—The Dormitory of St. Peter's College.
For three or four centuries Westminster's taught us
To struggle with Terence and wrestle with Plautus;