A Fairy Godmother (Miss RENÉE KELLY) reduced to tears by the unsusceptibility of her Godchild (MR. OWEN NARES).
The young millionairess, posing as a poor "companion," visits the starveling poet viâ the snow-covered roof and the attic window, bringing food, stoves, coverlets, wool to mend his socks and ideas to mend his opera. Naturally here were opportunities of unlimited business, during which Marjorie (Miss RENÉE KELLY) looked perfectly sweet, as I heard more than one ardent young lady declare to approving lieutenants.
Miss KELLY has indeed all the air of a heroine of honeyed romance. In particular she played one episode, the trying over of a new song, in a winningly natural manner. I found the way in which she flapped her eyelids a subject of puzzled study. I have not observed that maidens in real life indulge in these calisthenics. This is perhaps as well; they are evidently very deadly. Within a fortnight of their being brought into action poet Quintard is in the Kamerad stage. Not Anne Whitfield herself exhibits more explicitly the urgency of the life force, the will to wed.
Mr. OWEN NARES, who has a following more than sufficient to justify his recent assumption of management, gave a very attractive and indeed, within the limits imposed by the piece, a distinguished performance as the proud and hungry poet. An extreme naturalness of pose and intonation, without over-stresses or affectations, characterised this agreeable study. Mr. HOLMAN CLARK, that finished actor in the bland manner, very adroitly, as I have hinted, settled the mood of the piece and made the good appear the better line and the ordinary line good. Mr. SYDNEY VALENTINE had a Valentine part ready made. It would take more than an indisposition, which he pluckily ignored, to put him off his stroke. Mr. TOM REYNOLDS was effective as a maudlin serving-man who had once butled a real gentleman and could never forget it. Miss ANNIE ESMOND gave a depressingly clever rendering of a quite unbelievably appalling landlady.
Altogether a pleasant wholesome evening's entertainment. Young men and maidens of our day needn't hesitate to take their parents.
"ST. GEORGE AND THE DRAGONS."
There is much more of the substance of wit and truth in Mr. EDEN PHILLPOTTS' "Devon comedy" at the Kingsway. The St. George of the title is not the Cappadocian, but that somewhat irreverent Father in God, St. George Loftus, Bishop of Exeter; the dragons are two quite unsuitable suitors for the hands of Monica and Eva (daughters of his dull old friend, Lord Sampford), who don't believe in class distinctions. Monica's young man is the son of a yeoman farmer, personable, certainly, on horseback and of a blood older than the Sampfords', but an essential resilient, and altogether impossible when playing the concertina or after mixing his drinks (or both). Eva's follower is a brilliant raw young man from Glasgow, recently ordained, with professional ambitions as pronounced as his accent.
The parents try the now exploded method of direct opposition. St. George's weapons are smooth words and a heart chokefull of guile. Does his god-daughter Monica want to elope with her yeoman? By all means let love have his sacred way. But his lordship will contrive in the rôle of a strayed and bogged fisherman to be at Stonelands Farm before the young couple arrive en route for London and the registry-office, and he will see to it that Monica learns what the daily life of a working farmer is like, and what the beer (or bad champagne for festal occasions) and rabbit pie in the kitchen; with sudden frank explanations as to the imminence of the crisis in the interesting condition of Snowdrop the Alderney; what, too, is the Stonelands' notion of music and the dance, with Teddy's braying concertina and cousin Unity's quavering treble and the ragged bass and candid speech of old Caunter, the head man.... So much for Monica.
And Eva thinks she wants to tie herself to this crude Glaswegian. Well, here it will be best to insinuate to the young man how unfortunate it is that the vacant chaplaincy to the Bishop of Exeter is designed for a celibate, and to the young woman that to marry so brilliant (and ingenuous) a youth is to hang a millstone round his neck. For, after all, muses the prelate, revealing dreadful depths of low cunning and perfidy, it's easier to change a chaplain than a husband.