Punch (72.1877)

108

PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI.

[Mauch 10, 1877.

THE WAY OF ALL FISH.

Customer. "Not much Choice to-day!"

Fishwife. " Weel, ye see, Manchester taks a lot, an' the noo a wheen

gang tae anithek place they ca' lent."

MP YAN WINKLE ON HIS ROUNDS.

My Dear Mr. Punch,

It is not often I venture out of my quiet nest in the country, where I
fell asleep many, many, years ago. But when I do wake up it is usually for a
week in Town, and a round of the Theatres. Once I used to dread, while I
craved, the excitement of this sudden transition from long sleep into sudden
life. The rush of novelty was too much for me. But now how different my
experience!

In nine out of ten of the Theatres, if the managers had planned their entertain-
ment to suit my nerves and consult my feelings, they would have put forth just
the bills I see. A hazy halo of anticpuity hovers round these programmes, and
takes off all sharp shock of newness. The first theatre I visited after my last
waking was the Haymarket. I rather doubted the wisdom of beginning with
that dear little, ugly, inconvenient, old home of legitimate comedy. Bucrstone
used to be such a fellow for novelty in his pieces, if not his performers. He
never fell back on the stock old comedies, while there was a lively new one to
be tempted on to the boards "Here," I thought to myself, "I shall be sure
to see a picture of life as it is, fresh, sparkling, and above all, English to the
backbone. But shall I ever be able to stand the shock ?" Judge of my
amazement to find as the piece de resistance of the evening's entertainment a
classical comedy in blank verse, which I remember to have seen produced many
years ago. As it was very fairly acted by some of the men—not all, though, by
any means—and admirably by two of the ladies, in particular, the actress who
played Pygmalion's jealous wife, and the charming ingenue who gave anew
graceto the heroine—the freshest thing by far I have seen in my rounds—I was
not disappointed with my evening, and, on the whole, felt thankful for the
interposition of an old play between my slumberous country existence and the
new histrionic experiences, which must, I felt, be awaiting me in my future
adventures. But lo ! the further I fared, the staler grew the pieces. Original
or adapted, it was all the same. If the English dress was new, the French original
was safe to be old; while, if the English was original, it was of an antiquity
more or less venerable.

Thus, at the Prince of "Wales's, that delightful drawing-room house, which
I have always associated with drawing-room plays of home growth, instead
of a charming comedy of Robertson's, I found myself assisting at the
performance—an admirable one, I am bound to say—of an adaptation from

Sardou's comedy of Les Intimes, an old acquaintance
in its original garb, and adapted more than once already;
in which the French figure showed through the English
dress like a Mossoo masquerading as a Milord.

At the Court, the Strand, and the Folly, I found myself
equally safe from the shock of novelty. Here the staple
of the entertainment was furnished by old friends, two
Haymarket comedies, and one Olympic comedietta,
which I had first enjoyed—I won't say how many years
ago—long before I sank into my country slumber.
True, if good acting can freshen old parts, there was a
great deal of it employed in New Men and Old Acres ;
while Mr. Clarke's breadth of grotesqueness in Beetle,
Miss Lydia Thompson's grace in Mrs. Smylie, and
Mr. Lionel Brough's unexaggerated truth in the north
country manufacturer, Ironstone, gave much effect to
the characters. But they couldn't make old plays new.

At the Adelphi and the Princess's, still in my fearful
search, for novelty, I had to face nothing newer than
two venerable melodramas, which have survived the
shocks of repeated revivals.

Hurrying thence to the Vaudeville, where some years
ago I had seen a most amusing comedy of Mr. Byron's
most excellently acted, you may guess my relief to find
the very amusing comedy btill in the bills, and to learn
that no change in the programme was expected for many
years to come.

At the Globe I was let down as easily by an old bur-
lesque of my evergreen friend Planche's, which I
remember to have laughed at when I was a little boy.

At the Saint James's I was treated to a very well
acted version of a French piece, which had had the
gloss of novelty well taken off here and in Paris, by
Ions: runs in both capitals in its original French.

Even at the Olympic, where the piece ivas new, it
was the dramatised version of a novel that certainly was
not.

My last venture was at the Gaiety, and here, strange
to say, I did find novelty, though in the experienced
hands of an old, old, friend—the Toole that never
seems to lose point or edge, for all its hard work, in the
long intervals between my naps, but looks always, each
time I come upon it at work, as bright and sharp as ever.
Here I saw, in Artful Cards, an English piece, built
up out of an idea suggested by a French one, but Eng-
lish in the cast of its fun, its jokes, dialogue, and treat-
ment of incident; English, above all, in its avoidance of
impurity and impropriety. The shock to my nerves was
sharp, but not insalubrious. I laughed till I cried at
Artful Cards, and since then my sleep has been haunted
by visions of Toole, struggling with a Trombone.
There, too, I saw a Bishop on the stage, who really did
almost as much credit to the Bench, by his excellent
performance on the Boards, as my liberal and large-
minded friend, Dr. Frazer, of Manchester, by his
appearance at the leading Manchester theatres the other
day. This was the only performance that put my nerves
to a severe trial, and showed me there was still some-
thing new to be seen in a London Theatre, a fact which,
but for this, I might have doubted, and gone back to my
repose in the comfortable conviction that on the boards
at least all was as I left it when I fell asleep, I won't
say how many years ago.

Yours sincerely, Rip Redivivus.

Worse and Worse!

Dear Mr. Punch,

Knowing your wise horror of Ritualism, I beg
to direct your attention to a startling novelty in vest-
ments at St. James's, Hatcham, which I cull from this
day's Standard. After the usual free fight, the offertory
alms, says the reporter, " were collected by six of the
Choirmen in red bags " ! Such is the growth of the seed
sown by Mr. Tooth! No wonder the congregation, like
the bulls in Spain, get excited, when they see the Choir-
men walking about in red bags ! I certainly think the
Bishop should write to Mr. Dale. Surely he can be no
party to such proceedings ?

Yours, A Plaintive Protestant.

not wanted.

We regret to see by the evening papers that Oysters are
up again. The Natives have risen at Tangiers !