Punch: Punch (81.1881)

208

PUNCH, OR THE L

OXDON CHAKIVARI.

[November 5, 1881.

QUEEN ANNE'S DEAD; OR, RALEIGH TOO

BAD OF HIM.

{Memoranda of a Harassing Ainsworfh Night at the Haymarket.)

Two things struck us while seeing Queen and Cardinal. What an
unfortunate thing for an Actress to have inherited the name of Sid-
dons without the Siddons genius, and what a pity it was that an
Author, calling himself Walter S. Kaleig-h, should have done little
more than string together some of the strongest dramatic situations
from Harrison' Ainsworth's Windsor Castle, and should have
produced his indifferent patchwork as a "new and original poetical

4/ty

State Apartments now Open to the Public. Please not to touch the Figures.

historical play," without the slightest acknowledgment of the source
whence he derived his materials. We trace the situations one hy one,
even to the change of Xorrys for Wyat in the scene where Henry
threatens to enter by force if the door he not at once opened to him.
So much for where the idea came from ; it is also rather hard on the
Author that it should ever have entered into Shaespeare's head to
write Henry tlie Eighth.

ACT I.—Lord Surrey composing a Surrey-nade to Geraldine. A
great poet, but, like all great poets, a very bad hand at reciting his
own compositions. Two Jesters enter, both apparently imitating
the tones of the late Mr. Bucksione, and both dismally failing in
playing the fool. There used to be certain dreadfully dull people
called " Shakspearian clowns" in travelling circuses, and these
two may have escaped from some such show. Enter Anne
Boleyn (or Bullaine), who, judging from her make-up and accent,
seems to have been something between Miss Kate Santley in an
Alhambra opera and Mrs. John Wood in an eccentric character,
only without the chic of the one or the fun of the other. Henry
comes in, looking at first as bluff and jovial as possible, but, im-
mediately he begins to talk, the consciousness of having before him
five Acts of the blankest verse dialogue utterly prostrates the poor
man, and the bluffness and joviality of Mr. Ltjigi Labiache as
Henry the Eighth disappeared entirely under the heavy tragedy
cloud which hangs over him, and he smole no more that night.
Someone comes in, and says they've "caught a butcher." (For

details, see Harrison
Ainsworth's first
Chapters of Windsor
Castle.) Whereupon
Henry says, "Hang
the butcher ! " and
then goes off to see the
sentence carried into
effect, or to string him
up with his own hand,
on the principle that,
'' if you want a thing
well done, you must
do it yourself." The
Act finishes with Ka-
therine cursing Anne,
which seems to affect
her very slightly,
Cardinal Cancan and Anna Boleno. though, to make up for

this, it nearly sends
Lord Surrey, the Poet (represented by a very highly-coloured
young contortionist), into violent convulsions.

the Papacy. More Ainsworth dramatised. Anne shows us what
her favourite position is, with her knee on a chair, and generally
looks as if she were going to break out into a song with cancan
dance, as Kate Santley, or to say something droll, as Mrs. John
Wood ; but as she does neither one nor the other, her part, con-
sequently, is a trifle disappointing. She might have had a dance
with Wolsey, but even this Cardinal point was omitted.

ACT TIL, Scene 1.—Between two fools this scene rather comes to
the ground, fall-
ing very flat.
Scene 2.—First
appearance of
1) r. Cranme r
(Mr. Kemble), a
middle-aged per-
sonin black, look-
ing like a comic
countryman,
who, having been
converted, had
taken to the
serious line, and
was doing a Heavy Fall of "Wolsey.

flourishing busi-
ness as an undertaker of the period. The Act ends with the fall of
Mr. Swinburne as Wolsey, which, as the Actor is a man of con-
siderable weight in his profession, might have been attended with
considerable danger to himself and the stage furniture.

ACT IV.—Chiefly remarkable for the idea of the Circus originally
suggested by the "Shakspearian Clown," now being sustained by
Anne, who enters in a wonderful riding-habit,
and carrying the usual fair equestrienne's
switch-whip. General disappointment at no
horse being brought in.
Notable also for the
sudden and startling
appearance of a man
dressed as Grindoff in
The Miller and his Men.
This turns out to be
Anne's lover, Percy,
whose mania for
" dressing up " must
have entirely oblite-
rated any slight sense
of humour he may have
possessed, or he never
could have appeared out
of a Richardson's Show
in such a pair of two-
pence coloured boots, percy Hotspur quite
which, in the palmy per se in his unique
days of Melodrama, im-j»erc?/-nation of
Such a nice Dress to would have been greeted Grindoff in the cele-
Eidein! She's got with three distinct brated old Miller-
'em on. rounds of applause from drama.

the Gallery of the Wic-
torier Theayter. When his beard is off, he turns out to be a very
sheepish sort of person in wolf's clothing; and we feel sure that
had his boots been taken away from him, he would have been
reduced to the merest nonentity. As it was, his boots gave him, so
to speak, a little local colouring, and consequently the audience
were so far—that is nearly up to the knee—satisfied. Could he only
have stood on his head and talked with his boots, this Act might
have drawn all London.

ACT V.—After a front scene in Greenwich Park, where somebody
irritates Henry by singing a common-place hunting song, we come
to

Scene 2.—Room in the Toioer. Perkins (Where's Barclay?)
Here Anne Bullaine enters, very much altered in appearance, _ no
longer like Miss Kate Santley and Mrs. John Wood, but bearing
a strong resemblance to what Mr. Edwin Booth or_ Mr. Hare
might be like if either of them took to fair hair and petticoats. She
is a trifle off her head, in anticipation of her head having to be very
soon off her. She wanders in her mind—but, as Frank Talfourd
said, "she hasn't far to go"—and then she tells us she has been
dreaming of Hever—and might have sung, ilHever of thee I'm
siveetly dreaming "—but she wasn't mad enough for that—and only
talks just a little more nonsense than she has already done through
the four previous Acts.

Eeappearance of the Converted Comic Countryman, who, having
given up undertaking, has dropped his respectable black and gone
in for purple velvet, with fur collar and cuffs, as Archbishop of
Canterbury. He improves the occasion by giving a short but tedious
ACT II.— Wolsey soliloquises about the betting on his chances of sermon, and then there being nothing left for him to say, he looks