Punch: Punch (87.1884)

PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI.

[July 26, 1884.

LETTERS TO SOME PEOPLE

About Other People’s Business. To the Joint Authors of “ The
Ar-Rivals ” on the production of “ Scalded Back ” at the Novelty.

My dear Sees,

You wrote The Ar-Rivals intended to be a travesty on the
now-collapsed Haymarket Rivals, and therefore will appreciate the

skit on Called Back, re-
cently produced at the
Novelty. The Scalded
Back; or, Comini Scars,
you will say, sounds a
better title than it looks in
the programme. I am
inclined to agree with you;
but not everybody is so
happy in the choice of a
title as were you, my dear
Sirs, when you hit on The
Ar-Rivals. The Scalded
Back, by Mr. Yardley,
on its first representation,
“ Making up ” for Eyrie Bellew. was as sure of a good

audience as was Mr. Tat-
ted salt, last Monday week, when he put up for sale fourteen of the
“ Yardley Stud.”

I have been informed that you are out of town, either at one of
Dr. Burney Yeo’s Health Resorts—out with the Yeo-manry, or at
one of Mr. Bernard Becker’s Holiday Huncles,—heg his pardon,
I should have said Holiday Haunts,—or, as a poetical and enthusi-
astic young iriend of mine sings—

“ Pretty girls from the Country are now up in dozens,

And. with their bright presence e’en London enchants.

Who ’ll write us a book about * Holiday Cousins,’

To pair off with Becker’s smart Holiday {TRaunts ? ”

and so I write to tell you about this travesty.

Mr. Yardley, celebrated as a cricketer and athlete, might have
motrtoed his first scene with the initial line of Dickers’s Cricket on
the Hearth—“ Kettle began it,” as the boiling kettle is an essential
“property” (and what’s the use of a title without the necessary
property P), and though you might have something to say against it,
yet I am sure that both you and I would be the last persons to throw
cold water on Mr. Yard-
let’s Scalded Back. No
doubt it will occur to you /yy

that he first thought of
the title, and it having
struck him as a very good

one, he worked the parody Muffin c'_'W

up to the title. Some of ^ l

the lines even you two AN

Gentlemen would, I am
sure, admit are excellent,

while a parody on “ For /- A -•

Ever and for Ever,” sung L A) 3j|g|g|Y A. C1 Jijlr'

as a duet, with true bur- j, j (stall

lesque earnestness by Miss IJ Gnu! iflm1

Lottie Venne and Mr. 1

Harry Nicholes, is one ; «« W

of the best things you’ve 1: jESgfff I | |P

beard for a very long time. VM l| "

At least, so it struck me— - fs^- ||(& WA

specially the turn given to j EH®,

it in the last verse, when '

Mr. Nicholes wants to —^

borrow Miss Yenne’s urn- Mr. Yardley,—Called Back-Yardly,—Scores
hrella, and tells her that one Run off bis own Bat.

when it is once in his

hands she will have lost sight of it “ for ever and for ever.”

The original play is a difficult one to parody, because, firstly, it
is but a poor dramatic story after all, and, secondly, excepYin the
case of Mr. Kyrle Bellew and Mr. Beerbohh Tree, the Actors
have no special mannerisms: and indeed, as to the peculiarities of
the former, they arise from a probably unconscious imitation of
Mr. Irving’s style,—for Mr. Bellew was not “to the manner born,”
—a fact, which, as you will be pleased to see, Mr. Yardley has
carefully noted and turned to account. Mr. Nicholes, when Ms
back is turned, is exactly Kyrle Bellew. His make-up, from a
full-face point of view might, however, have been improved.

Mr. Lambert’s imitation of Mr. Beerbohm Tree’s Macari is
well-intentioned, but you, as parodists, will see at once that the real
fun that could have been got out of this character has been entirely
missed both by the skitter and the skit-actor. In fact, if Mr.
Yardley hadn’t been, apparently, so enamoured of his title,—and he

is not the first who has fallen in love with a title and sacrificed
everything for it,—he would have been less hampered, and would

have produced a still more

But Tou gentlemen liked
Jg&y the title you hit upon of The

Ss»Tjf Ar - Rivals, and didn’t get

much beyond it, did you ?
Which I honestly think was a
JiiK pity, as the Haymarket Edition

mtf of Sheridan's Comedy was

mM simply choke-full of opportu-

Jitf uities for the dramatic parodist.

: MS Sgl But, as you well know, there

vaP wf A ill zM are esseQtials for a good

! 1/iQllHF jPlfwA " dramatic parody; first, the

j f I It M successful original must be

I figHK /d|/played by well-established
r '/ / I /•) r ' favourites, with whose man-

v 1 | j ’ Lii nerisms all playgoers are fami-
ly I ft j liar; and, secondly, the parody

Jj / /, J itself must be played either by

hlJggjl^.. § J 11 j perfect imitators (with, of

I f A course, a true humorous per-

ception of the travestied points),
or by popular comedians whose
Mr. H. Nicholls singing; or, the appearance alone is the signal
Hullah-Bellew Method. tor laughter. . .

It was physically impossible

for Miss Lottie Venne to represent Miss Lixgard, who really has
no very marked mannerism,—nothing, that is, which the general
public recognise, — yet Miss
Venne has contrived to hit
olf certain affectations in
Miss Lingard’s style, and to
reproduce them most delicately.

To sustain such an imitation
would have become monoton-
ous, and so Miss Venue, by
her real intensity and earnest-
ness of purpose, creates a part
for herself. Had the travesty
been confined to four charac-
ters, been limited to one scene,
and played in forty minutes, it
might have run ‘ ‘ for ever and
for ever,” and even now you
will agree with me that the

Athletic Author > likely to Migg Lottie Yetme brings out a

have a very fair innings, even Edition of Lingard,” and brushes up

though all London goes tor its ber jy;emorT_

outings.

I remain, Gentlemen, your friendly, but slight acquaintance,

Nlbbs.

P.S.—“ Slight ” is the word in this weather. Collapsing wisibly.

A STAGE EURTIIER !

[From the Diary of an Open-Air Amateur.)

Just home from the Committee. Bather a stormy meeting, there
being so many conflicting propositions as to what we ought to put up
this time. General consensus, however, that it should be some-
thing exceptionally “ strong.” Hahige of opinion that we could
not give too al fresco a character to it. He is right. I suggested
The Tempest at Margate. Pointed out, if weather were only bad
enough, we could do the first scene splendidly on board the boat
going down, and finish up the rest absolutely on “the Island”
(Thanet). Explained, too, how we could hurry from place to place
afterwards in a fly for change of scene, followed” by the whole audi-
ence in local pleasure vans. But this somehow fell through. Lady G.
was, as usual, for A Midsummer Night's Bream in Begent’s Park,
and Wheezer, the professional, for Hamlet, on Denmark Hill, with,
as he sensibly pointed out, “all the local colouring handy.” But
general apprehension of rheumatism stopped the former, and the
latter, owing to Clave, who is a bit of a lawyer, and would have
played the First Gravedigger, saying he was almost sure, “if they
got meddling with any neighbouring cemetery at night, there
would be disagreeables, and he would, in fact, rather be out of it,”
came eventually to nothing. Finally we settled to do Macbeth near
Dorking. Splendid idea ! I am to Stage-manage, and play Macduff.
Shall go down and look at the “ country ” to-morrow.

* * * * * *

Hard three months’ work, but I think we shall have it aB right.
Stiff Stage-management, though, to get everything ship-shape.