DOI issue:
December 6, 1884
DOI Page / Citation link:https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.17757#0272
December 6, 1884,]
265
PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI.
LETTERS TO SOME PEOPLE
About Other People’s Business.
{On the Successful “ Candidate ” at the Criterion.)
My dear Mr. Private Secretary Penley,
You are busily engaged, every night, and twice a week in
the daytime, at the Globe, so you will not be able to see The Candi-
date, recently produced at the Criterion, in which there is also a
Private Secretary, played—and
admirably played, too—by Mr.
Giddens. He is a real serious
Private Secretary, with strong
Radical views, and though I am
of opinion that since you suc-
cessfully succeeded Mr. Beer-
bohm Tree in the character
you are now representing, there
ought to be no Private Secre-
tary in London except yourself,
yet I think that you would
agree with me, and admit, that,
failing the possibility of your
bein? in two places at once,
Mr. Giddens, as a steady-going
contrast to the volatile Mr.
Wyndham, his master, is an
example to all professional
Private Secretaries, and about
the best that can be got at a
price.
The Candidate is a very
smart adaptation of Le Depute
de Bonibignac, which I saw at
the Franpais at Whitsuntide,
and Be Depute was a variation
of the theme of Un Mari d la Carnpagne, which will continue, to
serve as a model, and supply the materials, for all plays whose motive
is the excuse made by a gay husband for absenting himself from a dull
home and a tyrannising mother-in-law. The two Coquelins played
the parts that are here taken by Mr. Charles Wyndham and Mr.
Giddens, but there can be no comparison between the French and
English performance, as the rendering is totally distinct. The
elder Coquelin played the Depute much as Charles Mathews might
have played it. Coquelin cadet made the Secretary a hard, matter-
of-fact, common-place man, without the gentlemanly tone that
characterises Mr. Giddens’ Baffin; and a Private Secretary, who
has been to a public school and a university, should at all events
look like a gentleman, even though he appear as a clerical gentleman,
shouldn’t he ? By the way, why is your Private Secretary attired
as a High-Church Parson ? I suppose the only answer is, that in any
other costume he wouldn’t have been half as funny. However, you
are anxious to know all about The
Candidate, so a nos moutons,—
though if ever a man looked a
mouton on the stage, it is your bath-
bun - devouring, orange - sucking,
nose-wiping Curate known as The
Private Secretary. The perform-
ance of Le Depute was far more
sedate than that of The Candidate,
so that the incidents seemed less
farcical on the stage of the Francais
than at the Criterion. Admitting
that in the Royalist and Republican
hits of the French original there is
not the same interest for a Londoner
as there is in the jokes at the expense
of both Conservatives and Radicals
which form the most telling parts of
the dialogue at the Criterion, I still
think that The Candidate is brighter,
brisker, and, which is, after all, the
real point, far more amusing here
than it was in Paris. For my part,
1 consider The Candidate a vast Mr. C. Wyndham; or, Charles the
improvement on Le Depute. First at the Criterion.
Mr. Mat,try has a sleepy part
in it, very like something else he played in another piece at
this theatre—I forget what—it doesn’t matter ; but he is just
as good as he was then. Mr. Blakeley plays a kind of Aminadab
Sleek, an old-fashioned sort of part, that an audience would
not be nowadays inclined to take to kindly, unless in a piece
as humorous as this, when the ex-Missionary hasn’t much to do, and
nothing turns on his Mawwormish cant. Otherwise, this is a
dangerous character, and he belongs not to Le Depute at all, but to
Un Mari a la Campagne, where, in my opinion, he had better have
been left. The women are well acted, but their characters, from the
nature of the case, are of only secondary importance. Miss Fanny
Coleman is excellent as the snappish Mother-in-law, who would sacri-
fice domestic happiness to her True-blue Tory partisanship. She can
condone any crime in a Conservative ; she cannot pardon a single
fault in a Radical. She. is supposed to be under the thumb of the
oily, codfish-eyed ex-Missionary, Mr. Blakeley,—but how, is not
very clear, and is not strongly insisted on.
Mr. Charles Wyndham has not had such a part for a very long
time, and he is the life and the soul of the piece. Without him I do
not believe that even the sharp rattling dialogue could make it go,
for without him it would lose its persistent brilliancy. Were any
halts and pauses permitted between the flashes of wit, the result
would be weariness. As it is, the piece speeds along at high pressure—
express—from first to last; and 1 am sure Mr. Haavtkey, your
Manager and Author, will be pleased to hear that there isn’t a dull
moment in the two hours’ entertainment, from nine to eleven, at the
Criterion.
I hear that Mr. Beerbohm-Tree, the original representative of
your charac-
ter, has made
a hit as a
■J ourneym an
Baker, — as
you would say.
in the role of
a baker, — in
Mr. Comyns
Carr’s lever
du ndeau at
the Prince’s.
When they
put it later, I
shall go and
see it, unless,
by the way, I
see it first and
then dine af-
terwards. Is
there any Portrait of the Godfather of the Adapted Candidate,
chance of your
Manager giving a Shakspearian matinee ? I should like to see you
as the Apothecary in Borneo and Jidiet, or as Peter, the Nurse's
page, who, because Shakspeare has given him so little of his own
that is fit for ears polite, is obliged to have the part made up out of
what other servants have to say, or else poor Peter wouldn’t have a
dozen lines of his own left for him to speak. This is robbing Peter
and Paul too. But supposing these two parts—Peter and the Apothe-
cary whom Borneo “remembers,”—were in a modern play—say by
Mr. Wills—wouldn’t a Low Comedian of position refuse to play
either of them unless the Author consented to “write them up?”
And would any Manager, in the first instance, offer such parts
to either yourself or Mr. Hill ?—though perhaps Mr. W. J. Hill,
in a part so physically suited to him as that of the Apothecary
(i.e., supposing it occurred in a modern piece by Wills or Herman),
might be induced to undertake it for a consideration, on the chance
of its turning out a great attraction.
No time for any more, as I have to write my own letters, and there
is no Private Secretary for Yours truly, Nibbs.
STAY, PRITHEE STAY!
{From Mr. Punch to Mr. Russell Lowell, on hearing of his intended
return to America, and renouncing his official duties.)
Russell Big-Loav-ell ! Going ! Hay, you won’t.
And we ’re so fond of you. Think twice, and “ Don’t.”
Let some one come your office-work to tackle.
You don’t affect the “ Government by cackle.”
No, Sir, I cacklelate that you can’t fix
Things as you’d have ’em in home politics;
No, you can’t right what’s wrong,—we ’re also sure
That you can’t write what’s wrong in literature.
Big-Low-ell, stay ! No ? Well, since we can’t start with you,
Fare- No, we cannot say it. We won't part with you.
SPINSTER suffrage.
So Mr. Woodall, in the House of Commons, brings forward a
Bill to extend the franchise to Eligible Single Women. What will
be the use of that to them ? The great majority of eligible single
women will very soon cease to be single, and then wedlock will
disqualify them from voting. How, in the meanwhile, to distinguish
the eligible single women from the ineligible ?
265
PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI.
LETTERS TO SOME PEOPLE
About Other People’s Business.
{On the Successful “ Candidate ” at the Criterion.)
My dear Mr. Private Secretary Penley,
You are busily engaged, every night, and twice a week in
the daytime, at the Globe, so you will not be able to see The Candi-
date, recently produced at the Criterion, in which there is also a
Private Secretary, played—and
admirably played, too—by Mr.
Giddens. He is a real serious
Private Secretary, with strong
Radical views, and though I am
of opinion that since you suc-
cessfully succeeded Mr. Beer-
bohm Tree in the character
you are now representing, there
ought to be no Private Secre-
tary in London except yourself,
yet I think that you would
agree with me, and admit, that,
failing the possibility of your
bein? in two places at once,
Mr. Giddens, as a steady-going
contrast to the volatile Mr.
Wyndham, his master, is an
example to all professional
Private Secretaries, and about
the best that can be got at a
price.
The Candidate is a very
smart adaptation of Le Depute
de Bonibignac, which I saw at
the Franpais at Whitsuntide,
and Be Depute was a variation
of the theme of Un Mari d la Carnpagne, which will continue, to
serve as a model, and supply the materials, for all plays whose motive
is the excuse made by a gay husband for absenting himself from a dull
home and a tyrannising mother-in-law. The two Coquelins played
the parts that are here taken by Mr. Charles Wyndham and Mr.
Giddens, but there can be no comparison between the French and
English performance, as the rendering is totally distinct. The
elder Coquelin played the Depute much as Charles Mathews might
have played it. Coquelin cadet made the Secretary a hard, matter-
of-fact, common-place man, without the gentlemanly tone that
characterises Mr. Giddens’ Baffin; and a Private Secretary, who
has been to a public school and a university, should at all events
look like a gentleman, even though he appear as a clerical gentleman,
shouldn’t he ? By the way, why is your Private Secretary attired
as a High-Church Parson ? I suppose the only answer is, that in any
other costume he wouldn’t have been half as funny. However, you
are anxious to know all about The
Candidate, so a nos moutons,—
though if ever a man looked a
mouton on the stage, it is your bath-
bun - devouring, orange - sucking,
nose-wiping Curate known as The
Private Secretary. The perform-
ance of Le Depute was far more
sedate than that of The Candidate,
so that the incidents seemed less
farcical on the stage of the Francais
than at the Criterion. Admitting
that in the Royalist and Republican
hits of the French original there is
not the same interest for a Londoner
as there is in the jokes at the expense
of both Conservatives and Radicals
which form the most telling parts of
the dialogue at the Criterion, I still
think that The Candidate is brighter,
brisker, and, which is, after all, the
real point, far more amusing here
than it was in Paris. For my part,
1 consider The Candidate a vast Mr. C. Wyndham; or, Charles the
improvement on Le Depute. First at the Criterion.
Mr. Mat,try has a sleepy part
in it, very like something else he played in another piece at
this theatre—I forget what—it doesn’t matter ; but he is just
as good as he was then. Mr. Blakeley plays a kind of Aminadab
Sleek, an old-fashioned sort of part, that an audience would
not be nowadays inclined to take to kindly, unless in a piece
as humorous as this, when the ex-Missionary hasn’t much to do, and
nothing turns on his Mawwormish cant. Otherwise, this is a
dangerous character, and he belongs not to Le Depute at all, but to
Un Mari a la Campagne, where, in my opinion, he had better have
been left. The women are well acted, but their characters, from the
nature of the case, are of only secondary importance. Miss Fanny
Coleman is excellent as the snappish Mother-in-law, who would sacri-
fice domestic happiness to her True-blue Tory partisanship. She can
condone any crime in a Conservative ; she cannot pardon a single
fault in a Radical. She. is supposed to be under the thumb of the
oily, codfish-eyed ex-Missionary, Mr. Blakeley,—but how, is not
very clear, and is not strongly insisted on.
Mr. Charles Wyndham has not had such a part for a very long
time, and he is the life and the soul of the piece. Without him I do
not believe that even the sharp rattling dialogue could make it go,
for without him it would lose its persistent brilliancy. Were any
halts and pauses permitted between the flashes of wit, the result
would be weariness. As it is, the piece speeds along at high pressure—
express—from first to last; and 1 am sure Mr. Haavtkey, your
Manager and Author, will be pleased to hear that there isn’t a dull
moment in the two hours’ entertainment, from nine to eleven, at the
Criterion.
I hear that Mr. Beerbohm-Tree, the original representative of
your charac-
ter, has made
a hit as a
■J ourneym an
Baker, — as
you would say.
in the role of
a baker, — in
Mr. Comyns
Carr’s lever
du ndeau at
the Prince’s.
When they
put it later, I
shall go and
see it, unless,
by the way, I
see it first and
then dine af-
terwards. Is
there any Portrait of the Godfather of the Adapted Candidate,
chance of your
Manager giving a Shakspearian matinee ? I should like to see you
as the Apothecary in Borneo and Jidiet, or as Peter, the Nurse's
page, who, because Shakspeare has given him so little of his own
that is fit for ears polite, is obliged to have the part made up out of
what other servants have to say, or else poor Peter wouldn’t have a
dozen lines of his own left for him to speak. This is robbing Peter
and Paul too. But supposing these two parts—Peter and the Apothe-
cary whom Borneo “remembers,”—were in a modern play—say by
Mr. Wills—wouldn’t a Low Comedian of position refuse to play
either of them unless the Author consented to “write them up?”
And would any Manager, in the first instance, offer such parts
to either yourself or Mr. Hill ?—though perhaps Mr. W. J. Hill,
in a part so physically suited to him as that of the Apothecary
(i.e., supposing it occurred in a modern piece by Wills or Herman),
might be induced to undertake it for a consideration, on the chance
of its turning out a great attraction.
No time for any more, as I have to write my own letters, and there
is no Private Secretary for Yours truly, Nibbs.
STAY, PRITHEE STAY!
{From Mr. Punch to Mr. Russell Lowell, on hearing of his intended
return to America, and renouncing his official duties.)
Russell Big-Loav-ell ! Going ! Hay, you won’t.
And we ’re so fond of you. Think twice, and “ Don’t.”
Let some one come your office-work to tackle.
You don’t affect the “ Government by cackle.”
No, Sir, I cacklelate that you can’t fix
Things as you’d have ’em in home politics;
No, you can’t right what’s wrong,—we ’re also sure
That you can’t write what’s wrong in literature.
Big-Low-ell, stay ! No ? Well, since we can’t start with you,
Fare- No, we cannot say it. We won't part with you.
SPINSTER suffrage.
So Mr. Woodall, in the House of Commons, brings forward a
Bill to extend the franchise to Eligible Single Women. What will
be the use of that to them ? The great majority of eligible single
women will very soon cease to be single, and then wedlock will
disqualify them from voting. How, in the meanwhile, to distinguish
the eligible single women from the ineligible ?