Press Clippings for the week ending
Saturday, 7 June 2003
A random selection of cuttings
from newspapers and magazines
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The Writing on the Wall, |
Sam Emery (Samuel Anderson Emery, 1814-1881), English actor
(photo: Fradelle & Marshall, London, circa 1875)
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'The Adelphi company have opened their annual campaign at the Haymarket with a new drama, which bids fair to attract a numerous audience from among those who dote upon domestic stories of intense interest. The Writing on the Wall is a neatly constructed three-act tale of love and retribution, resulting from a deed of blood, which we are happy to say is all comfortably over before the curtain rises. A murder has been committed within the time-honoured walls of an ancient mansion in Cornwall, and the victim has managed, before drawing his last breath, to inscribe the name of his murderer in letters of blood upon the panelled wall. No phosphorescent paint is had recourse to, to harrow up the feelings of the audience, the inscription is not made visible, and it is therefore only to be imagined. The villain has an accomplice, and as one gets rich, while the other remains poor, they, of course, in the fullness of time, split, from the latter becoming suddenly virtuous. We shall not, however, divulge the plot, which, if it be somewhat intricate, is admirably worked out. The sanguinary hero of the play is performed with vigour and remorseful earnestness by Mr. S. Emery, and his is capitally supported by Mr. Paul Bedford, in the part of a good-tempered professor of thimble-rig [i.e cheating]. His humour is natural and to the point, and elicited much genuine applause. We wish we could say as much of Mr. [Edward R.] Wright, whose appearance in the play is unnatural, and not particularly witty. It is much to be regretted that this actor has not more confidence in his own inimitable powers. He is too dependent on grotesqueness of dress and other absurdities. To secure a laugh in the present play, on his first appearance, he comes in bespattered from head to foot with mud, and is attired in a coat so exquisitely torn into shreds, that it would excite amusement on a tailor's dummy. When this source of merriment is exhausted, Mr. Wright has recourse to a live Newfoundland dog, which runs about the stage after him like the hero of Montargis. Then he lets some live pigs loose, and drives one into the orchestra. The audience are in ecstasies, and the applause is generously divided between Mr. Wright and the pigs. Another fault we have to find with Mr. Wright is his continual habit of swearing, not with big oaths, but with apparently harmless and certainly meaningless little ones, which cannot be in the dialogue of the author[s], and are extremely offensive. We beg of him to read and digest a homily on habitual swearing, quoted in our review last week from Mr. [Charles] Casey's Two Years on the Farm of Uncle Sam [, with Sketches of his Location, Nephews, and Prospects]. The ladies of the piece are efficiently performed by Mrs. Leigh Murray, Miss [Sarah] Woolgar, and Miss [Ellen] Chaplin.'
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The wonderful Donato and his 'Danse avec Manteau,' |
Señor Donto (fl. 1860s), Spanish one-legged dancer
(photo: L. Haase & Co, Berlin, Köln and Breslau, circa 1865)
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'The pantomime of Cinderella at Covent Garden Theatre, written by one of the most experienced authors of the day, who conceals himself under the title of the "Brothers Grimm," is the most brilliant production ever put upon this stage. The subject is happily chosen, and as happily treated. Like the Drury Lane pantomime [Hop o' My Thumb and His Eleven Brothers], it is full of amusement for old and young, and the opening allows the pretty, original story free play, without overlaying it with burlesque writing. Mr. W.H. Payne, as the Baron Pumpoline, and Mr. Frederick Payne as his footman, are provided with several scenes in which their inimitable pantomimic acting is seen to advantage. It would be difficult to find anything more truly humorous of its kind, than a combination of a fantastic hornpipe and an equally fantastic minuet, danced by Mr. Frederick Payne in the Baron's kitchen. The dresses of the ballet are exceptionally rich, in the style of Louis XIV., and the scenery by Mr. T. Grieve is a most tasteful mass of prismatic colour, tinfoil, living figures, and mechanical contrivances. As a contrast to all this gorgeous spectacle, we have one beautiful, calm, moonlight picture, representing the palace gardens of Prince Ugolino, in which all the stage business of Cinderella's fairy equipage is most poetically arranged. The procession of meats and drinks to the banquet is a very grotesque piece of pantomimic invention, and in the comic scenes a huge inflated elephant is played with by clown and pantaloon with singular effect. After the elephant, comes Donato – the great one-legged dancer, and after Donato comes an ingenious three-legged dance by the Paynes – an old pantomimic trick which has not been seen for many years. Much has been written about Donato's dancing, but the most we can say of it is that it enables him to conceal his physical defect. He is a small, good-looking young Spaniard, dressed in a gay crimson velvet dress, a good timist, a good player on the castanets, and a very clever twirler of a cloak, which he uses in what is called a mantle dance. In this dance he spins round with considerable rapidity in the centre of a spiral column formed by the cloak. The leg he has lost is the right one; and the steps he is able to perform with the left leg are necessarily very limited, but he moves from place to place with great ease, and relies much upon that very graceful and incessant motion of the body which is one of the chief characteristics of Spanish dancing. His performance is very ingenious, and is not so painful to look at as we expected it would be. Of course we can have nothing to say in favour of such exhibitions at a first-class theatre. A place like the Alhambra [in Leicester Square] – an acknowledged theatre of varieties – is the proper home for all such oddities. |
An advertisement for Cinderella, the 1864/65 pantomime at Covent Garden, London.
(The London Review of Politics, Society, Literature, Art & Science, London, Saturday, 7 January 1865, p.ia)
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The Dramatic Year in London, 1864. |
Adah Isaacs Menken as Mazeppa
(photo: Sarony & Co, Birmingham, circa 1864)
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'The great Donato case, after occupying the attention of the Lord Chancellor and one of the Vice-Chancellors during the Christmas holidays, has ended in a compromise. Donato's engagement with M. Camille, and M. Camille's engagement with Mr. [Charles] Morton could not be disputed, and the result will probably be that the Oxford Music Hall and Covent Garden Theatre will divide the dancer's one leg between them.' * * * * * * * * An execrable exhibition: a tightrope walker, London, 1869
'The French police, as a consequence of the death of poor Lucas, who escaped from the claws of three lions to die under the care of three doctors, have prohibited wild-beast shows. We think the Police Commissioner of London or the Home Secretary might justly interfere to prevent further exhibitions of the character now to be seen at a place of public entertainment in the vicinity of the Haymarket. * * * * * * * * What is a 'cellar-flap break-down' ?
'We have been asked to explain the meaning of – "cellar-flap break-down," – a technical term which we have applied more than once to burlesque dancing. A "break-down" is a comic negro dance, introduced many years ago in a song called, "Jim along Josey," soon after Mr. [T.D.] Rice made "Jim Crow" popular [about 1830] . This dance so took the fancy of young thieves and street vagabonds, that they practised it incessantly on the wooden flaps of pubic-house cellars – and hence the title. The more the term and the origin of the dance is explain, the more degraded appears a form of entertainment which relies so much upon such a "gaff" [i.e. low or vulgar] attraction.' * * * * * * * *
Three burlesques compared by Judy, London, 1870 |
Emily Fowler (1850?-1896), English actress and singer
(photo: The London Stereoscopic & Photographic Co Ltd, London, circa 1875)
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'Judy has been to the theatre three nights in succession, and has seen three burlesques, and feels very serious. She has listened to Mr. Sala's politics at the Gaiety, to Mr. Gilbert's blank verse at the Olympic, and Mr. Brinsley Sheridan's "gag" at Charing Cross. All three pieces are well worth seeing, and yet there is something very much the matter with each. Some of Mr. Sala's dialogue is here and there somewhat too long-winded, and there is, perhaps, a little too much blankness about some of Mr. Gilbert's verse, and Mr. Sheridan's gag rather interferes with Mr. O'Neil's rhymes. In Mr. Sala's burlesque the vulgar breakdown is very properly done away with; in Mr. Gilbert's dancing of all sorts is wholly eschewed; in Mr. O'Neil's there is as much kicking up as could be desired. In the two former pierces, Judy was told, no dreadful music-hall tunes are to be heard; in the latter they are; but as Judy, in common with other ladies of her acquaintance, does not acknowledge to ever having been inside such places, she cannot be expected to speak with authority. All the costumes at the Gaiety are very beautiful, but no individual dress equals those worn by Miss [Emily] Fowler at Charing Cross, where the other ladies, by the way, are not too gorgeously attired. The dresses at the Olympic are also very bright and pretty, though not to be compared with those at the Gaiety. The acting of Miss [Nellie] Farren at the first house is very good, as is also Miss Fowler's; but Miss [Augusta] Thomson at the Olympic is just delightful. Wat Tyler may be called the old school of burlesque, Abon Hassan [; or, An Arabian Knight's Entertainment] the new fast style, and The Princess [after Tennyson's poem] the new and improved; but we want some other besides these. Mr. Gilbert has done much, but not everything; and Judy hardly thinks, as a monetary speculation, his piece will be found successful. It is not exactly the refinement which seems to be wanted, for it was at the equivocal jokes in Mr. Gilbert's play that there was most applause. Decidedly dancing ought not to be done away with, and those poor music-hall tunes, why, oh, why, are they so very much more vulgar than other popular music used to be before music-halls were built? What do we want? Ah! that is the question. What we don't want, is more easily settled. We don't want half as many words, nor such obscure plots, nor any more puns, nor blank verse; and we don't want everything generally to have been what we have heard or seen ever so many times before. But all three burlesques are worth seeing.' * * * * * * * * Marie Lloyd at the Middlesex Sessions, London, 1917 |
Marie Lloyd (1870-1922), England’s premier music hall comedienne
(photo: Foulsham & Banfield, circa 1915)
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WHAT DID MARIE LLOYD SAY?
'Miss Marie Lloyd appeared at Middlesex Sessions yesterday [Saturday, 22 September 1917] as a witness against Arthur Jackson, who was charged with stealing £5 from her and an electric stove from Mr. George Cohen.
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© John Culme, 2003