THEATRE REVIEWS

5. A Society Butterfly (1894) to The Mariners of England (1897)

A Society Butterfly from The Times (11 May, 1894 - p.5)

OPERA COMIQUE THEATRE.

     Mrs. Langtry made one of her occasional appearances as an actress, last night, at the Opera Comique in a play entitled A Society Butterfly, which appears to have been expressly written for her by Messrs. Robert Buchanan and Henry Murray. The motive of the play is simplicity itself. A young wife, who has been reading Dumas’ “Francillon,” is advised to pay out her husband for his attentions to another woman. Accordingly, she “goes the pace” in “smart society” under the protection of a horsey duchess, who at heart is anxious for her welfare. She is to be seen everywhere, takes part in private theatricals and tableaux vivants, and has her name compromisingly coupled with that of a raffish army officer, technically known as a “wrong ‘un.” Upon the husband, who for his part has been compromising himself with an American widow, these tactics have the desired effect, and the curtain is brought down upon a scene of conjugal reconciliation. the play went to pieces in the third act, where a variety entertainment is given in the form of a scene within a scene for  the purpose of enabling Mrs. Langtry to appear in a pose plastique. Ominous murmurs of dissatisfaction were heard from the popular parts of the house, and as the fourth act was necessarily of a merely explanatory character, the same discontent was manifested at the fall of the curtain. Mrs. Langtry’s somewhat intermittent attention to the stage has not tended to her improvement as an actress; but en revanche her gowns and her diamonds are magnificent. The best acting in the piece is that of Miss Rose Leclercq as the Newmarket duchess with a copious vocabulary of racing slang: but Mr. F. Kerr, Mr. Edward Rose, and Mr. William Herbert furnish agreeable though conventional “Society” types, and there is, generally, an ample and well-attired personnel operating on a well-appointed stage.

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     Mlle. Jane May, who has won some reputation in London as an exponent of wordless play, presented a new pantomime last night at the Tivoli. The title of this, Mr. Galatea, is sufficiently explanatory. A statue comes to life, falls in love with a fellow-statue, and breaks it in his embrace, and is then condemned to remount his pedestal and be changed into stone again. The little story is prettily told in dumb show. Mlle. Jane May concludes her performance by giving realistic imitations of Mme. Sarah Bernhardt.

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A Society Butterfly from The Scotsman (14 May, 1894 - p.7)

     “A SOCIETY BUTTERFLY.”—After the performance of Mr Robert Buchanan and Mr Henry Murray’s new play at the Opera Comique on Friday night, the manager asked the audience not to leave their seats, as Mr Buchanan wished to say a few words. Mr BUCHANAN then came on the stage, and advancing to the footlights, made a speech violently attacking Mr Clement Scott for a criticism of “A Society Butterfly,” adding—“A cabal was there to insult and terrify a helpless woman. Throughout the play an attempt was made to twist every inherent reference into a personal imputation, and when the third act terminated weakly and feebly through a mishap, the cabal howled and hooted at the leading actress, who was in no way responsible for what had occurred.” After some further remarks, Mr Buchanan said, “You have now seen the play for yourselves, and we leave it for your good or your bad opinion.” Mr Buchanan quitted the stage amidst loud and sustained cheers. Mr HENRY MURRAY remained behind, and said—”Ladies and gentlemen, I have no word to say except that I cordially endorse every word Mr Buchanan has spoken.” Following on Mr Murray’s withdrawal from the stage there were loud calls for Mrs Langtry, who was received with much enthusiasm. Mr Clement Scott on Saturday, in an interview with a representative of the Westminster Gazette on the subject, said:—“Mr Buchanan has done it before, and I have no doubt he will do it again; but we have managed to remain good friends in spite of it all, and I daresay we shall continue to remain so. It pleases him and doesn’t hurt me. No, I don’t suppose I shall take any further notice of it unless my solicitors advise me otherwise, which is not very likely. Of course,” continued Mr Scott with a smile, “what Mr Buchanan says is preposterously untrue, but that is really one reason why it is not necessary to take serious notice of it. Talk of that sort carries with it its own refutation.”

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A Society Butterfly from The Penny Illustrated Paper (19 May, 1894 - p.10)

     Notwithstanding the censure with which the new comedy of “A Society Butterfly,” at the Opéra Comique, has been dismissed by the Press, rousing the emphatically expressed indignation of the authors, Mr. Robert Buchanan and Mr. Henry Murray, (the former of whom assailed Mr. Clement Scott in unmeasured and injudicious and uncalled-for terms for his criticism in the Daily Telegraph), I yet hold that the play might with slight amendment be transformed into a biting and perhaps popular satire of London Society of the present day. As presented on the first night, “A Society Butterfly” was a weak piece, manifestly of insufficient interest to grip the audience. Mrs. Langtry, arrayed in a series of charming frocks or classic robes, formed the centre of attraction. She was a Mrs. Dudley, who, jealous of an American lady with whom her husband flirts, resolves to pay him back in his own coin, and “carries on” to such an extent with a free-and-easy Captain Belton at some Society tableaux vivants, even venturing to rehearse with him in private, garbed as Aphrodite, that Mr. Dudley becomes furious, and gives up his flirtatious habits in double quick time. Finding Captain Belton disinclined to elope with her, Mrs. Dudley returns to her husband’s arms, and so ends the play. Compared with the beautiful “living pictures” at the Palace and Empire Variety Theatres, the tableaux vivants in “A Society Butterfly” were tame. But the costly and exquisite costumes of Mrs. Langtry excited the admiration of fair spectators. As the racy Duchess of Newhaven, Miss Rose Leclercq, with her Turf slang, and in her jaunty Newmarket coat, won chief acting honours; and as the rivals for Mrs. Dudley’s affections Mr. William Herbert and Mr. F. Kerr performed their parts well; while Mr. Edward Rose supplied the humour of the piece; and Miss E. Brinsley Sheridan made a brilliant Mrs. Courtlandt Parke. Mr. E. G. Banks painted a very beautiful riverside scene for the first act; and a P.I.P. Artist sketched the principal scene in “A Society Butterfly,” which has occasioned so lively a controversy. Mr. Clement Scott, through his warm laudation of the theatre and all its works—or a great proportion of them—has contributed so much to the popularity of playgoing that dramatists who fall foul of the Drama's best journalistic friend must assuredly be woefully misled by temporary aberration. So cordially was Mr. Clement Scott sympathised with that the enthusiasts of the Playgoers’ Club gave him quite an ovation at the Adelphi last Saturday night.

Back to the Bibliography or the Plays

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Reviews of Lady Gladys are available on the Buchanan’s Theatrical Ventures In America page.

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The Strange Adventures of Miss Brown from The Times (27 June, 1895 - p.6)

VAUDEVILLE THEATRE.

     The humour of Charley’s Aunt has proved contagious. Another young gentleman is now masquerading in women’s clothes on the stage: for this is the theme of The Strange Adventures of Miss Brown, given last night at the Vaudeville at the instance of Mr. Robert Buchanan and Mr. Charles Marlowe. It is a theme necessarily bordering upon the vulgar or the risky, but it is handled by the authors, and by the false “Miss Brown” herself—namely, Mr. Frederick Kerr—with sufficient tact to pass muster; and the cordiality of its reception by the first-night public augurs a successful run for the piece. Among the young ladies attending a select boarding establishment is a certain ward in Chancery who has profited by some laxity of discipline to get married to a gallant captain in the Army. The escapade is almost immediately discovered, and Miss Angela—for such is the young lady’s name—brought back to school. The Lord Chancellor, however, has to be reckoned with,  and a Scotland-yard detective is deputed to arrest the male offender. Meanwhile, the captain, with the connivance of a brother officer, makes up in female attire as “Miss Brown,” and obtains admission to the establishment as a boarder also, in order to be near his bride and to plan an escape for both. It is at this juncture that the somewhat broad fun of the piece attains its maximum. Mr. Kerr, who has the interim management of the theatre, adopts as his rather transparent disguise a ludicrous short-skirted school frock, with a sailor hat and a flaming head of red hair, and his movements are a source of continued merriment to the house. Although the bride has no difficulty in penetrating the secret, the other young ladies, together with the detective, are deceived, and even the lady principal of the school observes nothing amiss with the new pupil except that she is a little gauche. Eventually the nocturnal escape is planned, and so far carried out that both the detective and an amorous German music-master, who is on the watch to protect his favourite pupil, are overpowered in a scrimmage which brings all the inmates of the school upon the scene, with candles and in their night-dresses. In the third and last act the terrible “Miss Brown,” who has done prodigies of athleticism, is brought back to the school handcuffed but still undetected as to her sex, the charge being that of aiding and abetting the bride to escape; and when at last the dread discovery is made that “Miss Brown’s” box is full of male clothing, and that she is in truth the captain in disguise, it is reported that she or he has just succeeded to a peerage—a circumstance which it is thought will mollify the Lord Chancellor, and which consequently allows of a happy ending. Mr. Kerr’s disguise is humorous enough to dispense him from saying much, which is fortunate, seeing that he is quite unable to adapt his voice to the situation; but there is otherwise an abundance of dialogue, which, if not as polished as one might expect in a piece to which Mr. Buchanan had put his name, is at least on a level with the subject. Miss May Palfrey makes a bright and engaging bride, and the piece enjoys the services, further, of Mr. Lionel Brough as the detective; Miss M. A. Victor as the lady principal; Miss Esmé Beringer as an amorous pupil who unaccountably takes to the companionship of “Miss Brown,” thereby arousing the bride’s jealousy; Mr. Beauchamp as the brother officer; and Mr. Gilbert Farquhar as an elderly solicitor.

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The Strange Adventures of Miss Brown from The Guardian (27 June, 1895 - p.7)

     “The Strange Adventures of Miss Brown,” produced this evening at the Vaudeville Theatre, is an attempt by Messrs. Robert Buchanan and Charles Marlowe to “go one better” than “Charley’s Aunt.” Captain Courtenay, a cavalry officer, has married a ward in Chancery, but the minions of the law have got on his track on the very day of the wedding, and he has been obliged to disguise himself in female attire in order to elude them. The bride is sent back to the boarding school from which she has run away, and the success of the gallant captain’s disguise suggests the idea that he should assume it once more in order to rejoin his wife in the seclusion of Cicero House and carry her off therefrom. The style of situation which results from this imbroglio may readily be divined. The authors have steered tolerably clear of the offensive possibilities of such a theme, but on the other hand they have shown very little invention in the development of their idea. The audience, however, was in excellent humour, and laughed and applauded liberally. Mr. Fred Kerr, who has taken over the management of the theatre, played the supposed Miss Brown; Miss May Palfrey was very bright as the schoolgirl bride; Mr. Lionel Brough was good as an idiotic detective; and other parts were cleverly played by Mr. Beauchamp, Miss Gladys Homfrey, and Miss Esmé Beringer.

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The Strange Adventures of Miss Brown from The New York Times (3 December 1895)

A FARCE AT THE STANDARD.

“The Strange Adventures of Miss Brown” Is a Bit Queer.

     There was some difficulty in determining whether it was a theatrical performance, in the ordinary sense of that term, or an extremely large family party that took place at the Standard Theatre last evening. Everybody in the audience seemed to know somebody on the stage, and to take a most cordial and personal interest in his or her—especially her—success. Indeed, so complete and obvious was the sympathy between the people behind the footlights and those in front of them that a close observer almost fancied at moments that the two divisions looked alike. Of course, that must have been merely an optical illusion, but it gave one the sense of being present at an amateur instead of a professional effort to prove that “The Strange Adventures of Miss Brown” is an amusing farce, and that its importation from London was a wise proceeding. In the cast, however, were John T. Sullivan, Harry Brown, Ellen Burg, Jennie Satterlee, and two or three other people with familiar names, and therefore the amateur idea must have been as entirely without foundation as was that in regard to the resemblance.
     As for the piece, it is a manifest attempt to glean again the field from which “Charley’s Aunt” reaped so rich a harvest and from which “The New Boy” managed later to pick up enough grain to make a meagre sheaf or two. It is not so good as either of its predecessors, being more complex than either of them, quite without the serious thread of feeling which ran through the first and destitute of even the faint measure of possibility which the second possessed. It is, too, full of long speeches that are a weariness to flesh and attention alike, but these speeches are well written and every one of them contains “points” which one suspects are capable of producing both applause and laughter. Last night, a good many of these points produced no impression whatever, for, as already intimated, the people present were rather spectators than auditors and gave their very generous approval to individuals instead of to the work of those individuals or that of the authors. This was a fact decidedly confusing for such critics, if any were there, as tried to get a hint from the behavior of their neighbors as to whether the new farce is going to be a failure or a success. Perhaps it is safe to say, however, that “The Strange Adventures of Miss Brown” may win something of popular favor if the present company, or another, can be persuaded to play it with about three times the present speed of speech and action, and it is certainly not dangerous to declare that unless this end can be attained the farce will flicker for a little while and then go quietly out, leaving only a thick financial darkness in somebody’s pocket to serve as its only monument.
     The story of the play was published Sunday and was doubtless read then by all whom it would be likely to interest. As such stories go, there is no particular fault to be found with it. There are a few passages which an especially Young Person might criticise with an exclamatory “Isn’t that horrid!” but even these are quite harmless. The authors—Mr. Robert Buchanan, with whose previous work every theatregoer is familiar, and a C. Marlowe about whom nothing is known except that he is not the original Kit or the original Charles—have relied almost wholly upon the old expedient of putting a young officer in skirts for their humorous effects. Mr.Sullivan, who played this rôle last evening, has often proved both his talent and his intelligence, but he failed to strike the right key even for a moment and was much more grotesque than amusing in his blue gown and long red curls. His presence among the schoolgirls woke no thrill of apprehension, for his mannishness was far too insistent to deceive even the simplest of damsels for a moment. Mr. Brown, as an Irish Major, was mysteriously ineffective, for it was hard to see what his acting lacked to produce conviction, but lack it did to a decided extent. Miss Satterlee, as his wife, warm-hearted and impulsive, came much nearer hitting the mark. Miss Burg made a gently admirable object for the gallant young Captain’s plot and affection, while Louis Mann earned and won, in a single scene, hearty applause for his portrayal of a queer little music teacher with Paderewski hair and a soulful German accent. There was, too, a Miss Schwartz of Demerara—why of Demerara?—a bevy of particularly fresh and pretty girls assisted her in filling the school parlor with pleasing spectacles. Mr. Herbert Sparling played a conventionally impossible man from Scotland Yard, and there were others—as the following cast indicates:

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The Strange Adventures of Miss Brown from The Times (24 September, 1901 - p.4)

COURT THEATRE.

     It would be expounding the obvious to give the reasons why actors in petticoats are generally felt to be a nuisance on the stage. The point presented itself only the other day in connexion with a farce now running at the Shaftesbury Theatre. But there are exceptional cases wherein an atmosphere of frank schoolboy fun deodorizes the dangerous subject. Thus there was not a particle of offence in Charley’s Aunt; nor is there a particle in The Strange Adventures of Miss Brown. This farce, written by the late Mr. Robert Buchanan in collaboration with “Charles Marlowe,” was produced at the Vaudeville some half-dozen years ago, had, if we remember rightly, a successful career, and has now been revived at the Court. It is a very slight and unpretentious trifle, which presumably owes its reappearance to the circumstance that the Court managers are in need of a stopgap, and that one of them, Mr. Frederick Kerr, remembers that he once played “Miss Brown” himself. But that was in his salad days, and now he is content to resign the part of the cavalry captain masquerading as a schoolgirl to that versatile young actor Mr. R. C. hertz, who will, we are sure, be found sufficiently amusing in it by those playgoers whom such things amuse at all. Miss Joan Burnett, who will be remembered for her charming sketch of the little Scotch lassie in The Wedding Guest, plays the gallant captain’s schoolgirl sweetheart; Miss Mabel Hardinge succeeds Miss Esmé Beringer as the passionate young lady from Demerara; and Mr. John Beauchamp resumes his old part of Major O’Gallagher. We give these details pro memoria rather than for their intrinsic importance. he one important point is, as we have said, that the farce is wholly inoffensive; and it was greeted with hearty laughter last night.

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Tulip Time from The Times (15 August, 1935 - p.8)

THE ALHAMBRA.

“TULIP TIME”

     An adaptation by WORTON DAVID and ALFRED PARKER of a play by ROBERT BUCHANAN and CHARLES MARLOWE. Music by COLIN WARK.

     The State of Vanderleue, in which the scene is laid, has, though itself imaginary, a certain variable affinity with Holland—a canal, for example, that enables those who are in maritime mood to enter by barge, an abundance of windmills chiefly poised on mountains that rise in abundant purple from the dykes, and, of course, tulips. Not natural tulips, alas, but female and choral tulips, lavishly limelit, and so fussy, so mixed, so messy in their imitation of that sculptural flower that the ballet in which they are engaged is more like an ice-cream vendor’s dream of a mixed drink than any bed of tulips within our fevered recollection.
     In this décor the humour rages and an assembly of tap-dancing policemen beat their agile feet. Two men (Mr. Bernard Clifton and Mr. Steve Geray) dress up as young girls, and make their way into a girls’ school, conducting themselves there with a propriety assured to nervous devotees of Byron by a marriage in the first act. Miss Jean Colin prettily decorates the heroine’s romance; Mr. George Gee sings songs and tells nursery stories with what spirit a man may in affliction; Miss Ena Grossmith, Miss Joan Fred Emney, and Miss Sydney Fairbrother do their best, and the brass in the band is brazen. That the entertainment may please those for whom it is intended is suggested by the applause, and must be recorded; but this is no consolation to those of us who, as each joke thuds upon us, are tempted to cry out: “But surely this is very bad, even in its own kind!”

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Tulip Time from The Observer (18 August, 1935 - p.11)

The Week’s Theatres.
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Alhambra.

“TULIP TIME.”

An adaptation by Worton David and Alfred Parker of a play by
Robert Buchanan and Charles Marlowe. Music by Colin Wark.
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     The head-mistress of the academy for young ladies, in whose dormitories the heart of this hullaballoo raged, confessed that she hardly knew whether her establishment was a girls’ school or a night club. We shared her uncertainty. But when tulip time is delayed until August, anything may happen in such a school, from flying pigs to strange bedfellows. They happened here.
     The tulip fields on which the curtain joyfully rose were certainly florid. Hills peeped o’er hills, with windmills dutifully thick upon them; and the middle distance of this imaginary State of Vanderleue was as unlike sober Holland as musical comedy scene-painters could make it. But in such entertainment, only pedants would desire topographical, ethnological and other local niceties.
     Picturesquely speaking, the prettiest notes, I thought, were those struck by the little scarlet jacket in which Miss Sydney Fairbrother so tactfully concealed the fact that her part was a thin one, and the poses of Miss Wendy Toye and her cavalier, Mr. Frederic Franklin, in a ballet scena that defies kind description. These rare gestures to beauty acknowledged, one may approach the major issues of an entertainment that was out above all to amuse, and at moments heartily succeeded.
     The plot achieved its most shattering stroke when Messrs. George Gee, Bernard Clifton, and Steve Geray—three ill-assorted members of a flying mess—sought escape from a matrimonial mess via the petticoats and mature and nubile simpers of a matron and her two daughters. Their arrival at the academy, the enrolment of the “girls,” and the havoc they caused there may be taken for granted. It is difficult to say which was the more absurd, Mr. Gee’s sophisticated chic, as the mother, or Mr. Geray’s cleverly assumed Fifth Form gaucherie. More certain were the uproar that ensued when the two new “girls” were bedded down for the night, and the valiant efforts of the entourage to skate over the thin ice of thawing farce without falling in.
     A tap-dancing, ditty-abetting chorus of schoolgirl-cooks and aeronaut-policemen punctuated the narrative disorder with dutiful vigour, or ran about among us, up and down the Alhambra aisles, band-provoked and spot-light conducted. Miss Jean Colin steadied the heroine’s solos, and Miss Ena Grossmith reminded us of what a good clown she can be in happier circumstances.
     The show has noise vigour, too much colour, and the rough kind of seasonable fun this large popular house enjoys. It makes no advance in over-explored territory, but marks time there with dust-raising confidence. The music seemed reminiscent, the dialogue subservient to the patter, and the patter at the mercy of the experienced comedians who did it justice. A full house enjoyed it all thoroughly.

                                                                                                                                                H.H.

Back to the Bibliography or the Plays or Harriett Jay Reviews

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The Romance of the Shopwalker from The Stage (6 February, 1896 - p.11)

     When I announced that either The Shop Walker or Good Old Times, both by Robert Buchanan, would be the next production at the Vaudeville, the dramatist, with Charles Reade-like vigour, laboured me with abuse – in another paper. Now, however, it appears that The Shopwalker, re-christened The Romance of a Shopwalker, is to be produced on or about Thursday, the 20th inst. The piece is described as a three-act comedy-drama, and the Shopwalker with a romance will be played by Mr. Weedon Grossmith. Others in the cast are: Messrs. Sydney Warden, David James, who is entrusted with a Scotch part (in which he should make a hit), Misses Annie Hill, Nina Boucicault, Talbot, M. A. Victor, and Mrs. Weedon Grossmith (Miss May Palfrey), who will make her welcome reappearance as the heroine.

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     The Romance of a Shopwalker has been written by Robert Buchanan and “Charles Marlowe,” the latter nom de guerre standing, I think, for clever Miss Harriett Jay.

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The Romance of the Shopwalker from The Times (27 February, 1896 - p.10)

VAUDEVILLE THEATRE.

     The story of a sudden accession of wealth has been employed in many forms by novelists and dramatists of many calibres, from the author of Money downwards, and Mr. Robert Buchanan and his collaborator “Charles Marlowe” (who, when these authors were called last night, proved to be Miss Harriett Jay) have not done amiss in returning to it in The Shopwalker. The time has certainly come when the once familiar story may be told again. It is to be regretted that the authors of The Shopwalker should not have told it better; but there is in this piece, nevertheless, a considerable proportion of the elements that appeal to popular taste. The personage selected for the subject of the experiment of a sudden elevation to wealth is a draper’s assistant, one Thomas Tomkins, who provides Mr. Weedon Grossmith with excellent material for a character sketch, somewhat overdrawn of course, but only the more amusing for that. Tomkins inherits £20,000 a year. In his shop he has ventured, un ver de terre amoureux d’une étoile, to fall in love with a young lady of title who occasionally does business with his firm. This is no other than Lady Evelyn, daughter of the Earl of Doverdale—a part played with the necessary distinction by Miss May Palfrey. For the time being Tomkins’s passion is hopeless, but the death of a wealthy uncle, who leaves him all his property, places him theoretically on a level with the highest in the land. Unfortunately, with all his wealth Tomkins remains a cad of the purest (if not the dirtiest) water, and his suit obtains only the most superficial success. The Lady Evelyn’s affections are placed elsewhere. So, for the matter of that, are Tomkins’s; for in the end the little draper wisely renounces his claims to the hand of the aristocrat and returns to a humble sweetheart with whom he had “kept company” in his shopwalking days. But this is not accomplished until he has had the mortification of being defeated as a candidate for the Parliamentary representation of a local borough. The rough humours of the election fill out the third and last act, but they are not of an exhilarating nature, and they rather accentuate the tendency of the story to drag. It is a pity that the character of the enriched shopwalker should not per se be more interesting than it is; for Mr. Weedon Grossmith elaborates it with infinite care. The authors, however, feel the necessity of developing the sympathetic side of Tomkins’s nature; and accordingly, after renouncing Lady Evelyn’s hand, the little draper makes her a present of her ancestral property which has become his under a mortgage. Miss May Palfrey, Mr. Sydney Warde, Mr. Sydney Brough, and Miss Nina Boucicault sustain with spirit and distinction the aristocratic personnel of the piece; and a strikingly correct study of a Scotch character is given by Mr. David James, as the exalted draper’s man of business, Sandy M’Collop. Miss Annie Hill plays the humble sweetheart with becoming naiveté. The reception of the piece was favourable.

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The Romance of the Shopwalker from The Guardian (27 February, 1896 - p.5)

     Mr. Robert Buchanan and “Charles Marlow”—who now stands revealed in the person of Miss Harriet Jay—have written for Mr. Weedon Grossmith an old-fashioned but pleasant and entertaining comedy, produced at the Vaudeville this evening under the title of “The Romance of the Shop-Walker.” It may be briefly described as Samuel Warren’s “Ten Thousand a Year” with a sympathetic instead of an unsympathetic Tittlebat Titmouse. Mr. Weedon Grossmith plays the millionaire shopwalker with a great deal of humour and, at the close, not without a touch of pathos. Miss May Palfrey is pleasant as the haughty damsel who is on the point of marrying him because his villanous  has led her to believe that if she does not he will ruin her impecunious father, and Mr. David James is excellent as the said villanous henchman. Other parts are played by Mr. Sydney Brough, Miss Nina Boucicault, Miss Annie Hill, and Miss M. A. Victor. The play was much applauded, and the call for the authors was unanimous.

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The Romance of the Shopwalker from The Penny Illustrated Paper (29 February, 1896 - p.3)

"The Romance of the Shopwalker."

     In the novel of “Ten Thousand a Year,” fortune suddenly smiles upon one of humble origin. The authors of the new Vaudeville play (MM. Robert Buchanan and Charles Marlowe) have doubled that amount, and it is to the tune of £20,000 a year that Thomas Tomkins, his soul “rising and fermenting” beneath his romantic waistcoat, proudly steps into “high life.” His imagination fired by novelette-reading, he no longer deigns to notice sweet Dorothy, daughter of the owner of the Dorking Bon Marché, but aspires to the hand of Lady Evelyn, who naturally prefers her cousin, Captain Dudley. Very amusingly are the pretentious Tomkins and his plebeian mother held up to ridicule. Much fun is made of the snobbish hero’s standing for Parliament; and a good point secured by his access of generosity to Lady Evelyn, and his ultimate pairing with Dorothy. As mother and son, Miss M. A. Victor and Mr. Weedon Grossmith are fairly in their element. Mr. David James makes a hit as MacCollop, the designing Scot. Needless to add, Miss May Palfrey charms everyone as Lady Evelyn, for this fair young actress is one of the prettiest and most captivating ladies on the stage. With Miss Palfrey may be coupled the fascinating Dorothy of Miss Annie Hill and the Lady Mabel of Miss Nina Boucicault; and Mr. Frederick Volpé and Mr. Sydney Brough make their mark as the proprietor of the Bon Marché and the lucky Captain of this exceedingly droll and diverting comedy.

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The Romance of the Shopwalker from Dramatic Opinions and Essays - Volume One by George Bernard Shaw (New York: Brentano’s, 1906 - p. 354-356)

The Romance of the Shopwalker: a new and original comedy. By Robert Buchanan and Charles Marlowe. Vaudeville Theatre, 26 February, 1896.

     I was so sternly reproved for my frivolity in rather liking “The Strange Adventures of Miss Brown,” that I hardly dare to confess that I got on very well also with “The Shopwalker.” I am as well aware as anybody that these Buchanan-Marlowe plays (Marlowe is a lady, by the way) are conventional in the sense that the sympathy they appeal to flows in channels deeply worn by use, and that the romance of them is taken unaffectedly from the Alnaschar dreams of the quite ordinary man. But allow me to point out that this sort of conventionality, obvious and simple as it seems, is not a thing that can be attained without a measure of genius. Most of the plays produced in the course of the year are attempts to do just this apparently simple thing; and most of them fail, not because they aim at realizing the vulgar dream, giving expression to the vulgar feeling, and finding words for the vulgar thought, but because, in spite of their aiming, they miss the mark. It seems so like missing a haystack at ten yards that many critics, unable to believe in such a blunder, write as if the marksman had accomplished his feat, but had bored the spectators by its commonness. They are mistaken: what we are so tired of is the clumsy, stale, stupid, styleless, mannerless, hackneyed devices which we know by experience to be the sure preliminaries to the bungler’s failure. Now Mr. Buchanan does not miss his mark. It is true that he is so colossally lazy, so scandalously and impenitently perfunctory, that it is often astonishing how he gets even on the corner of the target; but he does get there because, having his measure of genius, it is easier to him to hit somewhere than to miss altogether. There is plenty of scamped stuff in “The Shopwalker”: for example, the part of Captain Dudley is nothing short of an insult to the actor, Mr. Sydney Brough; and a good half of the dialogue could be turned out by a man of Mr. Buchanan’s literary power at the rate of three or four thousand words a day. Mr. Pinero or Mr. Jones would shoot themselves rather than throw such copious, careless, unsifted workmanship to the public. But the story is sympathetically imagined; and nearly all the persons of the drama are human. One forgives even Captain Dudley and Lady Evelyn as one forgives the pictures of lovers on a valentine. Mr. Buchanan does not count on your being a snob, and assume that you are ready to sneer at the promoted shopwalker and his old mother: he makes you laugh heartily at them, but not with that hateful, malicious laughter that dishonors and degrades yourself. Consequently there is, for once, some sense in calling a popular play wholesome. All I have to say against “The Shopwalker” is that there is hardly any point on which it might not have been a better play if more trouble had been taken with it; and that a little practical experience of the dramatic side of electioneering would have enabled the authors greatly to condense and intensify the scene in the last act, where the shopwalker, as Parliamentary candidate, produces his mother. It is a mistake, both from the electioneering and poetic point of view, to make Tomkins merely splenetic at this point: he should appeal to the crowd as men, not denounce them as curs. However, Buchanan would not be Buchanan without at least one incontinence of this kind in the course of a play.
     The acting is excellent, Mr. Grossmith, with all his qualities in easy action, being capitally supported by Miss Victor, Miss Nina Boucicault, and Mr. David James. Miss Palfrey improves, though not quite as fast as she might if she gave her mind to it. Miss Annie Hill is satisfactory as Dorothy Hubbard, but has not much to do. The other parts are mere routine.

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The Romance of the Shopwalker from The New York Times (8 March, 1896)

     “The Romance of a Shop-walker,” by Robert Buchanan and Charles Marlowe, in which Weedon Grossmith is acting at the London Vaudeville Theatre, resembles, in plot and incidents, the comic piece Emma Sheridan Frye wrote for Richard Mansfield on the basis of Samuel Warren’s “Ten Thousand a Year.” The young cockney shopman, in love with his employer’s daughter, is suddenly raised to affluence, and betrothed to a peer’s daughter, whom he afterward releases to return to his former sweetheart; the comic electioneering scene, and the treacherous friend who tries to use the hero’s wealth for his own ends, are all in it. Of course, “The Romance of a Shop-walker” is not a dramatization of Warren’s satirical tale, but neither was Mrs. Frye’s play, properly speaking.

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The Romance of the Shopwalker from The Guardian (30 June, 1896 - p.9)

PRINCE’S THEATRE.

THE ROMANCE OF THE SHOPWALKER.

     This is a “domestic” comedy by Mr. Robert Buchanan and Mr. Charles Marlowe, and it was presented last night, for the first time in Manchester, by Mr. Weedon Grossmith’s company. It is bright and amusing, and had an instant success with the audience. The point of the play is to give £20,000 a year to a draper’s assistant with a salary of 15s. a week and everything else to correspond, and put him in Doverdale Castle to make love to an earl’s daughter. This is the character Mr. Grossmith takes, and it is broad work which he does extremely well and never overdoes. He has trouble, of course, with his aspirates, and slaps the stately old earl on the back; but it is not in such surface things that the merit and the humour of the performance consist. Mr. Tompkins has about him what may be called secondary symptoms of the shop, and these are as a rule extremely amusing—as, for instance, when he is proposing to the Lady Evelyn he takes up her fan and unconsciously measures the ribbon in yard lengths. The story is very well told, and we leave the shopwalker at the end of it with rather a kindly feelings, in spite of his social shortcomings. Mr. Blake Adams as M^cCollop, a lawyer’s clerk, makes some good points, if some of them are at the expense of M^cCollop’s country. The old earl, whose poverty leads him for a time to think of Tompkins as a son-in-law, is played with a convincing enough air by Mr. Charles Goodhart, and the women of the family are also presented in a satisfactory way, though Miss Victor as the mother of the shopwalker makes perhaps a stronger impression on the audience. A pleasant little one-act play, “In Nelson’s Days,” precedes the comedy.

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The Wanderer from Venus from The Stage (11 June, 1896 - p.12)

THE GRAND, CROYDON.

     On Monday, June 8, 1896, a new and original “fanciful comedy,” in three acts, by Robert Buchanan and “Charles Marlowe,” was produced, entitled:—

The Wanderer from Venus; or Twenty-four Hours with an Angel.

Claude Somerville     ...     ...     Mr. Oswald York
John Middleton, M.D.       ...     Mr. G. W. Anson
Dr. Dullamere           ...     ...     Mr. J. Beauchamp
Dora         ...     ...     ...     ...     Miss Harriett Jay
Euphemia          ...     ...     ...     Miss Eva Moore
Mrs. Allgood     ...     ...     ...     Miss Louise Gourlay
Stella         ...     ...     ...     ...     Miss Kate Rorke

    Whatever the ultimate verdict is as to this work from the pens of these productive writers, it cannot be denied that the large and fashionable audience that assembled to give greeting to the new work was throughout most friendly, if not demonstrative. It can hardly also be denied, however, that though the authors have worked upon a theme that in other guises has already been well nigh used up. Suggestions of Pygmalion and Galatea and Niobe were on the lips of all experienced playgoers, and it is unfortunate for the present collaborators that these two works should have preceded theirs, and, moreover, should also have been infinitely better both in story and treatment. The slight ringing of the changes in making the central figure descend from the heavens, instead of taking the form of a vivified statue, matters little; the ruling idea is the same, and the story runs on similar lines. The handling of the theme, too, shows a want of decision, and it would have been much better to make the piece either broadly farcical or entirely poetic, the former for choice, as there is little doubt that the subject is one that lends itself much more to humorous than to serious treatment. On one point the authors may certainly be congratulated, and that is in the interpretation of their work, the cast being one that could not well be improved, although most of the artists cannot be said to have had any great scope for the exercise of their abilities. The play opens in the village of Moonbury, near London, where we find Claude Somerville, an ardent and enthusiastic astronomer, and John Middleton, a matter-of-fact country doctor, engaged to the two daughters of the vicar, Dr. Dullamere. After a talk of more or less worldly affairs the conversation naturally turns to astronomy and upon Claude’s fixed idea that this earth is only one of many planets that are inhabited, and that angels unawares may occasionally visit us on this sphere. The doctor pooh-poohs the notion, and enforces his conviction by material arguments, and after a short love scene with his fiancée, Dora, the young astronomer is left alone, and, after indulging in flights of fancy and meteoric rhapsodies, calls upon the planet Venus to come down. The answer is a charming visitant in the form of Stella, who, lightly clad in gauzy-green garments, flutters down from the heavens, and straightway makes innocent, yet dangerous love to the young enthusiast, at whose call she has left the realms above. In act two, the morning after, we naturally find that the presence of a young and charming “angel,” clad in diaphanous raiment, in the room of a bachelor about to become a Benedict, gives grounds for much uneasiness, and Somerville’s housekeeper is particularly forcible in her reasoning as to the undesirability of such a visitor. As, too, the charming Stella is none too constant in her innocent attentions, but when Claude is absent clings prettily to the village medico, it will be foreseen that the ground is prepared for the plentiful crop of lovers’ quarrels which eventually, and naturally, arise. The engagement between Claude and Dora is broken off. The Girton girl, Euphemia, with her up-to-date notions of man, does not, however, go to such extremes, but contents herself with the stipulation that, knowing such “goings on” must happen, they shall be carried out more under the rose. In the third act the ladies are still inexorable in their refusal to believe in the angelic visitor, whose liberal embracings of everything in the shape of man-kind still continue. Some fun is made when the ever-alluring Stella entices the doctor and the vicar to sit one on either side of her, and proceeds to deck their headgear with garlands of roses. Explanations eventually ensue between the lovers, and when the gentle spirit realises all the mischief of which she has been the innocent cause she is freed from a spell which binds her to the earth, has a timely recall to the planet Venus, and all ends with conventional bliss.
     As Stella, Miss Kate Rorke (who, by the way, in the part, made her first appearance on any stage in conjunction with the Croydon Histrionic Society), is simply charming, and gives a portrayal that is throughout graceful and unaffected. To quote one of the authors, “the part is a divine one,” and it is divinely played. Miss Eva Moore as the Girton girl, Euphemia, gives excellent point and emphasis to her many smart lines, and plays with consistent spirit, and Miss Louise Gourlay lends valuable and artistic assistance as Mrs. Allgood. Mr. Oswald Yorke as the star-gazing Claude Somerville plays naturally and well, and by force of character and commendable energy subdues the glaring improbabilities of the part. Mr. G. W. Anson gives humorous and able treatment to Dr. Middleton, and by his experience alone lends admirable service to the cast. Mr. J. Beauchamp, excellent character actor that he is, makes a splendid little study of the vicar, Dr. Dullamere, and Miss Harriett Jay—suddenly called upon to “deputise” for Miss Vera Beringer—plays exceedingly well as Dora. The comedy was mounted to perfection by the local management, and no stone was left unturned to make the production a success. The incidental music was composed by Mr. Orlando Powell, and the play produced under the direction of the authors. A Happy Pair precedes, and is brightly played by Mr. F. Grove and Miss Emily Grove.

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The Wanderer from Venus from Dramatic Opinions and Essays - Volume Two by George Bernard Shaw (New York: Brentano’s, 1906 - p. 15-16)

The Wanderer from Venus; or, Twenty-four Hours with an Angel: a new and original fanciful comedy.
By Robert Buchanan and Charles Marlowe. New Grand Theatre, Croydon, 8 June, 1896.

     I note with satisfaction that the suburban theatre has now advanced another step. On Monday a new play by Mr. Robert Buchanan and his collaborator, “Charles Marlowe,” was produced at the new theatre at Croydon—a theatre which is to some of our Strand theatres as a Pullman drawing-room car is to an old second-class carriage—with a company which includes Miss Kate Rorke, Mr. Oswald Yorke, Mr. Beauchamp, Mr. Anson, Miss Eva Moore, and Miss Vera Beringer. The band played the inevitable overture to “Raymond” and Mr. German’s dances, for all the world as if we were at the Vaudeville. I paid three shillings for a stall, and two-pence for a programme. Add to this the price of a first-class return ticket from London, three and sixpence (and you are under no compulsion to travel first class if second or third will satisfy your sense of dignity), and the visit to the Croydon Theatre costs three and tenpence less than the bare price of a stall in the Strand. And as Miss Kate Rorke not only plays the part of an angel in her most touching manner, but flies bodily up to heaven at the end of the play, to the intense astonishment of the most hardened playgoers, there is something sensational to talk about afterwards. The play is a variation on the Pygmalion and Galatea theme. It is full of commonplace ready-made phrases to which Mr. Buchanan could easily have given distinction and felicity if he were not absolutely the laziest and most perfunctory workman in the entire universe, save only when he is writing letters to the papers, rehabilitating Satan, or committing literary assault and battery on somebody whose works he has not read. I cannot help suspecting that even the trouble of finding the familiar subject was saved him by a chance glimpse of some review of Mr. Wells’ last story but one. Yet the play holds your attention and makes you believe in it: the born storyteller’s imagination is in it unmistakably, and saves it from the just retribution provoked by the author’s lack of a good craftsman’s conscience.

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The Mariners of England from The Guardian (10 March, 1897 - p.7)

     A personage bearing the name of “Lord Nelson and Bronte” is the central figure of an exceedingly feeble melodrama by Mr. Robert Buchanan and “Charles Marlowe,” produced this evening at the Olympic Theatre, under the title of “The Mariners of England.” The villain, one regrets to observe, is a captain in the Royal Navy, who, being in the pay of France, makes a plot to murder Nelson. The hero, the long-lost son of an admiral, who is in the meantime serving as a foremast hand, rescues Nelson, but is accused of having been his chief assailant. He is court-martialled on board the Victory, and acquitted, of course, through the intervention of Nelson himself. Then we have the obligatory tableaux of the Battle of Trafalgar and the death of Nelson, which Mr. Abingdon and the limelight man succeeded in rendering melodramatic and ridiculous. As a drama the play is devoid of merit, and the figure of Nelson is introduced without either taste or skill. Mr. Charles Glenny played the hero, and Miss Wakeman the heroine, while Mr. E. M. Robson provided the comic relief. The production was favourably received.

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The Mariners of England from The Times (11 March, 1897 - p.14)

OLYMPIC THEATRE.

     As the hero of Mr. Robert Buchanan and “Charles Marlowe’s” new play, The Mariners of England, it cannot be said that Nelson stands at present in any want of recognition on the stage; for this is his second reincarnation, so to speak, within the few months that have elapsed since the celebration of the Trafalgar anniversary. Nelson No. 2, it may be well to say at once, is as unlike No. 1 as both are probably unlike the original. But as embodied by Mr. Abingdon, No. 2 has this in his favour—that he displays some degree of personal dignity and authority if only in dismissing from the service an unworthy officer who has been conspiring against his admiral’s life. Of the notorious Lady Hamilton who is so much in evidence at the Avenue Theatre there is not a word, save in the historical dying speech which is delivered in the cockpit of the Victory. In fact the new Nelson is rather chary of speech at the best. More than once his entrance upon the scene is the signal for the curtain to come down, and in this respect the authors have done wisely, inasmuch as they leave one’s sense of the hero’s greatness comparatively undisturbed. Perhaps a still better effect would have been produced had the part been designed exclusively as what Mr. Puff would call a “thinking” one, though this would have been hard upon Mr. Abingdon, who really enacts the hero, empty sleeve and all, remarkably well.
     The story of the play is rather meagre in point of literary substance, but is furnished forth with naval dances and revellings, scenes on board a man-of-war, a Court-martial, and not only last but least—for the consumption of gunpowder is on a limited scale—the engagement with the French in which Nelson receives his death wound. In the old town of Dover a dastardly attack is made upon Nelson by a gang of hired ruffians at the instance of a traitor to his country, one Captain Lebaudy. A dashing sailor, Harry Dell, who is played with rugged pathos by Mr. Charles Gleaney, comes up at the critical moment and sends the conspirators flying. Upon him the tables are now turned by the double-dyed villain with the French name; for he is accused of being the author of the attack upon Nelson, and it is upon this case that the cock-hatted Court-martial of the third act solemnly sits. Needless to say honest Harry dell has a sweetheart in Miss Keith Wakeman, who pleads for him with the Court, but in the end it is through the instrumentality of Nelson, who throughout has taken a paternal interest in the love affairs of his crew, that justice is done to brave men and cowards alike. At the first performance, the action of the play was too slow and straggling to be effective. But as a rough and honest melodrama with its heart in the right place The Mariners of England ought to stir the sympathies of the pit and gallery public.

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Two Little Maids From School from The Stage (10 November, 1898 - p.13)

     Two Little Maids from School is the title of a new romantic four-act comedy written by Robert Buchanan and Charles Marlowe, who have founded it on Dumas’s Demoiselles de St. Cyr. It will be produced on Monday, November 21, at the Metropole, with cast of characters as follows:—Le Duc D’Anjou, Mr. Harold Eden; Le Duc D’Harcourt, Mr. Herbert Cottesmore; Roger de St. Hérem, Mr. William Kittredge; Dubouloy, Mr. Lesley Kenyon; Courtois, Mr. W. E. Woodhouse; José, Mr. Hill; Captain of Musketeers, Mr. J. D’Arcy; Madame de Velasquez, Miss Alma Stanley; Sister Alphonsine, Miss Henrietta Cowen; Henriette, Miss Lindo; Charlotte de Merion, Miss Winifred Fraser; and Louise Beauclair, Miss Annie Hughes. The acts are indicated thus:—Act one, Pavilion at St. Cyr; act two, St. Hérem’s Hotel, in Paris; act three and four, Hall of the Embassy at Madrid.

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Two Little Maids From School from The Stage (24 November, 1898 - p.15)

THE METROPOLE.

     On Monday, November 21, 1898, was produced here, for the first time, a romantic comedy in four acts, adapted by Robert Buchanan and Charles Marlowe, entitled:—

Two Little Maids from School.

Le Duc D’Anjou (afterwards Philip V. of Spain)
                                                       Mr. Harold Eden
Le Duc D’Harcourt       . . . .           Mr. Herbert Cottesmore
Roger de St. Hérem      . . . .           Mr. Acton Bond
Hercule Dubouloy         . . . .           Mr. Lesley Kenyon
Courtois                        . . . .           Mr. E. G. Woodhouse
José                              . . . .           Mr. L. Cottesmore
Captain of Mousquetaires                Mr. G. D’Arcy
Madame de Velasquez  . . . .           Miss Alma Stanley
Sister Alphonsine           . . . .           Miss Henrietta Cowen
Henriette                       . . . .           Miss Maud Lindo
Charlotte de Merian      . . . .           Miss Winifred Fraser
Louise Beauclair           . . . .           Miss Annie Hughes

     At the conclusion of the performance Mr. Robert Buchanan, in response to calls for “author,” appeared before the curtain, and regretted that as telegraphic and telephonic communication had not yet been established with the Elysian fields he was precluded from making known to “Alexander the Great” the success which the play had achieved; but we venture to say that could the original author of Demoiselles de St. Cyr have been present he would not have been overjoyed with the version of his work that was presented on Monday evening. The theme is so hackneyed and so worn that it needs exceptional brilliancy of dialogue and well-contrived situations to put life into its body. Moreover, the dialogue of 200 years ago is not the dialogue of to-day, and throughout the comedy the conversation was too modern to deceive us into the belief that we were living in the year 1700. Not only is this so, the company had evidently taken their cue therefrom, and played in a much too modern spirit, till the romantic comedy was turned into a musical comedy with the incidentals omitted. The promise of a sterling success shown in the second act was not sustained through the third and fourth acts, which were much too long and occasionally tedious, and they could with advantage be merged into one.
     Charlotte, in love with Roger, is surprised in her secret by Louise, a bosom friend, who takes upon herself the character of chaperone, and insists that Charlotte shall marry her lover as soon as she can arrange it, and settles all preliminaries with the gentleman in question when he appears. He has gained admittance with a passkey, and she insists that at all interviews she shall be present. This is not quite to Roger’s liking, and he calls in a friend, to pair off with Louise and get her out of the way. But unfortunately it appears the friend is to be married that evening, and cannot stay. Louise, however, meeting him as he is about to retire, he half changes his mind, and finally makes violent love to the chaperone, who, nothing loth, and being a wicked little body, returns his caresses. For Charlotte’s sake, however, Louise has informed the head of the college that her friend is about clandestinely to leave the house. The guards are summoned, Roger and Hercule are surprised, arrested, and conveyed to the Bastille. Upon Roger’s appearance next morning at his hotel after a night in the Bastille (where at midnight he has been compelled to marry Charlotte), he discovers that the latter has already taken possession of his rooms, and slept in his apartments, and being highly disgusted at the turn events have taken he decides, greatly to Charlotte’s surprise and sorrow, to have his own rooms in another part of the house. He declines to recognise her as his wife, and it is his intention to depart for Spain at once. Charlotte, a tearful little creature, breaks down at this, as she looked for happiness, not misery, and retires to her rooms to calm herself. Hercule appears, and, confronting Roger, challenges him to a duel in the courtyard, and, upon the latter asking the reason, he learns that Hercule has been treated in exactly the same manner as his friend, and that he has been compelled to marry Louise. Angry words give place to sympathetic greetings, and, as Hercule strongly seconds Roger’s determination to travel into Spain with Le Duc d’Anjou, both leave to make ready for the journey. Louise now pays a morning call upon Charlotte, who is in despair at the result of her rash act; but Louise is in high spirits over the affair, and professes complete indifference as to whether her husband goes or stays, advancing the truism that the less you worry about a man who loves you the more devotedly will he dangle after you. When the husbands return equipped for the journey she wishes them bon voyage with the greatest exuberance, says she is going thoroughly to enjoy herself, and laughs heartily, while poor Charlotte sinks into a seat utterly wretched and miserable. Arriving at Madrid, the two friends attend a ball given at the French Embassy, and encounter two dominos, with whom Duc d’Anjou, now Philip V. of Spain, appears to be fascinated greatly. Needless to say, these are the two wives, who have travelled after their husbands to see what they do with themselves. Also needless to say, the two husbands, in the first instance, make violent love to each other’s wife, and finally to their own wives, greatly to the annoyance of King Philip. When he arrives to conduct the ladies to supper they both unmask, greatly to the consternation and dismay of Roger and Hercule, who are dumfounded at the apparition. Upon the morrow Roger announces to Charlotte that she is no longer his wife, as a dispensation has been received annulling the marriage, which he considers the best way out of the difficulty, especially as the King has been very free in his attentions to her. Hercule follows his friend’s suit, and both announce their immediate return to Paris. Philip V., however, explains that it was entirely a different matter that engaged Charlotte’s time, which being explained, Roger, now in love with his late wife, offers to renew the relationship. Charlotte accepts; Hercule also follows in his friend’s footsteps, and they leave for Paris and happiness.
     The company engaged for the representation of the comedy were not by any means strong, and, speaking generally, were disappointing. Mr. Harold Eden as Philip V. played the part in an eccentric manner reminiscent of the comic duke of opera bouffe, and Mr. Herbert Cottesmore as Le Duc d’Harcourt acted this small part in a dignified manner. Mr. Acton Bond merged himself into the spirit of the period more than the others, but circumstance prevented him doing justice to himself. Mr. Leslie Kenyon played Hercule Dubouloy quite in an “up to date” style; some of his mannerisms, both of speech and action, were reminiscent of Mr. Edward Terry. However, he was word-perfect, and rattled through his part in double quick time. Miss Alma Stanley appeared in a thankless part as Madame de Velasquez. Miss Winifred Fraser played the deceived wife in a winsome and sympathetic way, and was so earnest in the assumption of love for Roger that it seemed cruel that he slighted Charlotte so shamefully. Miss Annie Hughes as the little dare-devil Louise had nearly the whole weight of the play upon her shoulders, and had it not been for her very roguish and charming impersonation of this deliciously written character, full of wit and repartee, the comedy would have proved dull indeed. Other small parts were in safe hands. The scenery was very tasteful and appropriate, and the costumes were of the best, and looked exceedingly handsome. Mr. Edmond Rickett, the musical conductor, has supplied the incidental music, which greatly enhanced the situations in which it was employed.

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Two Little Maids From School from The Guardian (25 November, 1898 - p.5)

     Not to be behind the age, Mr. Robert Buchanan and “Charles Marlowe” (Miss Harriet Jay) have produced at the Metropole Theatre, Camberwell, an adaptation of Dumas’ comedy “Les Demoiselles de Saint-Cyr,” under the title of “Two Little Maids from School.” The comedy is one of Dumas’ poorer efforts, and it is not improved in adaptation. But its intrigue is cleverly if mechanically manipulated, and several of the situations reveal a good deal of ingenuity. The “two little maids” are brightly played by Miss Annie Hughes and Miss Winifred Fraser, while Mr. Leslie Kenyon and Mr. Acton Bond are passable as the recalcitrant husbands. The piece goes gaily enough, and seems well suited to the tastes of suburban audiences.

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Buchanan as Critic

From The Penny Illustrated Paper (22 June, 1889, p. 3)

A Very Pretty Controversy

has been going on in the Pall Mall Gazette between Mr. Robert Buchanan and Mr. George Bernard Shaw over Ibsen’s now famous play “The Doll’s House.” Mr. Buchanan calls Ibsen “a Zola with a wooden leg,” meaning presumably to imply that he has all Zola’s realism, without his vitality. Mr. Shaw smartly retorts that Mr. Buchanan is “a critic with a wooden head”—and so the battle rages.

Mr. Robert Buchanan

we all know. The son of a well-known Socialist lecturer, he was born inWarwickshire forty-eight years ago. He first made his name by calling Swinburne and Rossetti indecent, for which he afterwards apologised. His own novels are occasionally very suggestive, particularly “The Shadow of the Sword” and “Foxglove Manor”; but some of his poetry is strong and beautiful. Mr. Buchanan makes many enemies, and, at this moment, “Edmund” of the World, and “Henry” at Truth are united in attacking him; but, as he says, he always makes it up in the end.

Mr. George Bernard Shaw

is less known to the multitude: but he has many admirers in the world of art and letters. Mr. Shaw has written two novels, equally repulsive but equally striking, “An Unsocial Socialist” and “Cashel Byron’s Profession.” In this last the hero is a prize-fighter who is made to marry a lady of fortune. Mr. Shaw is tall and slim, he always dresses in a snuff-coloured suit and refuses to bend in any way to social conventionalities. By some considered the ablest man in the ranks of English Socialism—William Morris is their greatest genius—his propagandist lectures startle one every moment with brilliant paradox. He is known also as the art-critic of the World and the musical critic of the Star.

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From The Scotsman (1 October, 1896 - p. 8)

THE MAGAZINES FOR OCTOBER

.....
     The “Theatre” maintains its character as an interesting, up-to-date, and it may be assumed, accurate monthly reflex of the state of the drama in our midst, as well as a congenial field for the discussion of dramatic questions. In London, whence it issues, the contentions of critics, actors, and managers seem never to die outright; and in the current number the subject of criticism takes a prominent place. In the opening editorial, certain critics of Sir Henry Irving are themselves criticised; and later on the state of criticism in the provinces forms the topic of several papers. It will be comforting to the provincial critic to learn from these that on the whole he does his work very well under the conditions in which he writes; while the provincial editor will feel reassured by the certificate here given him of his ability to accurately gauge the public taste. Mr Robert Buchanan has “A Word on the Defunct Drama,” in which he declares that “serious dramatic art, in short, is as dead as Home Rule.” Mr Buchanan’s attitude of mind may be gathered from his concluding sentence—”There would be no reasonable cause for complaint, even in the present state of things, if the drama were suffered to evolve itself in its own way, instead of being at the mercy of the nostrum-monger, the amateur critic, and the daily newspaper.” The whole discussion is refreshing reading to all who interest themselves in the theatre. In other respects—in its record of new productions, its biographical notices of leading players, its portraits, its green-room echoes, &c.—the magazine is as attractive as usual.

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