A Book of Burlesque: Sketches of English Stage Travestie and ParodyAdams, William Davenport
History
A Book of Burlesque: Sketches of English Stage Travestie and Parody
Adams, William Davenport
Burlesque (Literature); English literature -- History and criticism; Parody
Next to "Ivanhoe" in popularity for travestie we may place "Rob Roy."
Mr. Sydney French took it in hand at the Marylebone in 1867, and Mr.
William Lowe gave it a very Scotch rendering, in 1880, under the title
of "Mr. Robert Roye, Hielan Helen his Wife, and Dougal the Dodger." But
the "standard" burlesque on the subject is, of course, Mr. Burnand's
"Robbing Roy" (Gaiety, 1879), in which Mr. Terry was such a diverting
"Roy," with Miss Farren as Francis, Miss Vaughan as Diana, and Mr.
Royce as an admirable Dougal. Of the "Bride of Lammermoor" there have
been two burlesque versions--Oxberry's, at the Strand in 1848; and H.
J. Byron's, at the Prince of Wales's in 1865. "Kenilworth" has been
similarly honoured. There was the piece brought out at the Strand in
1858 by Andrew Halliday and a collaborator, and there was that which
Messrs. Reece and Farnie contributed to the Avenue Theatre in 1885.
"Guy Mannering" has engaged the attention of Mr. Burnand: we can all
remember his "Here's another Guy Mannering," brought out at the
Vaudeville in 1874. For the solitary travestie of "The Talisman," the
late J. F. M'Ardle is responsible. It was first played at Liverpool in
the year last named.
Lord Lytton's novels and romances have been ridiculed on the stage
very much less frequently than have his dramas. "The Very Last Days
of Pompeii," by Mr. Reece, and "The Last of the Barons," by Mr. Du
Terreaux, are, so far as I know, the only stage works in which his
prose fiction has been perverted. The former was seen at the Vaudeville
in 1872, and the latter at the Strand in the same year. In "The Last
of the Barons," Atkins was the Kingmaker, Mr. Edward Terry portraying
Edward IV. as a great dandy, and endowing him with an amusing lisp.
When we turn to the stories of more recent times, we think at once
of the "No Thoroughfare" of Charles Dickens and Wilkie Collins, and
of the "Foul Play" of Charles Reade and Dion Boucicault, as having
suffered at the hands of the irreverent scribes. The former romance
suggested to Hazlewood junior his "No Thorough-fair beyond Highbury,
or the Maid, the Mother, and the Malicious Mountaineer." This was in
1868; and in the following year the elder George Grossmith emulated
Hazlewood's example at the Victoria Theatre. "Foul Play" was parodied
by Mr. Burnand, not only in the pages of _Punch_, but in "Fowl Play,
or a Story of Chikkin Hazard," produced at the New Queers in 1868.[52]
Of the bright writing in this "book," no better specimen could well
be furnished than the song which Wylie sings in description of the
scuttling of the _Proserpine_. This I give in full:--
[52] In this piece Mr. Toole was the Robert Penfold, Mr. Lionel
Brough the Joseph Wylie, Mr. Gaston Murray the General Rollingstone,
Mr. Wyndham the Arthur Waddles, and Miss Ellen Farren (then in her
novitiate) the Nancy Rouse.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account