England -- Social life and customs -- 19th century; Young men -- England
The theatrical young gentleman has early and important information on all
theatrical topics. ‘Well,’ says he, abruptly, when you meet him in the
street, ‘here’s a pretty to-do. Flimkins has thrown up his part in the
melodrama at the Surrey.’—‘And what’s to be done?’ you inquire with as
much gravity as you can counterfeit. ‘Ah, that’s the point,’ replies the
theatrical young gentleman, looking very serious; ‘Boozle declines it;
positively declines it. From all I am told, I should say it was
decidedly in Boozle’s line, and that he would be very likely to make a
great hit in it; but he objects on the ground of Flimkins having been put
up in the part first, and says no earthly power shall induce him to take
the character. It’s a fine part, too—excellent business, I’m told. He
has to kill six people in the course of the piece, and to fight over a
bridge in red fire, which is as safe a card, you know, as can be. Don’t
mention it; but I hear that the last scene, when he is first poisoned,
and then stabbed, by Mrs. Flimkins as Vengedora, will be the greatest
thing that has been done these many years.’ With this piece of news, and
laying his finger on his lips as a caution for you not to excite the town
with it, the theatrical young gentleman hurries away.
The theatrical young gentleman, from often frequenting the different
theatrical establishments, has pet and familiar names for them all. Thus
Covent-Garden is the garden, Drury-Lane the lane, the Victoria the vic,
and the Olympic the pic. Actresses, too, are always designated by their
surnames only, as Taylor, Nisbett, Faucit, Honey; that talented and
lady-like girl Sheriff, that clever little creature Horton, and so on.
In the same manner he prefixes Christian names when he mentions actors,
as Charley Young, Jemmy Buckstone, Fred. Yates, Paul Bedford. When he is
at a loss for a Christian name, the word ‘old’ applied indiscriminately
answers quite as well: as old Charley Matthews at Vestris’s, old Harley,
and old Braham. He has a great knowledge of the private proceedings of
actresses, especially of their getting married, and can tell you in a
breath half-a-dozen who have changed their names without avowing it.
Whenever an alteration of this kind is made in the playbills, he will
remind you that he let you into the secret six months ago.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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