Regency Pastimes: Public Amusements for March (1806)

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PUBLIC AMUSEMENTS FOR MARCH During the season of Lent the public amuse that when Congreye left the stage comedy ments have been somewhat dull Jeft it with him but we may venture to say that until the rue sense of what constituies At this period of the year little novelty can be expected at either house something however comedy returns to the public Congreve can is in preparation at both and the public are un scarcely hope to be popular above a night usually sanguine with respect to the amusements This comedy was extremely well cast Ellisin store for them ton's Valentine had spirit and ease it w nited Dibdin's opera of the White Plume with perhaps that which is now almost obsolete ou Reeves's delightful music will be produced on the stage the manner of the Rake of Congreve's Easter Monday It is spoken of as a chef time that kind of elegant grossness and gay d autre of Dibdin's The Forty Thieves are cer profligacy which was the character of mery of wit and fashion at that period every trace of tainly coming forward Upon this subject we speak decidedly The dialogue and the songs deeming The days are long past which is now lost and is certainly not worth reare said to be written by Colman A new comedy has been read at Drury lane Since Wits wrote plays and even Lords had wit it is entiiled the Enthusiast The au hor's name is pretty well conjectured but not known The Valentines and Mirables now can never Earl Harwick was revived on Saturday the hope to please since in truth they are not un29th of March for the sake of giving a dederstood and probably the style of acting these clamatory part to the Young Roscius parts is as much lost and forgotten as the sense We wish now that the Managers are in the of relishing them The creatures of Congreve reviving humour that they would reinstate unlike those of Shakespeare are perishable Shirley's excellent old comedy of the Gamesters beings formed upon accidental habits and ada delicate hand easily cleanse it of its ventitious modes the cement and the sand are impurities continually loosening whilst those which have A new farce under the title of Loquacity nature for their basis like the elements upon has been so popular on the French stage that which she rests have a solidity and permanency we are astonished it has not been imported which can only be shaken by the stroke which The humour of this piece is that of man with dissolves herself an unbounded propensity to talking stopping Bannister in the character of Ben was the every body's mouth catching up answers in em true sailor of nature and not that of the stage bryo and anticipating the dialogue of every per merely This character so finely drawn was no son with whom he converses Thus in fact less admirably perfornred Bannister's Sailor notwithstanding the variety of characters with has always been the boast of the English stage whom he is associated he has with little excep and the nearer his prototype resembles life the tion the whole dialogue of the piece to himself better it is Some actors succeed inost in chaThe humour is original and good and if properly Jracters eccentric and distorted but it is the pride combined with character and situation would be of the genuine sons of humour to place their very effective on the stage boldest strokes and imprint their most brilIt has been stated in some of the papers that liant and lasting colours upon the canvass of Master Betty has entered into an engagement nature only with the Drury lane Managers for the next sea It is unnecessary to speak of the unrivalled exson at a reduced salary of twenty pounds per cellence of Mrs Jordan in Miss Prue Miss week Duncan's Angelica had those faults which infect her general acting and of which with the most DRURY LANE zealous regard for her professional character we shall remind her at another opportunity Her LOVE FOR LOVE worst enemy now is a tlatierer the best thing The admirable comedy of Love for Love has her critics can do is to put her out of conceit been revived at this theatre It is some credit o with herself so noble and promising a performer the public that in the present degeneracy of the should not be lost for the want of a little whole stage such a comedy can find an audience We some discipline Dowton's Sir Sampson is de cannot agree perhaps with Jeremy Collier serving of the highest credit

DRAMATIS PERSONA COVENT GARDEN spurious offspring which we have so often seeri tricked out with trite pedantic morality with af On Saturday March 8th a new comedy fected preaching and whining converting the called A Hint to Husbands from the pen of the theatre into a Methodist chapel where virtue veteran Cumberland was perforried for the first was merely made use of as the s alking horse for time at this theatre applause and wit and humour banished from their proper seats Lord Transit Mr C Kemble The present comedy is in the true style of the Sir Charles Le Brun H Johnston author but not in that of his happier days It Heartright Pope is harmless and inoffensive in its inoral chaste Fairford Farcett and regular in its design and execution pure George Trevor Brunton and unaffected in its dialogue but wholly Pliant Farley without invention either in its characters or Field fable Harry Sumner Hardiman Jefferies It is to be distinguished for a cold creeping Codicil Emery correctness it sneaked to port under plentiful O Dogherty Blanchard broadsides of clap trap morality It kept an Lady Transit Miss Smith ever quiet lenor in a voyage in which little Lady Le Bran Mrs Glorer was ventured and nothing gained but safety Ruth Emery The prologue promised legitimate comedy If Fable Lord Transit weary of a retired life legitimate comedy consisted in mere purity of and the society of his lady the daughter of Mr dialogue in a harmless moral strain we must Fairford whom he had married when a hum confess that there was that bleating innocence in ble girl without the consent of her father who the piece which recommended it to mercy but was then in Russia mixes once more in the soif legitimate comedy requires something of ciety of the gay and dissipated and sends Lady invention and novelty in its fable ad not a Transit liome to her father's house Fairford story borrowed from a circulating library if it by the bequest of a friend is now become ex demands a regular and well sustained interest ceedingly rich he forgives his daughter's disobewhich shall entice and fix the curiosity through dience and places a considerable sum of money the progress of the scene and lead to a natural in her hands to maintain her dignity and probut unexpected denoueincnt if legitimate comedy cures a commission for his nephew George Tre requires this undoubtedly this piece had it not vor for the purpose of that gentleman's calling to boast Lord Transit to an account for his behaviour In the first act every thing was anticipated Trevor waits upon his Lordship who having re The fable had not the merit of a single embarpented of his misconduct receives him with reA long horizon of gloom presented spect and being undeceived by the youth with itself at the outset a depth of dullness lay in regard to his suspicions of an intrigue between perspective and not one flash of inerriment burst his lady and Sir Charles Le Brun he wishes for a forth to chear us on the way We confess we reconciliation The parties are brought together never saw a piece so legitimately dull written at the house of Lady Le Brun and Fuirford wi h such heavy accuracy and tiresome prewho had discovered by some papers the benecision There was in every part the same stiff volence of Lord Transit to his wife during his monotony the characters were all tricked out absence abroad relieves his Lordship from great from the same moral wardrobe and attired in the embarrassments by relinquishing a considerable same dull drapery of dress claim he held upon his estates and consents to All the cardinal virtues seem to have clubbed his daughter's reconcilement with him to make this foolish fraternity of characters the This piece we have said is the production of Whole Duty of Man yielded up its treasures Cumberland the old champion of that senti and we know not whether a more sacred Manual mental kind of comedy which in his hands may not call Mr Cumberland a plagiarist has exalted the character of the English drama We have assigned a reason fo and has no less tarnished and degraded it in the The performers particularly Miss Smith did hands of others ample justice to the piece It has run six nigh's The correctness and gravity which Cumberland and is now laid by first introduced upon the stage has given rise to a rassment success

These descriptions of the happenings around London appeared in La Belle Assemblée in 1806.

Drury Lane Theatre

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