A Book of Burlesque: Sketches of English Stage Travestie and Parody

From Planché's "Seven Champions of Christendom" to the "St. George and the Dragon" of Gilbert Abbott a'Beckett (1845) and the "Sir George and a Dragon, or We are Seven" of Mr. Burnand (1856) is a natural and easy transition. In A'Beckett's piece, Kalyba, the sorceress, has stolen St. George when a child, in order that he might fall in love with her, and so rescue her from prophesied destruction. Getting rid of her with a wave of her own wand, he turns up with his fellow Champions at Memphis, where King Ptolemy is in a state of impecuniosity, the Dragon having swallowed up all his resources. The monster demands the King's daughter Sabra, but St. George contrives to trick him out of the legal securities he holds, and eventually destroys him by the power of the steam press. There is a vein of allegory running through the piece, which has, however, its share of jeux de mots. Thus, Kalyba's handmaid says to her: —

 
Your hair, my lady, 's getting rather dry,
Some of the Russian balsam shall I try?
 
 
Kaly. Well, p'raps you may – yet no – upon the whole,
Anything Russian's hurtful to the Pole.
The very thought my nervous system shocks,
O! would that mine were like Chubb's – safety locks!
Should I turn grey, I'd bid the world good-bye.
 
 
Maid. If you turn grey, it would be time to dye.
 

Elsewhere there is some sarcasm at the expense of the newspapers. St. George says to Sabra: —

 
These evening papers, blow the horn and cry them;
Inviting every one to come and buy them.
This is the way the sort of thing is done —
(Crying) Se-cond edition here! the Memphis Sun,
Wondrous intelligence! for here you have in it
The sudden resignation of the Cabinet.
 
 
Sab. The Cabinet resigned!
 
 
St. G. No, that's mere vapour!
You must say something, just to sell the paper.
 

In Mr. Burnand's version, which is the longer of the two, there is much more story, and there are many more puns. St. George has not so prominent a place in the action, which is more elaborate and varied; while the dialogue is in the writer's most rollicking mood. Take, for example, these, lines of Kalyba's, addressed to her sirens: —

1st Siren. Madame, there is a four-oared boat in view without a steerer.

 
Kalyba (using pince-nez). P'raps the Harvard crew.
No, they don't row half hard enough for that;
Take care! they'll go ashore upon the flat.
They don't row well, but with uncommon pluck;
The stroke wants art – p'raps he's a stroke of luck.
I wonder where they come from! maybe Dover!
A crab! as sure as eggs is eggs they're ova!
Attract them here; you must not let them pass;
Some visitors – give me my looking-glass (they offer telescope).
Not that (they give her a hand-mirror).
Now sing, as Sirens did before us;
We lure all here with tooral looral chorus.
To practise bathing arts we've our diploma.
(All have by this time produced the hand-mirrors and combs.)
To attitudes! (All pose themselves combing hair, etc.)
We're in a state of comber.
 

Here, again, is a specimen of daring pun-making: —

 
Vizier. Sultan of Egypt, this pathetic tear
Proves you've one faithful Vizier left —viz. here.
 
 
Sultan. My star is set.
 
 
Vizier (looking at star on Sultan's breast). With honour you have borne it.
Stop! if your star is set in diamonds, pawn it.
 
 
Sultan. The real one – this sham one's rather tasty —
Is gone: so requiescat– sir —in pastey.
 

A popular subject with the writers of burlesque for Christmastide has been the time-honoured one of Cinderella. The first travestie of any importance was by Albert Smith and Kenny, seen at the Lyceum so long ago as 1845. Next came H. J. Byron's version at the Strand in 1860, followed by Mr. Green's in 1871, Mr. Wilton Jones's (at Leicester) in 1878, and Mr. Reece's (at the Gaiety) in 1883. A provincial burlesque on this topic was called "Done-to-a-Cinderella," and in America there has been a "Cinder-Ellen." Mr. Reece's piece was called, simply, "Our Cinderella"; Mr. Jones's, "Little Cinderella." Byron's was christened "Cinderella, or the Lover, the Lackey, and the Little Glass Slipper." It has been a great favourite with the public ever since it was first played with Maria Simpson as Cinderella, Miss Oliver as the Prince (Popetti), Miss Charlotte Saunders as his valet Dandino, John Clarke as the Baron Balderdash, and Rogers and Miss Lavine as Clorinda and Thisbe. Over and over again has this clever piece of work served as the basis of pantomime "openings" both in town and country.

Following the traditional story closely enough, it bristles with the puns in which Byron revelled, and which he poured forth with singular and somewhat exhausting lavishness. Thus, we find Dandino saying: —

 
As I've made my bed so I must lie.
Continuing bed metaphor, sir – I,
When quite a child, the blackest draught would drain,
And took my pill– oh! on account o' pain!
And as my youthful feathers all unfurled
Seemed formed to make a bold stir in the world,
Little dreamt I I should appear a valet as,
For I seemed born to reign in royal palliasse;
But suddenly the future seemed to frown;
Fortune gave me a quilt, an' I'd a down.
 

A little farther on Dandino and the Prince, who are about to exchange characters for the nonce, have the following little contest in pun-making: —

 
Dandi. But I must have a change of toggery:
This coat, you will admit, is not the best cut,
And neither is my waistcoat quite the West cut.
I must divest myself of that affair:
These buckles ain't the thing for Buckley Square.
 
 
Prince. You shall be decked in gems of vast expense,
And be a gem-man in a double sense.
Your servant, I will wait, clean boots, wash glasses;
Thus serve a nob, an' ob-serve all that passes.
 
 
Dandi. Then you'll obey me till you've found La Donna?
You pledge your princely word?
 
 
Prince (shaking his hand heartily). A-pawn my honour.
 

An even better instance of Byron's tendency to run a pun to death is to be found in this colloquy between the Prince and Cinderella. The latter says: —

 
Cind. Cinders and coals I'm so accustomed to,
They seem to me to tinge all things I view.
 
 
Prince. That fact I can't say causes me surprise,
For kohl is frequently in ladies' eyes.
 
 
Cind. At morn, when reading, as the fire up-burns,
The print to stops – to semi-coaluns– turns.
I might as well read Coke.
 
 
Prince. Quite right you are, —
He's very useful reading at the bar.
(Chaffingly) Who is your favourite poet? – Hobbs?
 
 
Cind. Not quite.
No, I think, Cole-ridge is my favourite;
His melan-coally suits my situation;
My dinner always is a coald coal-lation,
Smoked pictures all things seem, whate'er may be'em,
A cyclorama, through the "Coal I see 'em"
 

More acceptible in, pantomime than in travestie, "Little Red Riding Hood" has nevertheless been the heroine of at least one burlesque which has made its mark – namely, that which Leicester Buckingham brought out at the Lyceum just thirty years ago, under the auspices of Edmund Falconer. He had Miss Lydia Thompson for his Blondinette (Red Riding Hood), and Miss Cicely Nott for the young lady's lover, Colin. The fairy element was freely introduced, and instead of the wolf of the original there was a Baron Reginald de Wolf ("the would-be abductor of Blondinette, who finds he is sold when she 'ab duck'd herself to escape him"). Here and there one gets in the "book" a glimpse of parody; as in —

 
My protegè – my protegè,
Ah! never look so shy,
For pretty girls seem ugly
When a gloom is in their eye.
 

Or, again, in —

 
They say the peasant's life is sweet,
But that we know all trash is, O;
He very little gets to eat,
For often scarce his cash is, O.
 
 
Teeth then he gnashes, O,
Gnaws his moustaches, O;
But jolly are the hours he spends
When plentiful the cash is, O.
 

Passing over "Jack the Giant Killer," which H. J. Byron made the subject of a burlesque, and "Jack and the Beanstalk," which was treated in the same vein by the late Charles Millward, we come to the travesties suggested by stories in the "Arabian Nights' Entertainments." These are fairly numerous. We may note, in particular, some of the versions of the tales of Aladdin, Ali Baba, Prince Camaralzaman, and Abon Hassan, which seem to have offered most attractions to our comic writers.

The first "Aladdin" of importance was that given to the world by Gilbert Abbott a'Beckett in 1844. This was entitled "The Wonderful Lamp in a New Light," and had Wright for its Aladdin and Paul Bedford for its Magician. Next in order of time comes H. J. Byron's "Aladdin, or the Wonderful Scamp,"²⁶ which has shared the fate of his "Cinderella" as a basis for pantomimes. In this his fondness for jeux de mots is as patent as ever, as well as the ease (without conspicuous finish) with which he fitted words to the songs of the day. Of direct parody there is little in this "Aladdin," which, however, opens with a brief suggestion of "The sea, the sea," sung by the Vizier: —

 
The tea! the tea!
Refreshing tea.
The green, the fresh, the ever free
From all impurity.
I may remark that I'll be bound
Full shillings six was this the pound —
Full shillings six was this the pound.
I'm on for tea – I'm on for tea!
For the savour sweet that doth belong
To the curly leaf of the rough Souchong,
Is like nectar to me, nectar to me, nectar to me.
Let others delight in their eau de vie—
What matter, what matter? I'm on for tea.
 

During the last twenty years there have been four other notable burlesques on the "Aladdin" subject – Mr. Alfred Thompson's (1870), Mr. Green's (1874), Mr. Reece's (1881), and Mr. Geoffrey Thorn's (1890). With Mr. Reece's are associated pleasant memories of the bright "street boy" of Miss Farren, Mr. Edward Terry's whimsical magician, and the grace and refinement of Miss Kate Vaughan's Badroulbadour.

Second only to "Aladdin" in acceptability both to authors and to public, is the story of "Ali Baba, or the Forty Thieves." Here, again, A'Beckett is (with Mark Lemon) to the fore with the travestie called "Open Sesame, or a Night with the Forty Thieves." This was produced at the Lyceum Theatre, and had Mr. Frank Matthews for its Ali Baba, Mrs. Alfred Wigan for its Ganem, Wigan himself for its O'Mustapha (he was an Irish Mussulman), the beautiful Miss Fairbrother for its Abdallah, Keeley for its Hassarac, Miss Georgina Hodson for its Cogia, and Mrs. Keeley for its Morgiana. There was a cast for you! How many burlesque casts of our own time could lay claim to so much talent and beauty? Cassim, in this piece, had to make one admirable pun: —

 
Such heaps of gems I never saw before:
E'en Mortimer can't boast of such a Storr.
 

Elsewhere, O'Mustapha, who was a shoemaker, had to say: —

 
Business is dreadful bad – what's to be done?
Where I sold fifty boots, I don't mend one.
No longer Wellingtons are all the go:
High-lows alone are worn by high and low.
In vain upon my door this bill I fix —
"Five thousand Bluchers, all at 8s. 6d.,
Strong boys' at 3s. 9d." – folks once would use,
But now it's quite another pair of shoes.
 

A'Beckett, however, did not lay himself out for punning in and out of season. His chief merit is the neatness of his style and the pervading nature of his wit.

The most famous of all the Ali Baba travesties was that "joint-stock" burlesque, "The Forty Thieves," written by members of the Savage Club, and performed by the authors themselves at the Lyceum, in 1860, for the benefit of the families of two literary men just then deceased. Planché wrote the prologue for this piece, and it was at once so brilliant and so admirably delivered by Leicester Buckingham that it nearly obtained the extraordinary honour of an encore. It was followed, three years later, by H. J. Byron's "Ali Baba, or the Thirty-Nine Thieves (in accordance with the author's habit of taking one off!)."²⁷ Abdallah, the captain of the thieves (played by Miss Ada Swanborough), was here depicted as a rascal of the quiet, elegant order, in sharp contrast to the Surrey-side villainy of his lieutenant, Hassarac. A colloquy between these gave Byron an opportunity of satirising the melodramatic criminal of the "good old times": —

 
Abdal. From all you say, my friend, you see it's plain
That vulgar violence is on the wane;
Therefore become more polished in your style,
And, like King Richard, murder when you smile.
I go into society, and none
Know I'm a thief, or could conceive me one;
I start new companies – obtain their pelf,
And, having started them, I start myself;
Swindle the widow – the poor orphan do —
And then myself become an off 'un too.
 
 
Hassarac. Bother! that's not of villainy my notion;
Give me the tangled wood or stormy ocean —
A knife – dark lantern – lots of horrid things,
With lightning, every minute, at the wings;
A pistol, big enough for any crime,
Which never goes off at the proper time;
Deep rumbling, grumbling music on the drums —
A chord whenever one observes "She comes";
An opening chorus, about "Glorious wine";
A broadsword combat every sixteenth line;
Guttural vows of direst vengeance wreaking,
And thunder always when one isn't speaking.
That was the style – exciting, if not true,
At the old Cobourg;
 
 
Abdal. Oh, coburglar, do – (crosses to R.)
You're horrifying me!
 
 
Hassarac (draws). Spoon! sappy! duffer!
Ha, ha! lay on, you milk-and-water muff-a,
And hem'd be he who first cries hold enough-a!
 

In 1872 Mr. Reece wrote for the Gaiety a piece called "Ali Baba à la Mode"; in 1880 he prepared for the same theatre another version called "The Forty Thieves."²⁸ This latter, if I remember rightly, was the first of the burlesques in three acts. It presented in Mr. Terry (Ali Baba), Miss Farren (Ganem), Mr. Royce (Hassarac), and Miss Vaughan (Morgiana), a quartett which is specially well remembered for the verve and vivacity of its performance.

The fortunes of Prince Camaralzaman have been pictured on the burlesque stage by the Brothers Brough, by Messrs. Bellingham and Best, by H. J. Byron, and by Mr. Burnand.²⁹ "Camaralzaman and Badoura, or the Peri who loved the Prince," was the Broughs' title, and they had the assistance of Mrs. Keeley, of Keeley (as a Djinn), of Bland (as the Emperor Bung), of Miss Reynolds (as Badoura), and of Miss Horton (as the hero). Dimpl Tshin was the name given to one of the characters, and Skilopht that of another. The original story was followed in the main. Camaralzaman declines to marry at his father's request, and is incarcerated. In that position he soliloquises: —

 
'Tis now the very witching time of night,
Which, were I free, would bring with it delight;
Now could I drink hot grog, hear comic songs,
Or join the gay Casino's gladsome throngs,
Or drain, 'midst buzzing sounds of mirth and chaff,
The foaming stout, or genial half-and-half;
But here a prisoner condemned to stop,
I can indulge in neither malt nor "hop."
O, cruel Pa! to place me in this state,
Because I would avoid your own sad fate.
Dear mother, though a model of a wife,
Gave me a slight distaste for married life.
Better be thus than free, and have to stand
"An eye like Ma's, to threaten and command."
 

Camaralzaman then breaks out into the following little bit of vocal parody: —

 
The Pope he leads a happy life,
Because he hasn't got a wife;
And one to take he's not so flat,
He knows a trick worth two of that.
No shrill abuse his ear affrights
For stopping out too late at nights;
No curtain lectures damp his hopes:
A happy lot must be the Pope's.
 

The Broughs were always ingenious in their word-plays. Says one of the characters in this burlesque: —

 
Soon, I feel, with passion and disgust,
Within this bosom there will be a bust.
 

Again: —

 
I wonder how he'd look with a moustache;
He's got none yet, though, thanks to sorrow's growth,
He feels a little down about the mouth.
 

Says Badoura to a suitor whom she does not favour: —

 
I may be handsome, but I'll now be plain;
So, I'll not have you, sir – you kneel in vain;
 

to which he replies: —

 
Can one so fair thus speak to her adorer?
Your form a Venus, but your words Floorer.
 

In the piece by Messrs. Bellingham and Best – "Prince Camaralzaman, or the Fairies' Revenge"³⁰– we find, amid many well-conceived and well-executed puns, a rather successful adaptation of the "To be, or not to be" soliloquy, possessing the merit of being quite in keeping with the character of the matrimony-scorning Camaralzaman: —

 
To wed or not to wed – that is the question
Which weighs me down like midnight indigestion.
Whether it is nobler in a man to bear
The stings and taunts of an outrageous fair,
Or to take arms against a married life,
And, by opposing, shun it? To wed a wife —
No more; for by a wife we say we end
The undarned stockings laundresses won't mend,
The buttonless shirts and all the botheration
That single flesh is heir to – a consummation
Devoutly to be wished – forswear the club
And wed, perchance, a flirt, – ay, there's the rub;
For in our married lives what rows there would be,
If all were not precisely as it should be!
And who would bear a scolding vixen's tongue,
Backed by a mother-in-law, not over young;
The cook, who, when annoyed, the dinner burns,
The insolence of Buttons, and the spurns
That patient masters from their servants take,
When one a quiet house might always make
By keeping single? I'll not change my lot,
But rather bear the ills that I have got
Than fly to others that I yet know not.
 

In another passage, the "spiritualistic" craze is satirised in a so-called "chant": —

 
Abracadabra, mystic word, come down to us from the cosmogony,
'Tis the spell that binds the spirits beneath Mr. Home's mahogany;
You've been to a séance, of course, when darkness baffles the searcher,
And a spectral hand rises quivering – sceptics hint that it's gutta-percha.
When ghostly fingers are tickling some foolish old fellow's fat dumpy knee,
And the medium floats as easily as a modern bubble company;
'Tis then that the spirits are working – to asses the men they transmogrify
By spells that have nothing in common with the generally received orthography.
 

Two of the burlesques on "Arabian Nights" topics are from the pen of Francis Talfourd. First came – in 1852, at the Olympic – "Ganem, the Slave of Love" (with Miss Fanny Maskell as Fetnah, the caliph's favourite); and later – in 1854, at the St. James's – "Abon Hassan, or the Hunt after Happiness" (with Mr. Toole as Haroun-al-Raschid). In the former piece the wealth of felicitous punning is remarkable. Thus, in his very, first speech, Ganem, coming in intoxicated, says: —

 
All things around me seem involved in doubt,
I only know that I've been, dining out.
I've made some blunder, sure – but how I've made it
Is from my dizzy pate quite dissipated.
A light upon my understanding breaks —
I must be drunk! Or what is it thus makes
My head to stoop and butt the ground incline,
Unless the butt of beer or stoop of wine?
Now, to go on – so – Ganem, my boy, steady —
I can't go far – I'm too far gone already.
Ah! could I swarm this lime, I might, sans doute,
Learn from its friendly branch my proper route.
 

In other places we read: —

 
A needlewoman's life's, at best, but sew-sew
 

(which is as true as it is witty);

 
Alkalomb. He had the freedom, sir, to squeeze me.
 
 
Giaffar. Yes,
You wouldn't check the freedom of the press.
 
 
Caliph. In his affections I stand no competitor
(squaring up),
And for that belle's life you'll find I'm a head-hitter.
 
 
Malevola. I'm her abettor in the plucky course.
 
 
Caliph. You couldn't, ma'am, abet her in a worse.
 

"Abon Hassan" is less freely endowed with verbal pleasantry, but it has its fair share of puns, and the songs are numerous and bright. At the close, the hero, addressing the audience, allows himself to drop into the reflective mood: —

 
In mine, read a too common history —
How many an unfortunate, like me,
With feverish haste the cup of pleasure begs,
To find experience in its bitter dregs!
The wretched man sips at the draught now hated.
Unless, like me, he gets a-man-sip-hated.
Beware, then, how you mix and make your cup, —
I'll give you a receipt for it: boil up
In a clean vessel – say your own clay crock —
As much good humour as will form your stock;
Throw in to others' faults a modest blindness,
Adding a quart of milk of human kindness;
Scrape up a few acquaintances, but you
Had better take care they're your wife's friends too:
Omit the mother-in-law, if you've the power,
As apt to turn the milk aforesaid sour!
Skim off bad habits from the surface: you'll
Then let it stand – 'tis better taken cool;
Or, should you be in love a far-gone coon,
Stir the whole gently with a virtuous "spoon";
In which case, flavour with a dash of sentiment,
Garnish with smiles, and drink it with contentment!³¹
 

On German faërie our comic dramatists have not drawn at all largely. Such pieces as Gilbert Abbott a'Beckett's "Knight and the Sprite, or the Cold-Water Cure," with Ondine as its heroine; H. J. Byron's "Nymph of the Lurleyburg, or the Knight and the Naiads," based on the Lurline legend; and Mr. Burnand's "Rumpelstiltskin, or the Woman at the Wheel," founded on one of the Brothers Grimm's narratives, are exceptional incursions in this field. The first was seen at the Strand in 1884, with Mrs. Walter Lacy as Sir Hildebrand, and with Hall and Romer in other parts. "The Nymph of the Lurleyburg" has often done duty for the purposes of Christmas extravaganza. When it was first performed – in 1859 – Miss Woolgar was the Sir Rupert the Reckless, Mr. Toole the Seneschal, and Paul Bedford the Baron Witz, the locale being the Adelphi. Mr. Burnand introduced into "Rumpelstiltskin" (Royalty, 1864) a few modifications of the German tale, inventing and importing new characters. In one of the scenes he furnished a diverting suggestion of the situation in "The Ticket of Leave Man," when there comes the sudden and effective revelation of "Hawkshaw the Detective!" Among the personæ are King Tagarag the Tremendous, Prince Poppet, Baron Higgle-de-Piggle, Wriggleletto (the court spy), Jolinosio (a miller), and Fraulein Splitaharter (the belle of the village). Miss Ada Cavendish was the Princess Superba.

"The Vampire" – a burlesque by Mr. Reece, which was played at the Strand in 1872 – appears to have owed its origin about equally to the German legend, the romance which Lord Byron wrote on the subject, and the play which Dion Boucicault founded on the topic in 1852. As, however, the legend was the inspiration alike of romance, play, and travestie, the travestie may be mentioned here. Mr. Reece had drawn the Vampire as a being so fond of "blood," that he sought to possess it in the shape of the notebooks of two "sensation" – novelists, one of whom, Lady Audley Moonstone, was admirably represented by Mrs. Raymond.³² The following specimen of the dialogue has been handed down to us. Some one says to a Welsh corporal: —

 
On Monday and on Tuesday you were queer:
Why drink on Wednesday?
 
 
Corporal.'Cause I'm Thursday, dear.
 

In the realm of Spanish legend there have been still fewer explorers. Albert Smith took one of Washington Irving's tales of the Alhambra, and fashioned it into "The Alhambra, or The Beautiful Princess," played at the Princess's in 1851, with the Keeleys, Wigan, Harley, Flexmore, and Miss Vivash. H. J. Byron afterwards went to the same source for "The Pilgrim of Love," in the first cast of which – at the Haymarket in 1860 – we find the names of Mrs. Buckingham White as the Pilgrim, Chippendale as his tutor, Compton as the King of Toledo, Rogers as the King of Granada, and C. Coghlan as Mafoi, a Frenchman: a rather notable collocation of distinguished players.

The Fables of Æsop have inspired at least one travestie – "Leo the Terrible," by Stirling Coyne and Francis Talfourd. In this piece (brought out at the Haymarket in 1852) all the characters but four wore the heads of beasts or birds – a lion (Bland), a wolf (Buckstone), a fox, an owl, a ram, a poodle, a cat (Miss Maskell), and so on. The four exceptions were Sir Norval de Battersea, Timoleon Sindbad Potts (Keeley), Æsop, and Gay; and the play opened with a rencontre between the two last-named worthies. Æsop began with a vocal parody on "The Light of other Days": —

 
To write in other days as Gay did,
The world is grown too fast;
The rage for La Fontaine has faded —
The stream run dry at last.
On me the world has turned the tables
And turned to bad, I guess;
For they who thus can spurn my Fables
Must care for morals less.
Stop; who comes here? If I to judge am able,
'Tis Gay, the worthiest son of modern Fable.
Enter Gay dejectedly.
 
 
How dull and sad he seems!
 
 
Gay (soliloquising). My old dominion
On earth is gone.
 
 
Æsop (rising). Gad! that's just my opinion.
 
 
Gay. Æsop! What brings you here? Why thus, by Styx,
Are you, your staff and luggage, in a fix?
As downcast as a 'prentice runaway.
 
 
Æsop. Am I? Well, you look anything but Gay,
But tell me – whither have you wandering been?
 
 
Gay. About the world. Such changes now I've seen —
Such altered views of virtue and rascality;
There's not a fable left – 'tis all reality.
 
 
Æsop. Reality! Why, bless your simple soul,
The world's a fable now from pole to pole!
Pills, politics, or projects made to cram one, —
What we called fables once are now called gammon.
 

In the end, the various animals express repentance for the wrong they have committed; and Æsop, in recognition thereof, restores them to the shapes they formerly presented.