THE THEATRES.
Tax Adelphi is the only theatre that has broken through the mana- gerial custom of not producing any novelty the week before Christmas : YATES, with characteristic promptitude, has found intervals of leisure while planning tricks and transformations for Clown and Harlequin, in which the " real water" is to be an element, to bring out a new version of Burnaby Budge, which includes the Riots, and the catastrophe ac- cording to Boz. Though the vivid descriptions of the author are not, of course, embodied in the representation, and the scenes want cohe- rence, yet there is sufficient merit in the dressing and acting of the principal characters and the " realizations " of fifteen of Pntz's designs, to excuse the want of animation and continuity in the action of the story. WRIGHT'S Simon Tappertit is not merely diverting, but a finished and faithful impersonation of that rampant ninny the lock- smith's prentice, whose legs turned his brain. O. S3IITH as Hugh is a Salvator study of the Orson of the Maypole ; and in the scene in New- gate he almost reaches to a coarse sublimity. Mrs. YATES as Mrs. Rudge gives dignity and pathos to the character without losing its homely simplicity ; and LYON as her brutal and murderous husband depicts the horrors and misery of blood-guiltiness with terrific power. YATES doubled his share in the performance, appearing first as Miggs and afterwards as Sir John Chester. The metamorphosis is striking, but it was not needed, for he has a much better weeping vinegar-cruet among the petticoated portion of his company ; indeed he neither distilled tears nor venom : be indulges in too much buffoonery as the polished heartless scoundrel Sir John, and is not hard and impassive enough for that petri- faction of politesse. WHAINsos looks old Willett better than any other actor ; though he wants the dense stolidity of that most dogged and de- liberate of tapsters. BEDFORD as the hearty old Locksmith is quite out of his element ; and Miss E. Cuarux as Burnaby conveys no notion whatever of the idiot boy. The mob-scenes are not well managed: the meeting of the "United Bulldogs," ending with a " No •Popery horn- pipe" by Mr. Tappertit and his brother Bulldogs, is the most effective. Some disapprobation was expressed at the close; which YATES, as Miss Miggs, with a marry-come-up air, treated with becoming contempt
Previous page
