THEATRE
Prime pantomime
HILARY SPURLING
Anyone still on Christmas bent is advised to make instantly for a Magnificent New (1859) Fairy pantomime : Babes in the Wood by Henry James Byron, charmer, wit, relation of the poet, and author of some 150 plays 'in not one of which,' according to Squire Bancroft, `can be found a single line which the purest-minded person might not have listened to.'
Babes in the Wood has nevertheless three bloodyminded witches, two dashing villains and, in Sheila Bernette, a fearsome orphan who might have stepped straight from the ranks of George du Maurier's formidable, cross-grained, short, stout and imperious infants. Over these presides a fairy (Sheila Mathews)—the kind of radiant toothy matron, in calf-length pink gauze and laced silver ankle boots, whom one likes to picture hovering as tutelary deity over every well-regulated Victorian household. The whole (admirably directed by Don Gemmell) a skit, on grand opera, much beholden to Mac- . beth—timid. Sir Rowland, prompted by his gloating lady: `What if my auburn-headed niece and nevvy / Were done to death with some- thing hard and heavy?'—and laced with the kind of obstreperous puns which still survive, some- ., what draggled, in Ogden Nash.
If Babes in the Wood embodies the engaging, artless artificiality of Christmas past, Cinderella,.. has perfectly captured the spirit of Christmas present: that dim, grim, obstinate determina- tion that merriment shall not only be done but be seen to be done. Recommended none the less for the brief appearances of Dorothy Dampier's highly professional Carabosse and, more powerfully, for the countless roles and ravish- ing costumes of Danny La Rue. Mr La Rue is not to be missed in his wicked hobble skirts, in tiara and full fig, or in nothing but a jacket and mauve boots : `Above the rest the Queen with haughty stalks Magnificent in Purple Buskins walks.'
And his haughty stalks are as nothing to his palpitating bosom, his swelling hip, his mighty thigh and slender calves. Mr La Rue's exquisite art rests on extreme vulgarity—for all the por- traits in his gallery, from the voluptuous crooner with clasped hangs and plunging beaded crystal gown to the chorus girl in fishnet tights and• feathered scut, are based on ideals of suburban gentility—brought to a pitch of rare, aristocratic sensibility : and where else do we find- this mixture of rudery and elegance, of coarse smut and the most delicate sophistica- tion? Even his looks—those lustrous curls, those rouged and parted lips, that surging bosom in a froth of ruffled lace, those spangled velvets, satins, rearing plumes and high red heels—sug- gest another age and taste. Hard not to picture him as one of Congreve's gentlemen, Otway's cits, Vanbrugh's roaring wits or, come to that —and judging by his impersonation of Sandie Shaw, capering barefoot, the very pink of nubile adolescence—as Miss Hoyden or Miss Prue.
So here are two improving suggestions for .. 1968: Danny La Rue in Restoration comedy, and any theatre determined on a Christmas show for tots to put on one of H. J. Byron's.
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