Zig-Zag

Examiner of Plays' Summary:

This is a Revue consisting of a series of episodes, connected merely by the personalities of the chief performers, who are apparently to be Mr Robey and Miss Kellogg. The former figures as a bankrupt King of Comic Opera, who sells to the latter his kingdom and his crown, and determines to go into “revue”. There is some fun in the scene between the newly-married lady doctor and the husband whom she insists on treating as a patient to be operated upon, rather than as an affectionate bridegroom. Then the ex-king and his taxi-driver get lost in Hampton Court maze, and toss up to decide which shall eat the other in order to allay the pangs of hunger. There follows a sketch of the trolley on a tram car whose trolley has got out of order, and leads up to the hero posing as a statute of Napoleon on a pedestal. Then comes the more ingenious fun of the mistake of a half-inebriated gentleman who finds himself in a box in the Savoy Theatre – when a play with a big “bedroom” scene is running – instead of in his own bedroom at the Savoy Hotel. This blunder is comically elaborated as is that also of a fraudulent would-be borrower who poses as a former sweetheart of another imposter who pretends to be a millionaire. Some imitations, apparently by an Italian mime, are followed by a burlesque of Russian ballet after the “Stone-Age manner” of the “Prehistoric Peeps” of E.T. Reed: and after a fresh illustration of the lost purse trick the whole winds up with the comedy of the too fascinating manicure-girl. No offence is suggested by the rather tame “book” or by the lyrics; but if any of the latter have been omitted they should be forwarded for approval. Recommended for Licence. Ernest A. Bendall. Songs omitted now sent in and approved EAB 30/1/2017. Second licence letter dated 31 October 1917 appears mid-way through the list of songs. Report on the extra material is as follows: “The chief of these additions is an episode of school life as it is to be lived in AD 3017 in the St. Emmerline’s Convent for Boys. The dormitory mates Montmorency and Aloysius are seen dainty [sic] attired in laces and ribbons, while they are heard prattling over love-affairs after the supposed manner of schoolgirls. Montmorency has, it seems, given his heart to his mother’s aviator Nellie, a daring damsel who presently scares him by appearing from under the bed in the disguise of a window cleaner, with the view to an impromptu elopement. In the reversal of the roles generally played by boys and girls lies the fun of the skit. The effeminacy of the love-sick lad is, to my taste, disagreeable: but there is no harm in it and the mechanical development of the theme might prove funnier on the stage than it is in print. There is also a dialogue between and English and American soldier leading up to one of the several fresh numbers of the piece. Recommended for License Ernest A. Bendall". NB Manager informed these additional 3 scenes + 8 songs can be added to the licensed MS of Zig-Zag.