Great War Theatre

Examiner of Plays' Summary:

Madame Ghika is a palmist, crystal-gazer and so forth. At the opening of the play she is doing the ordinary palmist business, humbugging a silly man. Then a young woman, Mrs Elbridge, comes. Madame first plays with her too, but afterwards goes into a trance - Mr Hichens means this to be real and tells her that her husband adopts disguises and has a son who ‘has done something wonderful’. Mrs Elbridge is incredulous about the latter statement, as she has no son, but the former is true: her husband is a detective. When she is gone Elbridge himself comes disguised to trap Madame. The upshot of this interview is that she tells him, as seeing it in the crystal, of how he deserted a girl in South America twenty years ago. Then he recognizes her: she was the girl. Mrs Elbridge comes back for a muff and then in comes Madame’s (and of course Elbridge’s) son, who is called Maurice Gray. Elbridge knows that he is the flying corps boy who has just brought down a Zeppelin on the east coast. The boy is a natural English lad, terribly embarrassed at being a hero. Elbridge and his wife go without any disclosure to the latter or the boy, and Madame and her son are left happy together. This is only the dry bones of the play. Mr Ichens misses nothing of the really dramatic idea in the telling. I hope there will be no coincidence of Maurice grey being the name of some real flying corps hero - I do not remember it in that association somebody might object to such a one being made the son of a fortune-teller: that would be, I think, to mix up fiction and real life rather absurdly, and in any case it could not call for interference. Recommended for license. G. S. Street

Researcher's Summary:

C. B. Cochran apparently intended to include ‘Black Magic’, starring Lillah McCarthy, in a four-part programme at the Ambassadors Theatre (The Stage, 22 March 1917; The People and the Weekly Despatch (London), 25 March 1917; and The Era, 28 March 1917). But in the event McCarthy appeared in two other pieces, ‘The Man Who Married a Dumb Wife’ and ‘Class’, and the programme was completed by ‘La Pomme d’Or’ and ‘Gonzague’. No performances of ‘Black Magic’ have been identified. The Sporting Times, 8 December 1917, wondered ‘what has become of’ a number of items (all plays?) including Robert Hichens’ ‘Black Magic’ and concluded, ‘Pigeon-holed, I suppose’.

Licensed On: 27 Mar 1917

License Number: 877

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British Library Reference: LCP1917/7

British Library Classmark: Add MS 66162 L

Performances

Date Theatre Type
2 Apr 1917 Ambassadors, London Unknown Licensed Performance