Smile

Examiner of Plays' Summary:

The many scenes of this ‘revue’ make no pretence of coherence, or of connection one with another. To begin with we have some pantomimic humours of a crowded Cheapside, where taxis are not to be got for love nor money, and where a lady special is robbed of £50 which she has concealed in her stocking - with resulting jokes that are tasteless though not actually improper. Then follows a farcical quarrel between typical Irishmen over the respective beauties and merits of the North and South of their country, for the edification of a bewildered Englishman. late come some ‘double stage sets’, showing a tipsy lover telephoning from his own house to that of his anxious sweetheart; a contrast between the ‘jolly good fellow’, so generous at his club and so mean at home; and the different views of the same gallant action which are entertained by the broken man who has been wounded and the comrade who has got the VC for rescuing him. Another item is ‘reading the will’ a kind of vulgarized edition of the famous scene in ‘money’, with the quarrels of expectant and difficult legatees; and there is some good pantomimic fun in a trifle called ‘Charity begins at home’. The usual restaurant scene is varied but the wrangling of a husband wife over the men; and last of all comes a burlesque duel between a couples of business partners, who each discover that, in spite of their mutual covenant the other has secretly taken to himself a wife. The ditties and choruses to be introduced are as an inoffensive as tare the feebly satirical sketches themselves. Recommended for license Ernest A. Bendall.