Hullo America!

Examiner of Plays' Summary:

All's Fair' for addition to 'Hullo America' at the Palace. [3 February 1919] These are two scenes for addition to the revue at the Palace Theatre. The latter of the two is merely a little dialogue between the hero and half-a-dozen YMCA girls, leading up to a new song as harmless as itself. The former is a boisterously farcical sketch of the trouble into which a wife's former lover gets through her introducing him to her suspicious and vengeful husband as a famous boxer, about to box all comers at a public exhibition that night. The sham pugilist bribes the real one to come forward as his unsuccessful opponent, so that he himself may win a victory as fraudulent as himself. The noisy fun is not very brilliant but is void of offence. Recommended for licence. Ernest A. Bendall. Managers find additional matter can be included in licensed script. [1 April 1919: another scene and additional matter licenced under the title 'The Return of the Prodigal']

Researcher's Summary:

See under 'The Boy Comes Home' in this database for a sketch that was introduced into this revue, perhaps in December 1918. But when the revue opened on 25 September 1918 the Westminster Gazette the following day reported that it included five ‘war skits’: ‘The Medical Examination’, ‘The New Sub.’, ‘Night Ops. (Somewhere in England)’, ‘The Real Thing (Somewhere in France)’, and ‘Afterwards’. The Westminster Gazette continued: ‘It would be hard to say which was the least convincing. Nor were they rendered any more palatable by the laboriously satirical spirit pervading them, at the expense for the most part of the Army and its methods. This sort of thing has indeed been done so brilliantly on previous occasions elsewhere that on every ground the attempt to go one better at this time of day is a somewhat perilous undertaking, except for the best equipped, and these particular examples provide an illustration in point. An earlier war number, “The Old Knight and the New,” was much more entertaining - the idea in this case being a meeting between a mediaeval man-at-arms, Roland de Boeuf, and a modern Tommy fresh from the trenches in full marching kit'. The Globe, 26 September 1918, was also critical of the sketches: 'With the best intentions, no doubt, Mr. John Hastings Turner has introduced to “Hullo, America" ... two scenes so savage in their satire - let us hope so cruelly unjust - that it is certain they will not survive reconsideration, after a single performance. It is a curious thing to greet our Allies from the New Country with the suggestion that our officials are so callous and so venal as the suggestion is in the episodes depicting the medical examination of an unfit man, and a commission of inquiry into corruption. When this interlude has been removed from “Hullo, America!” there is of wit and humour, of gaiety and splendour, a plenty’. Some or all of the material was still in the programme when the Illustrated Sporting and Dramatic News, 5 October 1918, mentioned Owen Nares playing ‘the hero of a moderately significant series of incidents in the life of a second lieutenant, incidents which are intended to be mordant criticism of men and things; but they fizzle rather damply’. The sketches seem to have been given a different form by the time the Tatler, 9 October 1918, mentioned that 'A tiny three-act comedy called The Rake’s Progress, showing the descent of a “Sub” - from the time when he comes up for medical examination in a gorgeous dressing-gown to the time when, having made a dreadful “bloomer” during a Night Off, “somewhere in England,” he is immediately elevated to the staff because he happened to know the brigadier-general - is delightfully funny, and ends upon a perfect gem of unexpected humour’. The material referred to in the Examiner of Plays' Summary above was added to the revue on 10 February 1919 for a new addition to the cast, the Parisian entertainer Maurice Chevalier. The Daily News (London), 11 February 1919, reported that ‘A new song and a new sketch, “All’s Fair,” were introduced yesterday for the sake of M. Chevalier. The song was not of much account, but the sketch was made the medium for a very funny boxing match’. [Previously the Sunday Mirror, 2 February 1919, had noted that ‘Mr. Maurice Chevalier, who succeeds Mr. Owen Nares in “Hullo, America” at the Palace Theatre tomorrow week, is said to be Carpentier’s double. At any rate, Carpentier, who is a great friend of his, is bringing an army of French boxers to welcome Chevalier on his first night’. Georges Carpentier was the European heavyweight boxing champion.]