A Midnight Meeting

(The Stage - 15 July 1915)

The Marchioness Townsend has written still another clever little dramatic sketch which she calls "A Midnight Meeting." By way of dress rehearsal, she gave a performance in her own drawing-room theatre on Christmas night, her audience including Mr. and Mrs Algernon Paget, Lady Ida WIlson, Miss Helmsley, Miss Hope, the Marquess of Townsend, Mrs. Yorke Bevan, Mrs. Ben Webster, Major Waldron (of the Army Flying Corps) and Mrs. Waldron, and a number of officers on leave. The play has only three characters - an orphaned country heiress, her chaperone-housekeeper, and a burglar - respectively sustained by Lady Townsend, Mrs. Adrian Hope, and Mr. Ben Webster. The heiress is a young and unsophisticated maiden, who prefers wax candles to electric light in her ancient mansion, will not have a telephone, and leaves priceless old silver scattered about her rooms, much to the concern of her housekeeper. The burglar is a vagabond gentleman of good family, impelled by hunger to climb through the window down to an early morning repast with this the course of quite amusing badinage. He is the handsome black sheep of an old county family. He offers the lady marriage after she has most ingeniously suggested that his proposal might be acceptable. The curtain falls on the burglar retiring through the window with a Queen Anne teaset which he is to sell on the morrow to provide a blue suit of serge of which he is sadly in need, and thus be enabled to make a respectable appearance when he calls to have tea in the afternoon. The tiny drama is most wittily constructed, despite its apparently thin motives. If presented at one of the theatres it will probably have a similar success to the curtain-raisers for which the Marchioness Townshend was responsible for a few weeks ago at the Coliseum and St. George's Hall. (London Evening Standard - Wednesday 29 December 1915)

A grand matinee performance took place on Thursday afternoon at the Palace, Hammersmith in aid of funds to provide a Christmas treat to local war orphans. The hall which was beautifully decorated, was crowded in all parts, included in the audience being Lady Bull, Lady Randolph Churchill, Lady Gwendoline Churchill, the Marchioness Townshend, the Hon. Mrs. Bevan, General Ruck, and the Mayor and Mayoress of Hammersmith. Mr. Bertram J. Seabrook, the manager of the theatre spoke on behalf of the good cause. An attractive novelty was presented in the shape of a sketch by the Marchioness Townsend entitled "A Midnight Meeting," and amongst those who kindly volunteered their services were Lorna and Toots Pounds, Wilson Hallett, Beattie and Babs, Joan Hay, Whidden and Kummuning, Laddie Cliff, Ethel Earley, Marchioness Townsend, Chas. Coborn, King and Benson, Evie Greene, Billie Merson, Ella Shields, Daisy Jaimes, the Four Vagabonds, Van Doch, Kirkby and Hudson, Jack Birchley, the Melody Makers, Dolly Elsworthy, Fred Barnes, and the Goda Quartet inducting Eli Hudson. A diverting incident was the auction by Mr. Billy Merson of the original sketch the front page drawn by Pay fetched 13 guineas. The matinee realised upwards of 130 pounds. (The Era - Wednesday 13 December 1916)