Bric A Brac

Examiner of Plays' Summary:

This is a bright Revue, more remarkable for impudent wit of dialogue than for anything like consecutive plot. It begins with the humours of a not too prosperous tobacconist's shop, where a loafer is engaged, with disastrous results, to personate wealthy customer giving large orders, in order to improve intending purchasers. Some chaff of the Registration Act leads to the introduction of some magic cigarettes, the smoking of which enables the smoker to gratify at once any wish. The wish gratified is that of the shop-boy, whose desire it is to return at once to his country village, where much fun is got out of the amateur milking of a pantomime cow, and also out of a Punch and Judy show. From this village a couple of yokels are next taken up to town, where at the theatre they are staggered by the amount of money that they have to disburse. Another scene is devoted to the cross-talk of a couple of sentries, an Optimist and a Pessimist, outside St James's palace, where in defiance of military regulations they discuss in song the news of the war. Other episodes are those at Brighton, where a Beach-Concert Party's entertainment is imitated, and at a dressmaker's where there is trouble for ladies who are not 'stock-size' or who find that clothes have been ordered by their husbands for rivals. Care must be taken here (and especially at p.10, scene 3, with the drawing of a 'girl in lingerie' who subsequently comes to life) as to the decency of the feminine undress throughout. This caution applies also to the spectacle of Venus's Toilet recommended for license, Ernest A. Bendall. Additional scene. This witty little scene, 'sauce for the goose', shows how a young wife confesses a tiny 'past' in the shape of a stolen kiss, demands in return to be told the 'past' of her husband, and on his laughing refusal goes off in a huff to get a 'past' such as she assumes his to have been. Precisely what 'past' she secures by the time she returns is ingeniously left doubtful; but, of course, she is forgiven. Humour sly effective and recommended for license. Ernest A. Bendall. 16 May 1916 'Bric-A-Brac' at the Palace, additional songs and scenes. These additions, which comprise half a dozen new scenes and several fresh songs, practically constitute a second edition of the piece. They consist of an episode for Miss Gertie Millar, recruiting in a kilt; a chaffing discussion of the way to get up a popular revue; a scene in a restaurant run by alien proprietors and waiters; a characteristic duologue of the Optimist and Pessimist concerning the progress of the War; a comedietta showing how his wife tries to win a bet for her husband by getting a stranger to kiss her, and finds the victim of her fascinations to be merely the piano-tuner; a skit upon Anglo-Russian cordialities, and a burlesque upon the sentimental violence of 'The Tiger's cub'. Most of the dialogue is distinctly witty, and its satire, though mordant, is void of offence. Recommended for license. Ernest A. Bendall