Great War Theatre

Examiner of Plays' Summary:

This play is rather like, in theme, 'The Man Who Stayed at Home’, with the difference that that had a sort of plausibility, and its fun was incidental, whereas this is an 'irresponsible' farce, wildly impossible. It may be a question if German spies and their defeat are a proper subject for farcical presentation; personally I see no particular harm in it and do not think to calls for interferences. The plot of this farce is as follows. An elderly colonel has married again and wishes to keep the fact from his already existing family, two daughters by a former marriage and a sister who keeps house for him, and the fact of their existence from his new wife. So he pretends to be the inventor of a new submarine which takes him from his country house (where the original family lives) to London and vice versa. A young man Smith arrives at the country house: he is a 'joker', that is, the odd man of life's pack of cards who for various reasons cannot do soldiering or other definitely useful work but may be of exceptional service; he is in love with one of the daughters. The colonel and a detective take Smith for a German spy in search of the submarine secret. The butler, a real spy and the head of the gang, also thinks Smith is the chief spy and when Smith is about to be arrested disguises him as the new governess. Wild mistakes and complications follow, Smith trying to warn the colonel and dealing with the gang of spies as the chief, misleading them. In the last act, in the new wife's London house, they find out the imposture and tie up Smith, the girl, and the detective to be blown up by a bomb. Of course, they are rescued in time. This last incident of the people waiting for death is writing more seriously than the others and it is a pity. Otherwise the piece is full of mere extravagances - people hiding in clocks and all that - with no possibility of being taken seriously. I add a particular remark or two. 1. Act 1, page 23. I think the production of a Uhlan's helmet with 'blood on it’, to illustrate Smith's mock heroic adventures should be cut out. 2. Act II, page 25, etc. The business of love being farcically made to a man in woman's clothes is more or less offensive to taste, but it has precedents - e.g. 'Charlie’s aunt' - and I fear must stand. 3. Act III, page 1.the name 'Lady Huntley' occurs, but so casually that perhaps it does not matter. 4. The spies make the 'sign of the iron cross', passim: I don’t like the probable confusion with a sacred gesture. 5. One character is a French count, described as 'wounded' presumably in the war. As he is an absurd person, he must on no account be in uniform. The same applies, of course, to the colonel - but he is evidently not meant to be. Recommended for license. G. S. Street. [Added after] I saw Mr Thynne, the producer of this, play and he gave me his solemn assurance that the character of 'Count Beupre' will not appear in uniform, he is not even a soldier. 31 march 1915

Researcher's Summary:

‘The Joker’ seems to have had only a short run at the New Theatre. The Stage, 22 July 1915, included it in a list of ‘pieces with concluded runs’, having been performed seventeen times beginning on 17 April. It was last advertised for Saturday 1 May. The play was acknowledged to be entertaining, although the humour was said to be too mechanical and lacking in invention and to peter out after the first act. It was criticised for being an awkward mixture of farce and melodrama (in the last few days of the run the latter elements were toned down in favour of the former) and some reviewers thought that the war was not a suitable topic for farce anyway. It was also criticised for being unoriginal in the way it borrowed elements from ‘The Man Who Stayed at Home’ (in this database) and the older plays ‘Charley’s Aunt’ and ‘Are You A Mason?’

Licensed On: 1 Apr 1915

License Number: 3298

Author(s):

Keyword(s):

British Library Reference: LCP1915/8

British Library Classmark: Add MS 66094 G

Performances

Date Theatre Type
17 Apr 1915 New Theatre, London Unknown Licensed Performance
17 Apr 1915 New Theatre, London Professional
Read Narrative
'The piece has many amusing moments, and the first act promised very well. The succeeding acts are, perhaps, too reminiscent in familiar stage business, and such wit as there is in the dialogue is too much of the purely verbal kind' (Reynold’s Newspaper, 18 April 1915). ‘Farcical comedy seems to have one idea, which, however, is exploited with a good deal of success in “The Joker” [which] deals with its conventional situation ingeniously and effectively ... The plot is worked out with much ingenuity, and the authors have the assistance of a really fine cast ... The piece had a friendly reception, and seems to be bound for success’ (The People, 18 April 1915). The play ‘has the merit of touching upon the war without containing anything “hurtful,” although it must be confessed that even the most accomplished of farce actors could hardly have saved the last act from being tedious’ (Sporting Life, 19 April 1915). '... there are stretches ... of sheer romping in the action of the piece, that seem to reflect a study of past successes in this medium rather than the natural development of a humorous idea. There is too much mechanical piling on of detail, and too violent alternation of the probable and the preposterous’ (Pall Mall Gazette, 19 April 1915). 'Whether it is good taste to write a farce upon topics connected with the present war is a matter upon which opinions may differ . Some people will probably take offence. There is certainly no intention to offend in [this] complicated mechanical piece ... There is a great deal of rushing about, of mistaken identity, of lying, and the other ingredients of farce, but the work lacks freshness of treatment. The somewhat jejune plot was handled with no great skill, and before the end was reached most of the easy humour had evaporated’ (The Scotsman, 19 April 1915). '“The Joker” is a laborious work. The machinery creaks and groans, and the fun is not fast or furious: indeed, such as it is, it flags sadly during the last act … it lacks the element of freshness, exhibits no great mechanical skill, and does not possess the grain of good sense desirable, even necessary, in farce' (Westminster Gazette, 19 April 1915). '“The Joker" ... recalls the old unhappy far-off things of the early ‘nineties. [It] is a curious blend of farce and melodrama and not very successful when viewed from either aspect’ (Daily Citizen (Manchester), 19 April 1915). ‘Towards the end of the first act, and even beyond it, I was quite prepared to chronicle a genuine success for the farce at the New Theatre last night ... Ernest Schofield and John Ramsay had conceived an original idea and had endowed it with plenty of wholesome, honest fun; but only up to a point. There was a dreadfully weak third act, and the briskness and merriment “petered” out woefully, much to the disappointment of a disillusioned audience' (Manchester Courier, 19 April 1915). 'The whole thing, despite the army of comic German spies, is very English and old-fashioned in its humour, but that does not make it any the worse. Some of it reminded me of “Charley’s Aunt,” and one scene is strongly reminiscent of “Are You a Mason?”’ (Daily Mirror, 19 April 1915). ‘If only the fun could have been kept up through the last act! This is the concluding reflection on “The Joker"' (Globe, 19 April 1915). 'The farcical comedy is amusing enough, and that is the main thing’ (Gloucester Citizen, 21 April 1915). ‘It was inevitable that sooner or later other plays should appear of the same type as the farcical spy play, “The Man Who Stayed at Home" ... “The Joker” ... is just the same sort of “jolly good fun,” and can be enjoyed in the same uncritical, indiscriminating fashion' (The Era, 21 April 1915). ‘If the following acts had been as bright as the first and had carried out as happily the root-idea of that act, The Joker would have been an entertaining piece enough. But [the authors] do not maintain their very promising start, and The Joker shares the too common fate of three-act farces, too common for the reason that pieces of these dimensions call for uncommon ingenuity and resource to keep the fun going act after act. Unfortunately the second act of The Joker shows, as it seems to us, wrong lines of development, and the last is very weak. The device of female masquerade in farces has been fairly well exhausted in Charley’s Aunt, and at all events to be employed successfully it must be treated with more comic invention than the present collaborators reveal … The piece on Saturday aroused a good deal of laughter, but some sounds of disapproval mingled with the applause on the final fall of the curtain’ (The Stage, 22 April 1915). ‘“The Joker” … presented at the New Theatre, does not seem to have satisfied those who sit in judgment on plays. It is alleged to be “mechanical,” and to suffer from having three separate stories not well welded together ... it does not promise to be a great success, though modifications made since the first night’s production make its prospect more hopeful’ (Leicester Daily Post, 24 April 1915). ‘Had only the promise of the first act been fulfilled, success would have followed ... but unfortunately the farce fell all to pieces about halfway through, and visions of “Are You a Mason,” “Charley's Aunt,” and “The Man who Stayed at Home” got so mixed up that the poor Joker ceased to be funny and became merely reminiscent’ (The Queen (The Lady’s Newspaper), 24 April 1915). ‘The reception was not too enthusiastic, and we fear that the farce hardly possesses sufficient grip to presage a long run’ (Sporting Times, 24 April 1915). 'The authors of “The Joker" ... have taken notice of the criticism passed on their play, and have realised that to be successful a piece must not mix up the dramatic elements. They have, therefore, cut out the melodramatic episodes in their work, and by doing so have considerably lightened it. “The Joker” is now played as a rollicking farce, and as such is an excellent entertainment’ (The People, 25 April 1915). 'It is ... one of the most extravagant and least plausible of the recent crop [of farces]' (The Sketch, 28 April 1915).. 'The play is not really in the least funny, and even if it were, the time has hardly come yet to be funny about the war. And a dull farce about the war seems to have no possible raison d’être. I do not think “The Joker” will be with us for very long’ (Truth, 28 April 1915). The Daily News (London), Saturday 1 May 1915, advertised matinée and evening performances of The Joker at the New Theatre that day. ‘… the short life of “The Joker” does not, by any means, impair the vitality of the Fenn- Clarke management, shortly to be responsible for another production’ (Globe, 3 May 1915).