Opera House, Belfast

Performed for the week.

‘“Bubbly,” one of Andre Charlot’s well-known productions, makes its initial appearance at the Grand Opera House this week, and last night’s opening performance was enthusiastically acclaimed by a full house. It would provide an interesting problem to define in what class of play “Bubbly” falls. Its claim to represent musical comedy is impossible, and to place it in the category of revue would be to most correctly classify the piece. The majority of the ingredients are undoubtedly borrowed from revue, but at the same time “Bubbly” possesses the redeeming feature of being superior to any revue we have yet seen. It is at all events original, a merit rarely if ever associated with the ordinary revue, and to this fact must be largely attributed the success which it has attained both in London and the provinces. Indeed, a few years ago it might have been said of a portion of the dialogue that it was more original than judicious, but the war has broadened the views of many a critic who is now content to accept and even applaud things the good taste of which he would seriously have questioned five years ago. Thus when “Old Bill” and a peppery colonel make use of some of the descriptive expressions they were accustomed to use in the trenches they provoke only laughter. The two acts of “Bubbly” are subdivided into eight “bubbles,” which in themselves can most aptly be described as extravagant eccentricities. The production is devoid of any plot or story, but is made up of a series of music-hall or revue “turns,” sketches, burlesques, dances, choruses, &c. There are some clever travesties upon modern men and things and an abundance of epigrams and quaint witticisms, while the songs are bright and catchy and the melodies tuneful and refreshing. A production of such a character requires artists of more than average skill and versatility, and “Bubbly” is quite happy in this respect. Misses Ivy Tresmand, Edith Payne, Kathlyn Martin, and Florence Bayfield, and Messrs. Edmund Russell, Ernest Seebold, R. Barrett-Lennard, W. Ashley Sinclair, and Frank Lorden are the outstanding members of a capable company. The work is elaborately and picturesquely staged and dressed’ (Northern Whig, 8 April 1919). Also noted in The Stage, 10 April 1919.

Previewed in the Belfast News-Letter, 7 May 1920. ‘… Bairnsfather’s Old Bill figures in [a] burlesque in which fun is poked at people who have a passion for hero-worship. The veteran of the trenches goes into the country in the hope of enjoying a much-needed rest, but, much to his chagrin, is followed into his retirement by a crowd of admirers, including the widow of a Duke, who so keen in posing as the heroine of a romance that she throw herself at the feet of the battle-scarred warrior, and tries to induce him to lead her to the altar for the second time. Another scene shows a peppery major, who is unable to settle down in his own house after four years’ war service. The comforts of civilisation are too much for him, and he turns the home topsy-turvy in the endeavour to secure an approximation to the conditions under which he had lived at the front. It will readily be understood that “Bubbly” is by no means an intellectual play, but in the theatre laughter is as much entitled to a place as pathos and tragedy, and therefore one welcomes the riot of fun and frolic which is the motive of this production’ (Belfast News-Letter, 11 May 1920). Also noted in The Stage, 13 May 1920.