The Express.
London, England, 1863-09-08 00:00:00

OLYMPIC.

The present year has been remarkable for a
lased of those promiueent topics of public interest which
furnish the dramatic author with a ready subject for an
apropos farce, or hit at the follies of the hour. The Gorilla
has bad his day ; the polyglot lodging-home, which every-
body appreciated in the height of the Great Eshibitioo,
would no looger find a sympathiaing audience ; the epide-
: mica! btuglairies of Notting-hill are forgotten ; and garotting
(thanks to the wholesome severity of Mr. Baron Bramwell)
is out of fashion. It would be bard to pitch upon say
subject which everybody is now talking of, mikes it be the
ghost—we mean the genuine ghost which Mears. Pepper
and Dinka are now trying to inscribe upon the rolls of
the Patent-dace. The ghost is undoubtedly the rage ; ha
has adapted himself to dremea which have hitherto
been performed with no ghosts, or with ghosts vastly
inferior to the registered article which every one goes
to see. He has broken out in the went, in the east, and in
the south, and has lately risen in Paris to give effect to the
beet situations in the Secret of Mies Aierore.

It was not to be expected that so public a character could
roman entombed by the dramatic satirist, or that a writer
for the siege so watchful for novelties as Mr. Tom Taylor
should he losg in making up his mind cm the subject. Ac-
cordingly a new jest d'esprit, estitled An Awful Bice in
Spirit', was produced at this theatre last night, from the pen
of that gentleman. The idea of the sketch has no claim to
originality. It might have been supposed to have beet
suggested by a picture in a comic oontemporary pub-
liaised the other day, in which all the old mo-
ve:Atonal ghost, of the drama were represented se
resetting this sudden innovation, but for the fact that
notices of this kind have been the common property of
dramatis writers from the Del-e of Buckingham to Mr.
Bockatose, whose recent At Home, is which the various
types of stock dramatic characters are passed in review ,
before a facetious manager and his htephistophelen ad-
wiser, was produced only last Easter. The Awful Rue is
Spirit. mesa with • chturbyard scene, in which Professor
Kopper (Mr. Midas), and Qmiroks, C.R. (Mr. Horace
Wive) are looking about in search of real glaciate. The
old-established ghosts of the drama, from Banque. and
Hamlet's father to the Corsican Brothers sod the ghost of
Bichardson'e show, make their appeerenee in suosession, and
attar their respective rythmiesl Singe at luck topics as may
be supposed to be now in vogue. Mies Bentham, as Le Feu
toilet, gave an amusing imitation of Mille Stella Coles
in the balcony scene in Romeo and ./idiot, and Mr.
Vincent, in an imitation of Mr. Charles Kean, was
readily appreciated. Miss Hughes, as the Bleeding Nun,
sung • long ballad dealing with the story of "Raymond and
Agues," the humour of which was not very obvious. The
jest d'esprit interludes with the appearance of the Ghost of
Shakespeare, performed by Mr. Neville, who delivered •
loss address on the favourite theme of the modern de-
paeracy of the drama, sad the fashion of performing
Shakespeare in " bed English," which appeared not to be
relished by some ardent admirers of Mr. Feebler and McWe.
Bleak Colas among the audience. The sketch is more than
ordisrily slight, and although neatly and pointedly written,
is wanting la the element of broad him essential to a sure
sneers in We kind of writing. The ticket of Leave Maw,
is which Miss Foote, the new actress, appears to have fully
established herself, will now be the first piece at this
theatre, where Ito popularity justly continues unabated.