The Express.
London, England, 1857-12-26 00:00:00

CHRISTMAS ENTERTAINMENTS.

LYCEUM.

Mindful of the old proverb which warns us to
" Take Sim• by the forelock," the Lyceum manager has
this year commenced it. Christmas season on Christmas
Eve, instead of as usual waiting for the close of the time-
honoured " Boxing-day," when the pockets of all our young
folks sr traditionally supposed to be so many little Califor-
rilse, welting only to be explored by the enterprising theatri-
cal geologints of the great metropolis. An innovation in so
pars a matter involves a grave responsibility, and may
peseikly be attended with serious results. For, suppose that.
instead of attending to the projection of the great culinary
alchemy of the year, our thrifty housewives should, by
the Raul blandishments of the eductive Mr. Charles

Dillon and his brother managers, be induced to
neglect the preparation of the Christmas turkey,
or, more awful still, of the Christina& pudding, the conse-
quences would be aa much beyond any mortal powers of
speculations& is the penalty Incurrci by • refractory member
of parliament when the speaker is aa • last resource obliged to
" name him" to the house. If we were @eked what would
probably become of our fair friends under such extraordinary
circumstances, we could only reply with the late Mr. Man-
ner. Sutton, when questioned se to the probable fate of a
"named" member, " Heaven only knows." But whatever
may lavish.= the result an regarded yesterday's beating, the
dbet on the Lyceum treasury on Thursday evening was of
the moot encouraging possible character, as the house was
crammed from floor to ceiling, while the ruddy complexlma
el the juvenile audience showed that they were princi-
pally visitors from the country fresh for • London treat.
Them was another Innovation in which Mr. Brunet was the
eulprit—and he is an old sinner in the same way—end that
was the appropriation of one of the most beautiful poems in
our language to the purposes of pantomime and burlesque.
It may be fair, but it certainly is cruel, thus mercilessly to
topple down our literary household gods, and mix up with
our reminiscence. of the graceful and the ideal those images
of absurdity, however fumy, setting as it were the lyre of
Apollo to playing "Pop goes the yowl." That Mr.
Slough does his work well—better than any of his
contemporaries, except the veteran Pleaded, who, by
the way, never Imbued farther within the sowed pm-
dads than the territory of Madam D'Aillnere—is only an
aggravation of his alma. Were he • mere clammy Wein
darer, dull a. well as Merafilli, he would only
excite our indignation, and our mind-world would
female intact ; but he is intolerably smart, vigorous,
ad clever, has as many puns in his repertoire as
Abulcsaern, of Baaeora, had sequins In his inexhaustible
bide, and codes us laugh at his beck, in spite of our cou-
nt:ben* our recollirctiona, and our notions of the dignity of
the bays. Is It not too bed, for instance, that our beautiful
Lalla ltookh, to whom every one who can appreciate
female loveliness hem vowed a lifelong devotion, should be
made to do duty as a Columbine in the shell, and, borrowing
her prosody from Mra. Clamp, to my she "judgm a Peri, by
speriences," to dance • spasmodic manourke, end to pun
reddesely upon a chest of tea ? Again, Fadl•deen, our own
Failledam, the model of a diplomatist and courtier, with all
the flame of a Palmerston, and the placid gravity of
an Aberdeen, to be realised to our physical Mica by
Mr. Calluiem, in a turban of about nine feet in diameter,
and wearing • gigantic crinoline bstened under his armpits
Fenimore, too, sometimes It in true a little prosy, but always
unexceptionably sentimental, has he not a hard fate In being
trandormed into • wandering minstrel, like him of Beulah
Bps, the only redeeming cimumatanoe being hie permation
hydra. Alfred Mellon, who could not be ungr•odel or ab-
surd, tithe tried? But the public like it; and so, having thus
protested, we mast submit, and proceed to detail how he this
Me has executed his clover sacrilege. Lelia Raab ; er, Me
hitless, sad Ms Peri, opens with& vast expanse of &lightens
• before which the banished Peri mourns in spangled
muslin for her well-known repulsion from Paradise.
She es:cents her griefs in a shower of distracted
pun., which maks the audience laugh, while the is
absorbed in grief, and then the smoke disperser, and she
sees as in • vision " A discreet Peri Prince's," surrounded
by fair immortals, who rate her In Mr Brongh's most
vigorous doggrel for her many faults and transgressions,
at the same time indicate the campaign of repentance
through which she must win her way back to Paradise.
She loves a mortal, Fenimore; she must give him up. Its
I. beloved by Lelia Rookh. She must contrive their union.
Lally Soak is threatened with persecution by filar-
lambed, "not found in the poem," • ilerworehipeer ;
and she must counteract all his =stigmata machi-
nations. All this she undertakes to do, but with
a few wry faces ; and then the burlesque begins
to move. We have Lila Rookh to her boudoir, murmur-
ing fa couplets of ingenious rhythm her wish to he
married, and Forearm making himself particularly
agreeable with his poetry and guitar. Rae Fadladeen enters,
disturbs the lovers, sad the sore changes to the court of
Aurungesbe, whets embeasies from Cashman and " far
Cathay " tender presents and matrimonial proposal to the
capricious or tether preoccupied Princess. One sovereign
eke infuses became she hears he mokee, the envoy of an-
other admits that his meter goes beyond sherbet in his pote-
ncies, and from a third, no clear undemanding can be de-
tailed as to whether he can dispense with a latch key. Under
these circumstances there occurs what Mr. Dlar•eli would
eall a complication, and as a "cloths the great King sends
his daughter on a country excursion Into the Khyber Pam,
or something exceedingly like our deocriptiono of that plea-
sant locality. Fadladeen watches over the Princes., and
Fermiers furtively makes love to her under his very now,
while the incidents of the journey give opportunity
for the splendours of the spectacle. Khmer:died and his
Ghebers are continuity on the track of the travellers, leer
ratty planning imprimis, but as immanently frustrated by the
banished immortal, who is area the right Peri la the right
place, and ultimately guides the whole party in safety to the
happy gardens of her Queen. Here an erlairrisseswitt Oakes
place Feramore the Minstrel becomes Fere:more the King,
marries Lalla Rookh, and forthwith transfers hi. mantle to
Mr. Tom Matthew., who shows himself worthy of It by
singing " Hot Codlins" with more than his usual pathos sad
expression. The remaining trandonnations then take place,
and the piece Sabha with the ordinary old-fashioned, noisy,
catgut-scraping, perpetually dancing herlegeinade. Mr.
Brough's jokes give place to those of the carpenter, and the
whitom sententious Fadladeen is content to tumble by proxy
as Pantaloon.

If we were to east the horoscope of the piece hum the in-
dications afforded by its reception on the first night's repre-
sentation, we should augur for it a lengthened end triumphant
success. The puns rattled off in an noessaing fusillade, and
were all received by the audience with the merriest tokens of
acceptance. The majority of them were really good, and of
the rest the tuteees wee so positively stroctous as to mute
even more laughter than the others. The dialogue never
flagged for • moment, end therefore there was no time nor
inclination to be hypereritkel on any particular portions.
The intention wt' to make the medium merry at Cheist-
meatide, and the ever mewed peals of laughter showed that
the author had achieved a reel sums. And bin mirth-
inspirations were well caught op by the reformat., who
never allowed one " paper pellet of the brain" to miss
fire, while in the maw of two of the adore
additional pungency wee frequently given by the what
manner of delivery. The two most prominent charaMers
were filled by 1t,,. Alfred Mellon (Mite Woolgur), as
Feramora and Mr. Took, as Khorsembed. Of the first it is
sufficient fore London public to learn that she fully sustained
her reputation both ea a minstrel and a prince, it being hard
to my in which capacity she looked or acted best. Mr. Toole
imparted en amount of comic ferocity to the interpolated cha-
racter of Khorstunbad,which made it one of the great feature
of the piece. His misanthropic longings for an opportunity
of doing " something diabolical," and his severance to his
captors that them would be no nee in pardoning him, as
he should be just se bad on the following night, were inimi-
table in their way, and indicated his rapid rise in a branch
of the mimetic art which he may be said to have made his
own. People already begin to dem comparisons between
this young setae and Robson, and that alone is something ;
but their styles us essentially different, although both tend-
ing to produce the same result, i. s. continuous laughter and
succomito bursts of applause from their respective publics.
Mrs. Charlm Dillon made a graceful L 44 Rooth ; and Mr..
Buckingham White, a dashing leader of the fire worship-
pers. Mr. Calbeem wee pompons enough, bat hard, ea
Fadladeen, end of the remaining &Arleta* the meet notice-
able were the banished Pen of Kiss Eliza Webb, t irbeftnefe
of fair promise, and the "Discreet Princess" of Mies Marta
Tetuan. The latter lady had little to do, bat looked bewitch-
ing— a task which nature enabled her to petlorm entirely to
the 'Minimalist of the audience.

Of the scenery and appointments., which in pions 103
L.U. Rookh form one of the mein attractions, too much can
hardly be said hi praise of thew gorgeousness and general
effect, Mr. Fenton, it is true, cannot paint a fairy tableau
with the groin and eabanstiess fancy of Beverley ; nor •
rural leadsceps with the rieh tints end teeneparent •too►

panne of Cation; tan in the production of eel scene' of taw.
dun Oriental window' he stands at the head of theatrics'
artiste, and may, In his achievement of this year, fairly sot
competidon at defence. His triumph on Thursday Pistu
wee the great sore of the transformation, which, in spits ,f
the bitches inseparohls from a fat public working, threw tka
endience into a perfect paroxysm of delight and Msg.
ration. At fest it displayed the golden aloons
of the Pees pekoe, which, gradually opening in the mums
introduced by Madams Violets in her gorgeous butlesivia,
disclosed long rows of the fair guardians of the pekoe stud.
hag winged and rootionlese on hundreds of glittering podee
tale. Then, when the audience were nearly exhausted sp.
clouding this effect, another expansion of the scene folloset,
laying bare the whole breadth and depth of the stage. Eno,
mons lustre' of dazzling crystal, blaring with light, de.
scemded from the roof, and all round ran row upon row of
shining " dregs drcles," corniced with the same gin.
toting material, and crowded with the Peri ae
and resplendent as gold and silver, pink and asare,
downs and feathers, and their own good looks
could make them. The illuminated glue filled no
eye with a perfect sea of prismatic colour, and it was h.
bowing under a zones of visual intoxication that the audiosn
made the house ring again with succeseive bursts of Appian..
The artist and manager ware at the end of this some both
celled before the curtain, and received the warmest [elicita.
dons of the house. Of the harlequinade that followed, it
not be necessary to say much. The piece would have hen
complete without it, and its elect was only to produce s
mom of incongruity and tedium. The children had too little
of the clown and the tumbling, and the elders too lunch, and
so it may be said of the newly-invented fusion of burlesque
and pantomime, that however " great in its separate end.
lances," It is not ptomaine, even If " wonderful in its comfit.
Wien."