The Sun.
London, England, 1849-12-27 00:00:00

STRAND THEATRE.

Boxing night turned out a bumper to W. Farren,
the spirited lessee and manager of this pretty little
pill-box of a theatre. Farren, since he has become
manager and lessee, has shown himself as good a
caterer for the public amusement as the best manager
of the day, and has proved that he can play the part
of the governor with as much vigour, discretion,
and excellent acting as he ever displayed in the
various other difficult characters he has sus•
tained, and the performance of which has ren-
dered him so deservedly a favourite with
the public. Although the strict spirit of pantomime
was not evoked at by Farren, as is the wont of
managers at Christmas time, its absence was well
supplied by the production of a new extravaganza,
in which the gods of Olympus had a glorious revel
uaon earth, and entered with spirit into the manners
of the present age, and the follies and vices of the
present day. The pleasing drama of King Rene's
Daughter, translated from Henrik Hertz, com-
menced the performance of the evening, in Is hick
the heart-stirring acting of Mrs. Stirling
elicited the most unbounded applause. They
were, followed by what may be termed the toast of
the night, namely, the new extravaganza called
Diagenes and his Lantern; or, a Hue and Cry after
Honesty. This is one of that class of burlesque pieces
so popular of late years, of which the dialogue, carried
on in rhyme, is made the medium for satirising the
prevailing vices and follies of the present times. The
piece, according to the bills, is an entirely
original, mythical, musical, satirical, poliical,
comical, gnomical, and politico economical extra-
vaganza. The music is modern antique, the
scenery, bran new and intensely old; the dresses,
from designs by the oldest inhabitant of Modern
Athens; the machinery, from the theatre of the
Greeks ; and the properties from Pompeii. The time
in which the scene is laid is 319 A.C., the place, Olym-
pus, afterwards Athens ; but the events sung forth
and stigmatised in verse are patent to all as of the
present day. The god Jupiter (a ruler who can't keep
things straight), Mr. Leigh Murray, finding every thing
going wrong, summons the gods and goddesses, who
appear around him in the following order, he seated
on his throne, the centre of a system :—Mars (bead
of a reduced naval and military establishment), Mr,
W. Farrel), jun. ; Mercury (the deity of " fast men,"
the original " gent" of the Greek mythology), Mr.
Henry Farren; Apollo (God of Lyres, and patron of
poetry and fiction), Mrs. Leigh Murray; Bacchus
(the fine old proof Spirit of " the bottle"), Mr. 11.
Butler ; Vulcan (the Iron King with too many irons
in the fire), Mr. C. Bender; Hercules (the King of
Clubs--worshipped by all asses in lion's skins), Mr.
Tanner ; Minerva (a blue bell in full flower—an
amazingly strong-minded and proportionably Unpopu-
lar goddess), Mrs. Stirling; Juno (the Mrs. Caudle
of the Olympian family party, Airs. B. Bartlett;
Venus (authoress of " Love's" Lenten Entertainment),
Miss liet:eft Isaacs ; Diana (the woman in the moon),
Mis. 11. J. Turner; end Ceres (persecuted by the
Protectionists, and protected by Richard Cobden,
Esq.), Miss Adams. /laving overhauled his staff for