The Sun.
London, England, 1860-04-10 00:00:00

LYCEUM.

The entertainments provided at the Lyceum last
evening commenced with a new comic drama, en-
titled " The Next of Kin," which may be briefly de-
scribed. There is a large fortune, the inheritance
of a deceased nabob, fallen due to somebody. The
father of an arch and amiable young lady, Miss
Clara Mountjoy, is the nabob's relative, but a ras-
cally attorney, Mr. Grubton, whom Clara has just
rejected, brings forward a grandson, whom he pre-
tends to have discovered, as the next of kin. It is
a clownish lad, hitherto known as Timothy Chump,
and as the supposed son of Mrs. Chump, the laun-
dress who washes and starches the fair Clara's deli-
cate apparel. It now turns out that when Mrs.
Chump, a soldier's widow, was coming home from
India, she was entrusted with the care of a child,
which, if living, would be no less a person than
Theodore Villiers, Esq., heir to the nabob's estate.
In default of the necessary documentary evidence,
the attorney secretly forges as many papers as he
requires in order to force Mr. Mountjoy to a com-
promise, one condition of which is to be Clara's
hand for Mr. Grubton. The honest lout, Timothy
or Theodore, having £lOO given him on account,
and himself being passionately in love with Miss
Clara, dresses himself up in gorgeous splendour,
calls at Mr. Mountjoy's house, and makes himself
ridiculous. The attorney mercilessly urges his
own suit, and Clara, to escape his persecution, and
avert her father's threatened ruin, appeals to her
other admirer, faithful, though uncouth as he is.
A quarrel takes place between him and Mr. Grub-
ton, whose villany he learns just in time to defeat
the compromise, by exposing the forgery and re-
nounces all advantage from the false inheritance.
But Mrs. Chump, who has acted in good faith
throughout, produces the real certificates and
letters to prove Theodore's opulent parentage, and
the attorney is kicked out with his graimitous fraud.
Miss Clara does not promise to accept her awkward
lover, but kisses him in gratitude when he leaves
her a share of the fortune. The piece was amusing
enough, and the chief part was cleverly acted by
Mr. Calhaem. The author, Mr. Falconer, was
called for and applauded.

The boric:lnc of the " Forty Thieves," lately per-
formed by the Savage Club, was next put on the
stage, and there was a third piece.

ADELPHI.

The powefful driftnicorthe " Dealt Heart," which
had by no means exhausted its attractions when it
was laid aside for a time for other reasons, was re-
vived at this theatre last night. The representa-
tion of the piece under its present circumstances
was as striking as on its first production, with the
advantage of that mellowness which does not ucually
accompany the earlier delineations of dramas of
any kind, and of this description in particular. No
change occurred in the east, and the acting was as
effective as ever.

The revival of Planche's burlesque of the " Fair
One with the Golden Locks" afforded a favourable
opportunity of contrasting the earlier contributions
to this class of drama with the coarser and broader
burlesque of the immediate time, for it is now many
years since this piece was produced at the Hay-
market, with, if we remember rightly, Mr. J. Bland
and Miss Julia Bennett in the parts now assumed
by Miss Woolgar and Mr. Toole. The neat, care-
ful phraseslogy, the play on words, and the delicate
puns, which amounted almost to wit, in this as in
all others of Planche's burlesques, lost nothing in
the hands of the present representatives of the cha-
racters, and there was an evident appreciation by
the majority of the audience of the better specimen
of a class of dramatic entertainment which has of
late deteriorated so much as to have been threatened
with extinction at theatres of any pretensions.