The Sun.
London, England, 1828-05-28 00:00:00

kn.7e._
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DRURY-LANE THEATRE.

A new Comedy, in three acts, entitled " Ups and
Downs," and translated, as we were led to under-
stand, from the French, was produced last night at
this Theatre. It is of a broad and improbable cha-
racter, and turns, for the most part, on the attempts
of en aspiring cockney, Mr. Felix Mudberry (Liston),
to advance his interest by matrimony. In the first
act he is introduced as on the eve of marriage with
Kitty Corderoy (Miss Love), daughter of a wealthy
cotton-dealer in the city; while, however, the law-
yers are at work with the settlements, he learns that
a ship, which he had imagined was lost, had safely
reached Portsmouth, and rendered him five and
twenty thousand pounds richer than he had con-
ceived
himself to be. Of course, the cotton-dealer's
daughter is eow to be cut for some more influential
heiress, whom, through the medium of his dandy ac-
quaintance, Jack Pointer (Jones), Mr. Felix Mul-
berry discovers in the person of a Miss Mam-
rnorton (Miss Ellen Tree). But here too an un-
expected incident steps in between him and the con-
summation of his nuptials :—while in the very act
of " popping the question" he learns that his uncle
has died suddenly and left him heir to half a million
of money. This good news puts him quite beside
himself; he bids a cold and hasty adieu to his in-
tended, and quits the house with the fixed intention
of espousing some needy but titled maid or widow.
By the kind offices of Jack Pointer this luxury is
speedily found; but as if to verify the old adage,
"there's many a slip betwixt the cup and the lip," the
preliminaries are no sooner settled than intelligence
reaches Mr. Mudberry, that his ship is burnt to the
water's edge at Portsmouth, that his rich uncle has
disinherited him; in a word, that he is as completely
ruined as a gentleman could possibly wish to be.
Of course under these circumstances, matrimony is
not to be thought of—and the Comedy terminates,
with Mr. Mudberry's disappointment ; and the mar-
riage (with their respective lovers) of his two re-
jected ladies. This is the sum of the plot; but
there is also a sort of underplot, comprising the
loves of a sentimental merchant of Bedford-
square (Mr. Cooper, whose sentiment reminds
us of the melancholy of an taylor)
with a titled young widow,-Lady Charlewood (Miss
I. Paton, whom we were shocked to hear talk of
"assimulating herself to her lover,") this episode,
however, served only to encumber instead of to set
off or lighten the piece. It was, in fact, what Lord
King would call "a dead weight" on the comedy.
With respect to the acting it was—with the excep-
tion of Liston,—good—nothing more. Jones, as a
dashing west-end exquisite, though he gave a spirited
outline of the character, was somewhat too exagge-
rated in the details. His performance consequently
wanted uniformity ; it was' too affected in some parts,
and too sentimental in others. He drew, besides,
too much on his associations of the dandies of past
ages; the Foppingtons and Millamours of an ex-
ploded school. Liston, as Mr. Felix Mudberry, ex-
hibited a richly amusing compound of impudence
and sheepish vulgarity ; his attempts at sentiment
were, however, too highly caricatured, and impres-
sed the idea of buffoonery en the audience. Miss
Davison's lady of quality was comic, but improbable;
in fact it was from first to last, an amusing miscon-
ception. Mrs. Jones played a city "fine madam,"
in a way which any green-grocer's wife in Tooley-
street or the Minories might have envied. The
rest of the performers went through their respective
parts with the usual modicum of ability.