The Express. — 1868-07-27 (London, England)

NEW QUEEIVS.  The new five-act drama by Mr. H. J. Byron, called The Leamehirs Lass, which was produced at the Queen's Theatre last Friday night, belongs to the same class of play as The Great City and The Streets of London. The interest is domestic and criminal, the characters are numerous, and there is much panoramic and familiar scenery. The drama was originally written for a Liverpool audience, and produced at the Liverpool Amphitheatre last winter, and in transplanting it to London the author has only altered the last act, leaving in all the points of local interest The story is full of incident, but the characters possess very unequal merit, the villains being very commonplace and stagey. The " Lancashire lass," a fickle village beauty, of • type not altogether unknown in domestic drama ; her lover, an ill-tempered, impulsive mechanic; and a wild, half-gipsy girl, are the best drawn in the piece, though the language solnetimee put into the mouths of the two former is • little too refined for their station. The dramatic value of ,the piece is far greater than its literary value, the author having shown all his well-known stage tact in cresting a number of parts that encourage effective acting. The first act, called a prologue, introduces us to a farmhouse in Lancashire, and to the farmer's daughter, called the " Lancashire lam," who is hall inclined to give up the sincere love of • young engineer, for the more showy attentions of a reckless adventurer. Instigated by a female companion, who is in some degree a discarded sweetheart of the young engineer, the writes a letter offering to leave her home with thisedventurer, and this letter falls into the bands of her humble lover. Her father' also discovers the letter, bat cannot reed it ; and to save her from his wrath, her humble lover misreads it, and then leaves bar in rage and despair. From this point the "Lancashire lass" becomes a companion in a merchant's family, and a secondary character in the drama. The merchant is • millionaire, and a man of apparently spotless reputation, but he has had criminal antecedents, and these are known to a drunken scoundrel named Johnson, who for a conaideratiee agrees to aid the adventurer of the prologue in hi mat rinionial design, upon the rich daughter of the merchant. Hovering between the "Lancashire lase" and the merchant's daughter th 6 adventurer loses both, and is eventually arrested as a thief, under the dies of Slippery Dick, while the young engineer, falsely accused of murdering Johnion by pushing him off the landing stage at Fgremont, escapes from prison by the aid of the " Lancashire lass," who hay seen the error of her early flirtation. In the last act most of the characters turn up in Australia, including Johnsen, who was saved from the water into which he had been pushed by his unscrupulous Mend, the merchant. The items has the defect of great length, but many of the scenes are well written, and the great scene of the Mersey with Liverpool in the distance and a solid moving ferry steamer is well contrived, well painted, and well worked. Similar somas have made the for. tune of inferior dramas before now. The acting throughout was excellent—rather broad in one or two instances, but always effective. Mr. C. Wyndham milli.. bited strong dramatic power as the youngmechiunc, Miss H. Hodson was excellent and forcible as the jealous, half. savage country girl, and Mr. Henry Irving, who is evidently to be our, future 0. Smith, was impressive as usual as the stern adventurer. Mr. 8. Emery, specially ' engaged, gave a good broad comedy representation of ibluison, and Mr. L. Brough had a slight amusing part called Spotty, which he did full justice to. The " Laucashire lass " was made very interesting in the bands of Miss Nelly Moore, but either from nervousness or some other cause she gulped a little too much for artistic effect. The drama was well received, and the author with the principal actors was called on at the concluaion.