PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI.
VOL. 108. January 26, 1895.
edited by Sir Francis Burnand
THE COMYNS AND THE GOIN'S OF ARTHUR.
It was a pleasant sight, on the première of King Arthur, to seeMr. Comyns Carr, poet, littérateur, art-critic, theatricalmanager,orator, journalist, dramatist, and not a few other things beside,gravely bowing his acknowledgments as "the Arthur of the piece"at the Lyceum. Beshrew me, and by my halidome, he hath done hiswork with so deft and cunning a hand as to puzzle not a little thosewho have their Goethe, their Tennyson, and some of the mostfavourite plays of William Shakspeare at their fingers' ends, andwho are also more or less acquainted with Wagnerian trilogies.
We all know "Kettlebegan it." Well, Wagnerbegins this, in thePrologue, with spiritsand water, i.e., merespirits getting alongswimmingly in a kindof Niebelungen lake-and-cavernscene. Notuntil the curtain rosewas any sort of attentionpaid to the music,which might havetherefore been the compositionof Noakesor Stokes, instead ofhaving been exquisitelywritten by King ArthurSullivan.
Enter King ArthurIrving and Merlin("Charles his friend"),suggestive of Macbethand Banquo, to see Wagnerianwater-witchesin The Colleen Bawn'scave. Wagnerian water-witches,disturbed bythe approach of gentlemen,swim away to regain,presumably, theirbathing-machines.Then Charles-his-friendMerlin undertakes thepart of a kind of half-convertedMephistopheles,and shows theFaust-King-Arthur a"living picture" ofGuinevere as Margueritein a vision. Afterthis up comes a handout of the water, bearinga magnificentlyjewelled scabbard, inwhich, of course, is thatblade of the very firstwater, "Excalibur."
Arthur accepts thesword with thanks, observingthat "if necessaryhe will use it tomake any cuts the piecemay require." Morechorus of water-sprites,and end of prologue.Merlin, or a spirit,ought to have sung "Voici le sabre." This chance was lost.
The next scene is at Camelot, when in come a lot of knights inarmour, and the story begins in real earnest. Here is Ellen Terry,sweet and majestic as the Burne-Jonesian Queen Guinevere, andhere, too, is Forbes-Robertson as Lancelot, a part which heplaysand looks to perfection. The order has been given "All wigs abandonye who enter here," that is as far as the male principals are concerned;so they all "keep their hair on," and thus Henry Irvingin armour looks more like the "Knight of the Woeful Countenance,"or a moustachioless Don Quixote, than the glorious Chairman of theGoodly Round Table Company.
Sir Lancelot is compelled by "circumstances over which he hasno control" to remain behind at court, all through the selfishness ofKing Arthur (so unlike him, too, for once!), who fancies the RoundTable will be a trifle dull when all his "blooming companions havefaded and gone," and so the unfortunate young knight has to say tothe Queen, as Mr. Chevalier's Coster sings to his "lidy-love,""I'm bound to keep on lovin' yer! d'yer 'ear?" and he is watchedby Macbeth-Mordred (Mr. Frank Cooper) and his b