Event Comment: Afterpiece: A Pantomime
Entertainment not acted these eight years. [See 20 Oct. 1768.] New Scenes, Dresses and other Decorations. Doors open at 5 o'clock. To begin exactly at 6 o'clock. Theatrical intelligence,
Covent Garden:
Mrs Hunter, lately returned from
Ireland was very well receiv'd in
Mrs Oakly, and to do her justice she played the part throughout better than it has been performed for some time at either house. The labourings of
Mr Wroughton's jealousy in
Oakly reminded us of the progressive workings of a fatt of small beer, when inflated with powerful yeast....
Orpheus and Eurydice was reviv'd after the play-the dullest of all dull Pantomimes (
Harlequin's Jacket excepted). The two additional scenes we were summoned by the bills to behold, are two of the late memorable regatta:-The first is a perspective of
Ranelagh Gardensv to the water, illuminated with party-coloured lamps, which terminates with the temporary obelisk erected on that occasion:-Behind this we just catch the streamers of the barges and etc., supposed to be rowing up to the stairs, and landing their company, to martial music and under the discharge of cannon, imitated by the unnatural slamming of one of the Green Room doors. This scene, however, had a tolerable appearance, but being on too confined a scale, its intended effect must have been lost. The other represented the inside of as much of the
Temple of Neptunev as was possible to give the spectators in a theatre:-we cannot extol it by any means as a perfect representation:-and to prevent it coming too near the original,
Harlequin,
Perot,
Pantaloon, and etc. were made to lounge in the orchestra instead of its being occupied by a good band of music:-in short the whole pantomime went off rather flat. It is recommended to the managers here never to suffer the scene shifters to appear again in such garb as they did; old greasy plush waistcoats, with red-stocking sleeves!-such a habit may be in keeping with a blacksmaith's forge, but not for a theatre royal in the metropolis of a polished country (
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