29th January 1826
(No church this morning – hurrah! – as we went to the Royal Surrey last night and were back v. late.)
Our trip to the theatre was a jolly outing. Unfortunately, Pa only had orders for the uppermost tier, a balcony full of the coarsest specimens of humanity. Half the people were noisily devouring oranges; the other half gorging on immense tumbling rounds of ham sandwiches. Moreover, when Mama took out her opera-glasses, a Cockney matron, wearing an enormous sprouting confusion of a feathery bonnet – a sparrow short of a bird’s nest – remarked loudly, ‘Oi! Oi! I see no ships!’ Poor Mama blushed bright red and put them straight back in her reticule.
But such a play – Murder and Madness; or The Horrors of Constantinople – and a juggler and rope-dancer in the interval! I have kept my own copy of the playbill.
The scenes were:
I. A Rendez-vous at the Benighted Millpond
II. Crossing the Heady Bosphorus
III. The Sorry Eunuch and the Hareem at Midnight
IV. The Accursed Sands of Anchora
V. Doomed in a Dungeon
VI. The Amative Caliph’s Castle
The best actress was Miss Catherine Calthrop – ‘Lady Jessamima’ – who was kidnapped twice (once by pirates, once by the Caliph), drowned once, and sang a comic song about a camel.
(She is not as beautiful as S., though.)
[note to self: might the Duke of Albemarlia own a giraffe?]
We walked back through Covent Garden and mingled promiscuously with the great crowds pouring out of the Lyceum and Drury Lane. Saw two suspicious-looking fellows whom I will wager were pickpockets; several ladies of dubious virtue; and a very drunken old chap making passionate advances to a lamppost. Mama jabbed me in the arm and nodded towards him, as if to say, ‘Look upon the Wages of Sin!’ My own mother now seems to think I am some sort of confirmed lushington!
No comments:
Post a Comment