New Albion (22 page)

“I’ll not take a life,” said the swell, resolutely.

“Shiv the bastard.” Mr. Wilton, though he could not speak to accuse his assailants, recognized the voice behind him. It belonged to Colin Tyrone.

Having heard the muffled sounds of a street mugging as he was on his patrol, a policeman called out at the assailants to stop. They immediately bolted in separate directions, one down Greenfield Street, one toward New Road, and one through the mews of an adjacent building. Seeing that Mr. Wilton was not seriously injured, the Peeler decided to pursue the third fellow, who had disappeared into the mews. His search for the villain was fruitless in the dark alleyway behind the building, and he returned to Mr. Wilton, who must have been in a state of shock, some minutes later. “Did you recognize any of those sodding runts who attacked you?”

Having caught his breath at last, and found his voice, Mr. Wilton said, “No.”

I was flabbergasted when I heard this and impatient with Mr. Wilton for not taking the opportunity to report the young hoodlum. “Why did you not identify Mr. Tyrone? He is likely to do it again.”

Sitting in his office, Mr. Wilton touched the gash above his eye with the tender remembrance and fondness for battle of an old army man. “No,” he said, “I think Mr. Tyrone has settled the score. Now we can all live in peace.”

I do hope that Mr. Wilton has become a better judge of character than he was hitherto wont to be, but I fear that is not the case. “Are you certain?” I asked. “The only
way to deal with blackguards is to put the full force of the law upon them.”

“I am certain,” said Mr. Wilton. “I think we are free of Colin Tyrone now.”

Wednesday, 25 December 1850

Pandemonium in the theatre at this time! The pantomime is to open tomorrow evening, and the play script underwent a major change again last night. Mr. Farquhar Pratt’s theatrical animal has been tamed considerably, brought down to a more domesticated size and shorn of its genitalia. The poor weaver lady who dies on her hearth with her accursed infant is no more. Last night, after a frantic rehearsal, the decision was made to obliterate the Kingdom of Needles and Pins altogether; the audience is instead to witness an absolutely traditional harlequinade with Neville Watts as Wanky Twanky Fum and Pantalone. Mr. Hicks will play Arlechinno, Mrs. Wilton Columbine, and the Parisian
Phenomenon will return to the stage by popular demand to perform
the Dance of the Great Wall of China. The costumes and setting are all that remain of Pratty’s original concept.

Mr. Farquhar Pratt has not entered the theatre in over a week, and I cannot help thinking that his absence is for the best. It would not do his fractured constitution good to witness the emasculation of his work.

The actors and actresses inspire me, as always, with their capacity for long hours and excruciatingly hard labour. They have rehearsed tirelessly, and with unequaled good humour from seven in the morning until six in the evening for the past seven days. And then they have performed the evening’s bill, finished at ten-thirty and gone home to learn pages of lines
before retiring to bed. Yesterday, Mr. Hicks was presented with his lines altogether rewritten. He was no more or less
ivre
than usual, and still he had memorized the gist of his scenes by sunrise this morning. While the exact wording of the lines escaped him, as usual, he was able to improvise his way through with some degree of accuracy. The rest of the cast was perfect in their lines.

The theatre being dark today – Christmas Day! – we rehearsed for sixteen hours while the three wise buzzards, Mr. Sharpe, Mr. Manning, and Mr. Hampton, carried newly created set pieces across the stage and secured them in the grooves. It was perhaps not a wise decision (but one that I made) to utilize a wing and shutter set for this production, but Pratty’s original script seemed to require it, and the New Albion is one of the few theatres in London which makes use of a hemp fly system but has also not ridded itself of the archaic grooves in its stage floor. Some of the flats have not been painted – they are being painted as I write this, with Mr. Sharpe cursing the actors for monopolizing the stage all day long.

Mrs. Hayes will work through the night to finish sewing a
tutu and crinolines for the Parisian Phenomenon.
Approximately half of the costumes for what is now the harlequinade have still to be cut and sewn. I offered to stay and help her in any way I
could, but knowing me to be practiced only in the art of uphol
stery sewing, she cheerily declined my offer.

And still the indomitable spirit of the actors and actresses is what impresses me most. To see their faces at ten o’clock this evening, white and lined with fatigue, their eyes sunken, even the miraculous Fanny Hardwick’s hair in obvious disorder, an errant ringlet accidentally framing her magnificently sculpted ear. Then to see them concentrate every ounce of strength and to channel that into an emotional scene or a physical pratfall is miraculous indeed. Mr. Hicks has abandoned all pretense, carrying his gin bottle with him, deposited in the lip of his tall boots, and I fear he has escorted young Mr. Weekes halfway down the dreary road to inebriety. Alcohol is the fuel Mr. Hicks needs to unleash his seemingly endless reserves of energy; he takes a drink before every new scene, and I saw him offering Mr. Weekes his bottle in the wings before the second run-through last night. “Have a pull, young swabber,” he slurred. “It’ll loosen you up for what is to come.” Mr. Weekes graciously accepted Mr. Hicks’ offer, and the young man’s performance during the second run-through had an uncharacteristic freedom about it. Young actors often have broomsticks up their arses for one reason or another, and Mr. Hicks’ bottle did manage to dislodge that broomstick for a moment or two. Mr. Hicks, in the meantime, straightened up like a boy of sixteen and performed his backflips at the required moments with as much dexterity. And he insists on dancing a sailor’s hornpipe during the curtain call, having directed Mr. Lovat the orchestra leader to play “Hearts of Oak.”

For all the actors’ labours, for all of Mrs. Wilton’s rewrites, I have never seen a pantomime more in shambles on the evening before opening. I pray to Almighty God that a miracle will happen and bring some sense of cohesion to this otherwise disjointed theatrical extravaganza.

* Chapter Fourteen
*

Thursday, 26 December 1850

Opening of the pantomime.

The actors rehearsed until a few moments before the house was let in, frantic to create order out of chaos. They were warned by Mr. Sharpe to avoid touching the set pieces as the paint had not yet dried. I saw Mrs. Hayes, at five minutes of seven, trying to pin the Parisian Phenomenon’s costume in place, even as Eliza limbered herself by performing the splits on the floor backstage. It is good to see young Eliza completely recovered and back to her own form. Mrs. Wilton was giving the supernumeraries last-minute instructions in a gruff, tense voice, having to repeat everything at least three times for the benefit of Big Sam. I had already explained to them when they were to come onstage in the new scheme of things and where they were to stand, what their facial expressions should be, and so forth. There was a distinct odour of insanity in the whole preparation. Mr. Hicks and Mr. Weekes were sharing the gin bottle liberally, with Mr. Hicks in such a state of drunkenness that I feared he would not be able to stand for his first entrance as the Genie.

It was rumoured that the famous Charles Dickens himself would be in attendance for the pantomime this evening and that he intended to review the production for the newspapers. I kept a lookout for the esteemed author, peering through a peephole in the proscenium arch. He did arrive at a few minutes before seven, followed into the theatre by two women, one of whom appeared to be his wife although his manner was also quite affectionate toward the second woman. Dressed in a fashionable blue frock coat, and with a handsomely trimmed beard touched up with brilliantine, he cuts a fine figure. When he unbuttoned his frock coat, I could see that he was wearing a brilliant yellow and black waistcoat and that his ruffled white shirt was as billowy as a cloud. His hands were encased in yellow gloves. A murmur went through the place as he found his seat in the first gallery. “Dickens…it’s Mr. Dickens…him wot wrote ‘
ousehold Words
.” Dickens’ relationship with the New Albion Theatre has not been a happy one, unfortunately; only last spring, his lawyers were threatening to sue because of Pratty’s adaptation of
David Copperfield
.

The house was full for the first time in many weeks, but that was not entirely unexpected. The New Albion panto has always been highly regarded, at least by the local population.

The performance of the pantomime did not go well. Mr. Hicks remembered none of his words, which is not too much out of the ordinary except that he ad-libbed so outrageously that the rest of the actors were barely able to keep to the story line, which was already somewhat tenuous due to the constant rewriting of the play. In the opening scene, he entered, danced an impromptu hornpipe in his Arabian Genie’s costume, performed a back-flip (badly, landing flat on his backside), got to his feet and recited, “I am…I am…I am…” His nose and cheeks glowed like red coals as he waited silently for the prompter Mr. Smith to supply him with his first line. Neville Watts’ eyebrows ricocheted off the riggings in the fly gallery, and then he looked at me, basset hound-eyed and helpless, in the wings, willing me to make the pain of Mr. Hicks’ performance go away. Smith, meanwhile, hissed the remainder of the line at Mr. Hicks, but the audience was somewhat restless and Mr. Hicks was therefore not able to hear his prompt. “I am…I am…I am,” he repeated daftly.

“The Spirit of Chaos!” Mr. Smith fairly shouted.

Still Mr. Hicks did not hear. He staggered to the edge of the stage, sat down there and spoke directly to a spectator in the first row, an elderly gentleman in a threadbare coat. “What the devil did he say I am?”

The elderly patron was quick-witted. “Drunker than a fart!” he said in a booming and very theatrical voice. Thus was the first belly-laugh of the evening obtained.

Neville Watts, Fanny Hardwick et al. had no choice but to watch in horror as Mr. Hicks then approached them, bearing a threatening-looking yellowish powder in his open palm. He inhaled deeply in preparation for blowing the yellowish substance into their faces. I heard him choke and sputter, and then he sneezed violently, hurling yellow powder, snot and alcoholic bad breath at his fellow actors with undue force. The spell complete, Neville Watts and Fanny Hardwick stood like doomed prisoners chained to a post, blinking their eyes, their wigs and whiskers and eyebrows yellow with Mr. Hicks’ powder. “There,” said Seymour Hicks, improvising wildly, “let the transubstantiation begin!”

The scenery was changing furiously behind the actors, flats newly painted creaking in their grooves. The actors scurried off, with Fanny Hardwick taking Mr. Hicks by the hand and literally dragging him off with her. The orchestra struck up “I Loves
a Drop of Gin,” and the Parisian Phenomenon bounded lithe
somely across the stage, found her position, bent into a deep plier, and waited for her welcoming applause. Instead of applause, we all heard the ripping of the back of her tutu as she raised her arms, swanlike, into the air. When she lowered her arms to begin the dance, the top portion of her costume fell away from her torso entirely, leaving her chemise fully exposed to the audience. So involved was she in the dance that she did not notice her own flagrant nakedness for a minute or so. By
that time, there were catcalls from the stalls and hoots of laughter
from the galleries and boxes. “Here, Frenchie,” someone yelled, “if you’re feeling that way, you can cock a leg for me behind the theatre in fifteen minutes!”

The orchestra ceased playing. The Parisian Phenomenon, having noticed her own lack of suitable attire, attempted to cover herself with her arms, and Mrs. Wilton barked at me to lower the curtain so that the poor girl could be collected from the stage. Tears were streaming down the Parisian Phenomenon’s cheeks as Mrs. Toffat escorted her downstairs to the dressing room. “I’ll never dance again,” she kept saying. “I’ll never dance again.”

There was much jeering at the actors and actresses through the remainder of the performance. Some of this is to be expected at any pantomime, but some of it was also so untowardly seasoned with antagonistic wit as to make what followed seem inevitable to me now. When, after the harlequinade, Neville Watts returned to the stage as Wanky Twanky Fum, someone in the audience said loudly, “Drunks, whores, and ponces. That’s all we see in this theatre.” I could not help wondering what Mr. Dickens was thinking of the event.

At the curtain call, there was a long minute of silence. The actors took their positions behind the curtain, with the exception of Eliza Wilton, and bowed and curtsied gallantly and low when the curtain went up. They were greeted with a hurling of assorted fruits and vegetables – some of it purchased inside the
theatre and some of it brought from spectators’ homes – a hurling
so tumultuous that the actors were forced to vacate the stage and to forego their second curtain call. I cannot help believing that this reaction was associated with the Enoch Wolsey incident, in part because I heard a few of the same voices urging the patrons to rip the place to shreds. The same middle-aged
dock worker, who had threatened retaliation after the last near-
riot led his compatriots from the back of the stalls on to the stage, at which point I tried to intervene, saying, “Gentlemen, you have no quarrel with the actors and the scenery makers of this theatre. If there is a quarrel, it is between yourselves and the management.” I received a punch in the stomach for my pains and watched the remainder of the tumult while leaning for support against the proscenium arch.