... OUR CAPTIOUS CRITIC THE BABES IN THE WOOD, AT DRURY LANE THEATRE. MORE Light! is the first boon I should ask of Mr. Arthur Collins if I were invited to suggest an improvement in front at Drury Lane. What is the use of a programme which one cannot spell out or of a book of the words which one cannot follow? There is nothing on the stage at the National Theatre in the present Christmas ...

... OUR CAPTIOUS CRITIC. SWEET NELL OF OLD DRURY. PRECISELY the same objections which may be urged against English Nell at the Prince of Wales's apply with equal force to Sweet Nell of Old Drury at the Haymarket. We must, indeed, be sadly in need of a type of English woman, or of woman's sweetness, if a creature like Eleanor Gwynne is to be put forward as representative of either. Surely our ...

... By Vedette. Me. FREDERICK HARRISON is wise to revive Lady Huntworth's Experiment, which, though it enjoyed a good run at the Criterion six or seven years ago, was by no means run to death. He is certainly also lucky to find available-- though I suppose at rather a high price --a cast which adds Mr. Charles Hawtrey and Mr. Weedon Grossmith, and is to add Mr. Henry Kemble, to the exponents of ...

... OUR CAPTIOUS CRITIC. JUL1F- BONBON, AT THE WALDORF THEATRE. I DO not often go to the theatre on first nights nowa- days. But I went to see the opening performance of Julie Bonbon, at the Waldorf, and I am rather sorry that I did so. To put it candidly, I did not particularly care for my company. The great tribe of fussy deadheads is becoming too numerous and too demonstrative for the ...

... . EVEN fifty years ago Donizetti s Lucia en must have been an indigestible morsel to admirers of The Wizard of the North, for if there ever has been a direct opposite to the superficial puerilities of the operatic hero, it is the stern and direct Master of Ravens wood, whose striking figure arrests the imagination of all who can think of anything but music. What a deal of swallowing, ...

... . MR. EDGAR PEMBERTON, who is the author of several dramatic biographies, is responsible for the present volume --and for its title, which, like the pictures in the book, gives more prominence to the popular Lyceum actress than to the other talented ladies, her sisters. On our part we are, as far as our illustrations are concerned, compelled, with some re gret, to follow the example of the ...

... . THIS is one of Messrs. A. and C. Black's excellent series of Animal Autobiographies. Mr. Tregarthen, the author, is to be remembered by his delightful Wild Life at the Land's End, published a couple of years since. Those who had the good fortune to read that book will know how careful and accurate an observer of wild creatures, especially beasts of chase, Mr. Tregarthen is. In the ...

... OUR CAPTIOUS CRITIC. SOCIETY'S VERDICT. ROYALTY has its drawbacks after all. The Prince of Wales attended the first performance of Society's Verdict, and-- more unfortunate than some of the dramatic critics-- was obliged to sit the representation out. The evening wa a dismal one in every way --there was absolutely no relief. In the depressing auditorium-- darkened as soon as the cur tain rose ...

... , THE EXPLORER, AT THE LYRIC THEATRE. A MAN may not marry his grandmother-- and several other ladies-- but ought he to marry a young person whose much-beloved brother he has in cold blood ordered to go out and get killed? Of course, the motives of this amateur judge, who some thousands of miles away from the Old Bailey takes the law into his own hands, are of the nicest; it would be wrong to ...

... OUR CAPTIOUS CRITTC. MERRY WIVES OF WINDSOR, AT THE LYRIC THEATRE. MR. CHARLES MANNERS was encouraged by the good reception of the Merry Wives of Windsor to make a speech. Why do people make speeches? They only convince those who are already of the same opinion! Why, particularly, do actor-managers make speeches at the last moment when everybody wants to get away? And alter the speeches have ...

... BOUND THE THEATRES. By Vedette. IT is only a few days ago that I was wondering whether the leading West End managers had not been making a mistake in arranging for so early a summer cloture this year. And now, as I write, I find the thermometer doing its best, at any rate for the moment, to justify the policy of those who have closed their doors, and to make one feel very doubtful as to the ...

... OUR CAPTIOUS CRITIC. THE POCKET MISS HERCULES, AT THE NEW ROYALTY THEATRE. MR. HUBERT DRUCE has begun a season at the Royalty which I hope will be successful. With a small theatre like this he needs, of course, only a small company. But here of all places the better the players the better the chance, and although the names in the Dean Street programme are in this sense on the whole ...