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 see Mr. Comyns Carr, poet, littérateur, art-critic, theatrical manager, 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 his work with so deft and cunning a hand as to puzzle not a little those who have their Goethe, their Tennyson, and some of the most favourite plays of William Shakspeare at their fingers' ends, and who are also more or less acquainted with Wagnerian trilogies.

We all know "Kettle began it." Well, Wagner begins this, in the Prologue, with spirits and water, i.e., mere spirits getting along swimmingly in a kind of Niebelungen lake-and-cavern scene. Not until the curtain rose was any sort of attention paid to the music, which might have therefore been the composition of Noakes or Stokes, instead of having been exquisitely written by King Arthur Sullivan.

Enter King Arthur Irving and Merlin ("Charles his friend"), suggestive of Macbeth and Banquo, to see Wagnerian water-witches in The Colleen Bawn's cave. Wagnerian water-witches, disturbed by the approach of gentlemen, swim away to regain, presumably, their bathing-machines. Then Charles-his-friend Merlin undertakes the part of a kind of half-converted Mephistopheles, and shows the Faust-King-Arthur a "living picture" of Guinevere as Marguerite in a vision. After this up comes a hand out of the water, bearing a magnificently jewelled scabbard, in which, of course, is that blade of the very first water, "Excalibur."

Arthur accepts the sword with thanks, observing that "if necessary he will use it to make any cuts the piece may require." More chorus 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 in armour, and the story begins in real earnest. Here is Ellen Terry, sweet and majestic as the Burne-Jonesian Queen Guinevere, and here, too, is Forbes-Robertson as Lancelot, a part which he plays and looks to perfection. The order has been given "All wigs abandon ye who enter here," that is as far as the male principals are concerned; so they all "keep their hair on," and thus Henry Irving in armour looks more like the "Knight of the Woeful Countenance," or a moustachioless Don Quixote, than the glorious Chairman of the Goodly Round Table Company.

Sir Lancelot is compelled by "circumstances over which he has no control" to remain behind at court, all through the selfishness of King Arthur (so unlike him, too, for once!), who fancies the Round Table will be a trifle dull when all his "blooming companions have faded and gone," and so the unfortunate young knight has to say to the 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 watched by Macbeth-Mordred (Mr. Frank Cooper) and his be-witching mother Lady Macbeth-Morgan-le-Fay (Miss Genevieve Ward).

C-m-ns C-rr (rising to the occasion out of the mystic mere). "Up I come with my little plot!"

In Act Two, while Ellen-Guinevere and girls are out a-maying in one of the most lovely of "As You Like it" woodland scenes (with a fool in the forest, too) ever beheld on any stage, Lady Macbeth-Morgan and Macbeth-Mordred overhear the love-making of Guinny and Lancy; and in Act Three these "two clever ones," as poor Affery was wont to style Flintwich and Mrs. Clennam, reveal the truth to Arthur-Othello, who has taken from the hand of the suicided Ophelia-Elaine (Miss Lena Ashwell) a note, which assists him in discovering the wickedness of sly Sir Lancy and the giddy Guinny. Sir Lancy cries, "Strike on!" and King Henry Irving Arthur is just "on strike" when he exclaims "I cannot kill thee," and Excalibur, a notably sharp blade on occasion, fails him now. Lancy is banished; and takes it very quietly, going out like a lamb. King Arthur and all the knights go off to the wars, leaving Guinevere in charge of Sir Macbeth-Mordred and Mrs. Morgan-le-Fay, female professor of necromancy, table-turning-medium, "parties attended," &c.

In Act last Guinevere is imprisoned in a tower, and is made love to by that awfully Bad Knight, Sir Mordred, who seizes this chance of playing Sir Brian de Bois-Guilbert to Guinny's Rebecca, only that there is no window from which she can threaten to throw herself: and so the wicked wooing comes to a rather tame conclusion. In the last scene Macbeth-Mordred and Lady Morgan-Macbeth are now King and Queen, and poor Rebecca-Guinny is going to be burnt à la Juive, when the herald's challenge is answered by a very Black Knight, who keeps himself awfully dark, and who does not say, "I am Richard Cœur de Lion," but lifting his steel nose-protector (most useful except when the Knight has a bad cold), reveals "The King!" Then comes the fight—and ah, would that here one of the swords could have been poisoned, and that Mordred, after slaying Arthur, should himself have been stabbed to death by his own weapon, while at the same time Mrs. Morgan-le-Fay might have shouted, "See the Queen drinks to Arthur," and then she could have drained a poisoned cup, and so obtained her "coup de grâce."

But no! Comyns Carr would have none of this. The wicked flourish. Someone said that Sir Lancelot was killed "without," but I don't believe it. My private opinion is that the sly dog Lancy sneaked out quietly, waited for Guinevere, and then they both went off together, to Boulogne, or Monte Carlo maybe; that Morgan-le-Fay took to walking in her sleep and washing out little sanguinary spots on her hand; and that Mordred got an engagement in the provinces to play Iago; while all that the audience know of King Arthur is that he went off with three Queens of the Night (perhaps signifying that he ventured on a water-party with only three sovereigns) in a barge,—perhaps "the craft of Merlin" mentioned by Tennyson,—to some place down the river, where he was said to be interred, and at whose grave kept guard the well-known "Waterbury Watch." However all this is but surmise. One thing is certain—that King Arthur is still alive, very much alive, and, like Lord Arthur of Pantomime Rehearsal fame, "going strong," at the Lyceum, for very many Arthurian nights to come. Le Roi Arthur est mort! Vive le Roi Arthur!

Bravo,