VARIETY ENTERTAINMENT AT OOTACAMUND
Madras Weekly Mail, 01 August 1885
VARIETY ENTERTAINMENT AT OOTACAMUND.
(From our own Correspondent)
Ootacamund, 25th July. —This performance was quite the most entertaining, and the best attended of the season. I believe it was got up for the benefit of Mr. Brown’s, of the Assembly Rooms, by Colonel Kenney-Herbert, Colonel Keyser, and Captain Chamberlain, aided by all the local talent, and certainly, they are to be congratulated on having achieved a brilliant success, artistically as well as monetarily. Shortly after 9 o’clock the room was filled with all the fashionable world, and the gallery was crammed, but we had to wait some little time more before Mrs. Grant Duff and Sir Frederick and Lady Roberts arrived, followed by their staffs. Irrepressible signs of impatience now were heard from the house, and Mr. Micquith played some pretty wait see and popular tunes to opposes the somewhat irritated audience. At last the curtain rose, and revealed Colonel Keyser got up in a wonderfully seedy costume. His melancholy countenance, and inimitable play of feature drew rounds of applause from the audience before he over opened his month to sing the sad ditty about, “The lovely young maiden so fresh and so fair, And the butter-cups and daisies which fly in the h—air.” Between the five or six verses his dancing and acting were capital. Though deafening plaudits and shouts of “encore, encore” were renewed, over and over again, tor a long time Colonel Keyser did not respond. Owing to the disappointment of the audience the next thing on the programme fell rather flat.
Another disappointment was in store for us because the baritone song a “Bandit’s life” fell through, owing to the sudden illness of Major Meares. All signs of dissatisfaction vanished, however, when Herr Wossa (Colonel Keyser) came forward, and begged our indulgence for any little hitches that might occur in his unparalleled and unrivalled show, for though the figures were his property, t’was his better half who understood and managed the winding up and oiling of their interior economy. Frau Snooker had unavoidably been detained at Mettapollium, owing to an accident which occurred to their most valuable wax effigy of Mr. Brown of local renown. Yells of delight from the gallery here interrupted the speaker, and with a call to his boy Jim to bring forward the first figure, the wax work show began. There were to have been eight figures, but one fell through.
The first exhibited was Archer the great Jockey who has won more Derbies than fifty other jockeys put together, mounted on Paradox; such a beast, made of paste board with great spots all over it, like the wooden horses of my younger days. Dr Shaw’s action as the Jockey being wound up was very funny. The audience laughed heartily from the beginning to the end of the show. I can’t tell you about them all, but will just give you their names. No. 2 was Mr. Durand (Mr. G. Campbell) presenting the sword to the Amir (Colonel Kenny Herbert) Then the single figure of Count Alikhanoff (Mr. F. Deane) in a posture expressive of contempt for the English. Next the group Charlotte Corday (Mr. Fyers) and Marat (Mr. Tate) No. 5 a group the “spoilt child” done by Messrs M. Deane Sutherland Orr and a horrible stuffed child which the showman sent flying among the audience, and which alighted in Captain Lawford’s arms. No. 6 a group of the aboriginal Todas of Ooty, and last and best of all, Adelina Patti, about to sing “Tutto d’amore.” Adelina was represented by Mr. Gough in a low black dress and short sleeves with a glass in one hand containing (so the showman said) the liquor without which it would be an impossibility for the great prima donna to support the fatigues of life. Jim wound up the figure, and it began by quaff.