"TODDLES."

Auckland Star, Volume XXXVII, Issue 257, 3 November 1906, Page 9

"TODDLES."

The English version of the thrce-aet French farce •'"Tripplepatte," produced at the Duke of York's Theatre last Monday under the title "Toddles," bids fair to achieve a- very fair measure of popularity. It. is farce pure and simple, with comparatively little action and a tremendous amount of talking, dull and vapid to begin with, but improving immensely as the play proceeds. The farce t never becomes '"broad," for there is a certain culUire in the humour of the authors, the methods of Cyril Maude ("Todules") are opposed to anything "in the nature of suggestiveness.

The "Toddles" of thp play is Lord Meadows, blase, hypochondriacal, a bore, a humourist, and a most irritatjngly; vacillating person. He is hsa<J

over "heels in debt, and becomes the object of the matchmakers. It is shown how he is affianced to a. five year old child by his" late father, but, though this scheme, is" , pursued ..through the piece more or less definitely, it is neverthe less scarcely in the picture. A wi-dow-adventures has designs upon him. and lastly his aunt, Lady Dover, designs to marry him to the daughter of the rich Joblyiu the banker: Lastly, his doctor recommends marriage. Lord Meadows shrinks from the bondage of matrimony, and the whole of the second act is concerned with the frantic efforts of his .friends to prepare him on the morning of the event for the ordeal. Things happen thick and fast in the rooms of the bewailing victim, and in the end the unwilling bridegroom is conveyed in pyjamas and dressing-gown to the church. By a clever device, however, he contrives to get away unobserved from church, and finds himself a few weeks later in a hotel at Nice, where he meets the lady he should have married. Now he proceeds to apologise for having been a "rude ass" to her. only to discover that he really loves the girl. The piece comes to a happy ending, as all such plays must ii tfte audience is to" be sent away pleased,

The acting all round is splendid, for the east is "strong. Mr Maude is very happy portraying tEe blase, much-wor-ried lord. Miss Lottie Venne as Mrs Joblyn was delightfully naive in the sort of character in which she excels — that of the woman of wealth outside the pale, and frantically desiring to get inside it; while the quiet humour of Mr Alfred Bishop, as her long-suffering husband, is one of the best things in the play. As the scheming Lady Dover Miss Gertrude Kingston was also admirable, while the work of the fair Australian, Miss Alice Crawford, as Constance Joblyn is excellent. The minor characters are also in good hands, and, taken all round, the cast is exceptionally strong.