MR ARTHUR SKETCHLEY.

Globe, Volume XXII, Issue 1890, 15 March 1880, Page 3

MR ARTHUR SKETCHLEY.

This gentlemen made his first appearance in Christchurch at the Academy of Music on Saturday evening to a most attentive audience, who seemed thoroughly to appreciate and enter into the spirit of the quiet vein of humor which pervades the whole entertainment. Mr Sketchley, without appearing to do so, and apparently without effort, succeeds at once in interesting his auditors in the sketch of character he may be delineating. A running commentary, in which hero and there sparkle gleams of quiet fun, serves to introduce to the audience the personage who is to relate the history, and this is so cleverly managed as almost to induce the belief that the world renowned Mrs Brown herself, or the irrepressible Mrs Topham, whose somnolent proclivities at entertainments so seriously disturbed Mr Sketchley’s equanimity, are present in propria persona. To a great portion of the reading public Mr Sketchley is no stranger, his delineations of the adventures of Mrs Brown under various circumstances and in many climes being familiar, but on Saturday night they were, so to speak, brought face to face with that remarkable old lady, and the process seemed, from the constant laughter and applause, to be a most agreeable one. The entertainment does not, as might at first be supposed, consist of readings from Mr Sketchley’s works, but the characters are simply left to tell their own story in a very agreeable and conversational way. The main portion comprised Mrs Brown’s adventures. Of these, comical as they all are, the most amusing was the description of Mrs Brown’s first visit to the home of transpontine melodrama, known to Londoners as the Vic. This elicited roars of laughter, and must be heard to be appreciated. Altogether, the entertainment is most enjoyable, and no doubt many of our playgoers will take the opportunity of making Mrs Brown’s acquaintance during her short stay in Christchurch. Mr Sketchley appears again this evening.