IRISH ANECDOTES.

Rangitikei Advocate and Manawatu Argus, Volume XXXIII, Issue 9148, 18 May 1908, Page 6

IRISH ANECDOTES.

Many are the witticisms that have been exchanged by the gallery boys in the Theatre Royal, Dublin. On one occasion, when the Italian Opera. Company played “Jfaust” at this playhouse, the actor who took the part of Mephistopheles neglected ta try the size of the trap-door by which he was supposed to descend into the infernal regions. His figure, which he had nolb lost, but which had gone before, was too large for the opening, and at the supreme moment lie discovered that he could, not get down further than his waistTo heighten the awkwardness of the situation and relieve the strained feeling of the audience, one of the gods in the gallery, in a rich Irish brogue, exclaimed “Begcrra! Hell’s full. ’ ’

When Sophocles’ tragedy of “Antigone” was produced in the same theatre, with Mendelssohn’s music, the gods'were greatly pleased, and,, according to their custom, called for the author. “Bring out Sophocles” they yelled. The manager explained that Sophocles had been dead two thousand years and more, and could not well come. Thereat a voice shouted from the gallery, “Then chuck us out his mummy!” When “Douglas” was produced in the Queen’s Theatre, Dublin, for~ somebody’s benefit, the hero had a bad cold in his head, and when he spoke the line—“My name is Norval, ” a gallery boy promptly called cut. “Thin blow your nose, Kbrvval.” Mickey is a great patron of the opera, and shows a marvellous aptitude for music, and he is terribly severe on weak or faulty vocalism. On one occasion a lady sang “between the acts” in the Queen’s. Theatre. She was nervous and wobbling, and ere she had sung two lines, a young urchin in the gallery, placing his fingers in his ears,, bawled forth, in a tone of distress “Och, tell me whin sha’sdone!” It ; is related that at the opera in Dublin a gentleman sarcastically asked a man standing up in front of him if he was aware that he was opaqueThe other denied the allegation, and said that he was O’Brien.

Lydia Thompson was a prime favourite in Dublin, and was the first public performer to introduce there the song “ Come back to Erin/’ which she sang in the burlesque of “Ernani. ” The first night she sang it the house resounded with encores, in the midst of which our friend Mickey called out ' ‘ Arrah ! To the divil with ancoor! Give us tho same agin, Lydia ”

One of the oldest members of the Queen’s Theatre stock company was Saunders, who from the peculiar shape of his legs was known as “Bandy Saunders. ” He v. as small, melancholy-looking man. One night he -was performing the part of a “repentant villian,” whom his daughter vainly besought to partake of a meal; and when poor Saunders, with his meagre, hungrycountenance, exclaimed, “No child I could not eat!” Mickey remarked, “Ah, thin. Bandy, God forbid I was a mutton chop before you!” A man who had been imbibing a little too much was one night seated in a corner of the gallery in the same theatre right over that part of the orchestra in which four violinists sat. The man soon became very obstreperous and cries of “Throw him out” resounded on all sides. “Arrah, don’t throw the poor onld chap out at all, pleaded Mickey; “just sling him over and spoil a fiddler.” On another occasion a voice, from the gallery saluted Alhoni, “that greatest of contraltos,” with a neat compliment, “Arrah, darlint, the only thing to find fault with is your name.”