English Humour

Sun (Auckland), Volume 1, Issue 110, 30 July 1927, Page 22

English Humour

Is Aggressiveness its Lasting Quality? AN INTERESTING THEORY After a season of 1,300 performances “The Farmer's Wife" was taken off in London. In the following article an English critic, Charles Morgan, uses Eden Philpotts's play as a foundation for discussing English humour. A few evenings ago my eye "was caught by one of the many posters advertising “The Farmer’s Wife.” These particular advertisements have so often been made amusing by a series of ingenious catchwords that I looked to see what the latest might te. To my astonishment, I saw across a corner of the poster a slip of paper on which was printed: “Last Weeks." I had to look again before I could believe it. This play had run continuously in the Court Theatre for more than 1,300 performances. Years ago I went to its first night, mildly enjoyed it, realised that others with a heartier taste in humour would enjoy it uproariously and decided that it had in it the elements of popular success. But it never occurred to me or, so far as I know, to any one else that it would succeed as it did, that it would turn Into one of those seemingly inexhaustible gold mines that some people visit 20 times simply for the joy of being worn out by laughter. This it proved to be. The electric lights in which its name was written became a sight so familiar that their disappearance changed the landscape of Sloane Square. The death of “The Farmer’s Wife” was indeed an occasion for post-mortem examination. In any discussion of humour the interesting question to ask is not “Why did a particular play make the world laugh?” but “Does this particular play contain any element which may be justly called a permanent part of hymour?” FASHIONS IN JOKES Fashions in this matter, as in all others, change. Jokes which now succeed because they are concerned with topics of the day, or passages of dialogue which cleverly make use of and slightly exaggerate the slang of the moment, may be delightful to us, but, if we are fools enough to remember them, will be the curse of our grandchildren A great proportion of popular success in the theatre springs, and is bound to spring, from such ephemeral qualities. But it is my belief that a play which depends upon this kind of appeal will not only be dead and worse than dead a generation hence, but, even at the time of its first production, can hope for only moderate prosperity. Leave aside for a moment all thought of artistic merit; think only in terms of the box •dice. Still I believe that it must be acknowledged that the exceptional successes, the plays which run for years and years, dying at last only to be re-born, are never plays whose humorous appeal is topical alone. “Charley’s Aunt” is a classic example: ‘The Farmer’s Wife,” when it has enjoyed a few revivals, will be another. They have in them, beneath the easy laughter of the surface, something that is characteristic of English humour, some quality or qualities that will always amuse hundreds of thousands of Englishmen, no matter what their period or fashion. There is, in short, substance beneath the froth. Let me, in parentheses, consider a particular instance of froth growing so stale as to threaten the popularity of the substance. There is in “Charley’s Aunt” a scene in which two girls and an older married woman are expected to luncheon in the rooms of an undergraduate. The girls appear; the married woman is delayed. The girls promptly decide that they cannot with propriety remain and withdraw forthwith. promising to return when the married woman has had time to arrive. A great deal of humour was originally extracted from these girls’ embarrassment and from the thought that they would have to wander aimlessly through the town until the conventions permitted them to return. OTHER DAYS, OTHER WAYS To-day it is merely ridiculous that two girls together, arriving a little early for lunch, should not quietly sit down and await the coming of the other guests. Yet, at every annual revival of the play in London the absurd ladies are put into modern clothes and the whole play is treated as if it had been written last week. The effect is to emphasise the temporary nature of this passage, to make it irritating, to rob it of whatever fun there may have been in it—in short, to exhibit the staleness of the froth. Why “Charley’s Aunt” is not performed in the costume of its own period I have never been able to understand. It is equally true, and for the same reason, that the plays of Wilde and the early plays of Pinero ought to be given in costume. When Shaw’s “Mrs. Warren’s Profession,” at last released by the censorship was performed in London not long ago, it was dressed in the dresses of its; own time. To have put Mrs. Warren into a modern frock would have been to make her ridiculous, not indeed because her “profession” is out of date, but because her own and her daughter’s 'vnole speech and manner and outlook on life were essentially different from jB our own. A LVo '* J“ n K ste P from "Mrs. War- ■ *- Las “ -Prutessioa" 10 •■.The Farmer’s

Wife,” but that they both should have direct bearing upon the present argument is proof of its universality. All plays, comedies, farces and even tragedies have elements that belong to the moment only; a few have something more lasting. What is this lasting quality in the world of humour? What is this substance which will cause Englishmen to laugh whatever their period and whatever the period of the play ? CHEERFUL AGGRESSIVENESS hat, I believe, Englishmen in large masses will always love is a kind of cheerful aggressiveness. This has two aspects. If you are the attacker in the dramatic contest, you must attack without malice and largely for the fun of the thing. If you are attacked, you must enjoy that also. If you are knocked down, you must not despair and stay down, but must bounce up with a grin on your face ready to be knocked down again. Thus, what matters in a humorous play is its attitude of mind. Sharpness, wit, irony, all these have their following. Plays may succeed by these qualities alone—succeed—that is, up to a point. But the pieces which are so popular that they go on year in Jind year out and become, as it were, a British institution, have all, so far as I know, one attitude of mind. They are heartily and happily aggressive; they suggest to you a round, redfaced cheerful man telling stories after a good dinner by a comfortable fireside. It. is true of the “Pickwick Papers,” of “The Farmer’s Wife,” of “Charley’s Aunt” and of George Bobey. It is not true of Grock, whose humour is far more subtle and is definitely pathetic, but Grock is a foreign refinement of English taste and is not in the English humorous tradition. And it is only partly true of Chaplin, who is. above all else, a tragic humourist. But popular though Chaplin is I cannot regard him as being in any way identified with what is characteristic arid national in English laughter. He has succeeded by the strength of his own personality as a genius must always succeed. DULL SHAKESPEARE Finally, if my theory is a good one, it must stand the Shakespearean test. About this there, is a certain difficulty of discussion. The great figure of Falstaff has precisely that quality of bluff aggressiveness which my theory requires of enduring English humour, and I may add, without discourtesy to Eden Phillpotts, that both “Yellow Sands” and “The Farmer’s Wife” are in Falstaff’s debt. But, it will be said, what of the hundred and one intentionally humorous passages in Shakespeare, the “comic relief,” which to modern audiences is inexpressibly tedious? If Shakespeare, when writing farce, is emphatically in what I have called the permanent English tradition, how do I account for the indisputable fact that he is, on these occasions, so often a bore? I account for it by taking from it yet further support for my theory. The traditional substance is there, but it happens to be killed for us by the staleness of the froth. Let it be remembered that much of the Shakespearean comic relief was nothing else than patter for the contemporary clowns. It is full of words that have now altogether lost the meaning they had for Shakespearean audiences and packed with flashing references to the day and the hour which are now without significance. Of course we are bored by humour which cannot be understood without the researches of scholarship and, even then, remains a mass of “conjectural readings.” Here the froth is not merely stale; it has gone bad. But the traditional substance is always there if you care to dig for it. Only when, in such plays as “Love’s Labour Lost,” he depends on verbal tricks, does Shakespeare turn aside from English tradition, and then how disastrously he fails!

G. P. Huntley, back in London from the States, is very much out of humour with modern America. Apart from the normal Englishman’s dislike of the prohibition restrictions, he complained of the undoubted orgy of vulgarity on the American stage. This in a country so professedly pure that horse racing has bee- almost frowned out of existence. “G-.P.” is to appear on the London stage presently in “Buying a Gun.” Harry Grattan’s sketch, which is 15 years old. That is a quarter of his Own age.