MR FREDERICK MARSHALL.

Observer, Volume 2, Issue 48, 13 August 1881, Page 546

MR FREDERICK MARSHALL.

Saturday is a bad night for the Letter class of playgoers to get out on, but despite this fact we hope there will be a good muster at the Theatre to-morrow evening to give a hearty welcome to Mr Frederick Marshall. This worthy successor to Robson, and rival of Toole, is now the premier "star" of the Australian, colonies, and can boast of draAving larger houses for a longer time than any comedian who has ever visited Australia, save perhaps Charles Matthews. Mr Marshall is a rather short mnn with a neat figure and a highly expressive face which he can make move you (almost without an effort) to shrieks of laughter. We used to see him constantly years ago at the Prince of Wales' Theatre, Liverpool, and can therefore vouch for the fact that the following notice, by "Tahite," the famous theatrical critic of the Australasian., of his Charley Spraggs in "Blow for Blow" (the piece he opens in to-morrow) is by no means an exaggeration. Dr Neild says :—"The success of the comedy depends mainly on that singularly racy humour which Mr Marshall possesses in so extraordinary a degree, and which enables him to surround every character he plays with an atmosphere which, if you will, we will call magnetic. No matter whether he revels in the horrible, disports in the quaint, reposes in the pathetic, or makes merry m the wildly absurd, he always has you with" him. You cannot get out of the influence he exercises ; he fascinates you, diverts you, delights you, wins you. He surprises you into bursts of admiration. You. laugh at him as if you had never laughed before, and when the curtain is down and the lights are out, you continue laughing. You laugh as you go home, and the next day you laugh as you think about him. Your merriment smoulders but does not go out —it blazes up on the smallest stirring. The mention of Charley Spraggs, therefore, is like a pleasant sort of titillation. It is a thing to think about when you are dull. It is a good care-disperser. You have only to call to mind the expression on Marshall's face when he asks for the microscope, that he may see if there really be any butter on his bread, and you will straightway fall into little paroxysms of cachinnation. Sucn an actor, therefore, has a positively therapeutic value. He does your digestion good." Mr Marshall is accompanied by his wife, a very handsome brunette with a pleasant manner, and his brother, himself an actor of considerable ability. Mrs Marshall is not on the stage.