"Tue Secrets or a Savoyarp." By Henry A. Lytton. (Jarrolds. 6s. net.)
Mr. Lytton has avoided the common pitfalls of a stage favourite's autobiography, says the "Observer." He has written his book himself—much the wisest plan in the end—and the plain story of his successes and vicissitudes is more effective than any amount of professional decoration. It is rather thrilling to find that the "strolling player" existence was still a possibility in the days of Mr. Lytton's youth. After marrying as a runaway schoolboy and getting a fair start in a d'Oyly Carte travelling company, hard times turned. him into a genuine Jack Point. A company of seven "resting" mummers toured the villages of Surrey for takings that in their best week came to 7s. id. per head. Sie tur ad astra! Must we get back to barn-storming to rear a new generation of real actors? Mr. Lytton's chance came when he had to play as Grossmith's understudy in ''Ruddigore," and Gilbert and Sullivan, in the true Savoy spirit, visited his drossing-room with their congratulations at the end of the first act. Gilbert's artistry made a lasting impression upon this one, at least, of his interpreters. "No dramatist ever backed up a ready wit by more pertinacious consideration. Ho spent days and weeks in polishing and re-polishing lyrics, and every entrance exit, and intermediate position was worked out upon a miniature stage.
The historic quarrel about a carpet which broke up the great partnership is related here, with many incidents of the various operas and their production. Grossmith, whose medium was the humorous or nothing, had perforce to pervert the intended pathos of Jack Point's collapse to his own style, and when Mr. Lytton reverted to a tragical interpretation in the provinces it required the intervention of headquarters to support him. Ordinarily the veto on variation was of the strictest, arid also the restraint upon accentuations of business. "Always leave a little to the audience's imagination," Gilbert would say, and Mr. Lytton himself insists upon the peril of killing perfect lines by physical burlesque.
The author has played 30 parts in the Savoy repertoire from burst to last, including' Wilfrid Shad-bolt, which physique compelled him to present on different lines from the hulking study made familiar by Billington It is impossible for a small man to play the part just as the hi, men had played it, and so my interpretation of it was that of a creeping, cringing little dwarf who in manner, in method, and in mood was not unlike Uriah Heap. This seemed to me to be consistent with the historical figure from which the part was drawn, Gilbert, it is not" generally known, took him from a wicked, wizened little wretch who in the 16th century, legend says, haunted the Tower when an execution was due, and offered the unhappy. felon a handful of dust, which was, he said, "a powder that will save you from pain." For reward be claimed the victim's valuables.
Of Billington himself there 18 an anecdote which the surviving intimates of that artist and trencherman will not discredit One day he invited three of us to a round of golf, and, it being a cold morning, he told us that he was ordering, 'a good beef-steak and kidney pudding." Well, when we had finished the game and returned to the clab-house, in came that steaming pudding. Billington looked at it long and earnestly. "It_won't do for four," he reflected. Then a pause. "It would make a poor meal for three. There's scarcely enough for two. I'll tell you what. I'll have it—and you three can have chops." And that is just what we did,
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.