F. Anstey - Mr Punch's Model Music Hall Songs and Dramas

Mr. W. But, Sir, I understood from your remarks recently that the Democracy were strongly opposed to anything in the nature of suggestiveness!

The Ch. Exactly so; and therefore we cannot allow their susceptibilities to be shocked. ( With a severe jocosity. ) Molly and you, Mr. Wheedler, must either ford the stream like ordinary persons, or stay where you are.

Mr. W. ( depressed ). I may as well read the last verse, I suppose:

First Censor. We can't have that. It is really not respectable.

The Ch. ( pleasantly ). Can't we alter it slightly? "I'd brought a small portable pillow." No objection to that !

Mr. W. "Till I owned that I longed for a drink."

Third C. No, no! "A drink"! We all know what that means – alcoholic stimulant of some kind. At all events that's how the audience are certain to take it.

Mr. W. ( feebly ).

Third C. Well, Mr. Wheedler, you're not going to defend that , I hope?

Mr. W. I'm not prepared to deny that it is silly — very silly – but hardly – er – vulgar, I should have thought?

Third C. That is a question of taste, which we won't dispute. I call it distinctly vulgar. Why can't he drink out of his own hands?

The Ch. ( blandly ). Allow me. How would this do for the second line? "She had a collapsible cup." A good many people do carry them. I have one myself. Is that all of your Ballad, Mr. Wheedler?

Mr. W. ( with great relief. ) That is all, Sir.

The Ch. ( after consultation with colleagues ). We have carefully considered this song, and we are all reluctantly of opinion that we cannot, consistently with our duty, recommend the Council to license it – even with the alterations my colleagues and myself have gone somewhat out of our way to suggest. The whole subject is too dangerous for a hall in which young persons of both sexes are likely to be found assembled; and the absence of any distinct assertion that the young couple – Molly and – ah – the gentleman who narrates the experience – are betrothed, or that their attachment is, in any way, sanctioned by their parents or guardians, is quite fatal. If we have another Ballad of a similar character from the same quarter, Mr. Wheedler, I feel bound to warn you that we may possibly consider it necessary to advise that the poet's licence should be cancelled altogether.

Mr. W. I will take care to mention it to my client, Sir. I understand it is his intention to confine himself to writing Gaiety burlesques in future.

The Ch. A very laudable resolution! I hope he will keep it. [ Scene closes in.

It is hardly possible that any Music-hall Manager or vocalist, irreproachable as he may hitherto have considered himself, can have taken this glimpse into a not very remote futurity without symptoms of uneasiness, if not of positive dismay. He will reflect that the ballad of "Molly and I," however reprehensible it may appear in the fierce light of an L. C. C. Committee Room, is innocuous, and even moral, compared to the ditties in his own répertoire . How, then, can he hope, when his hour of trial strikes, to confront the ordeal with an unruffled shirt-front, or a collar that shall retain the inflexibility of conscious innocence? And he will wish then that he had confined himself to the effusions of a bard who could not be blamed by the most censorious moralist.

Here, if he will only accept the warning in time, is his best safeguard. He has only to buy this little volume, and inform his inquisitors that the songs and business with which he proposes to entertain an ingenuous public are derived from the immaculate pages of Mr. Punch. Whereupon censure will be instantly disarmed and criticism give place to congratulation. It is just possible, to be sure, that this somewhat confident prediction smacks rather of the Poet than the Seer, and that even the entertainment supplied by Mr. Punch's Music Hall may, to the Purist's eye, present features as suggestive as a horrid vulgar clown, or as shocking as a butterfly, an insect notorious for its frivolity. But then, so might the "songs and business" of the performing canary, or the innocent sprightliness of the educated flea, with its superfluity of legs, all absolutely unclad. At all events, the compiler of this collection ventures to hope that, whether it is fortunate enough to find favour or not with Music-hall "artistes," literary critics, and London County Councilmen, it contains nothing particularly objectionable to the rest of the British Public. And very likely, even in this modest aspiration, he is over-sanguine, and his little joke will be taken seriously. Earnestness is so alarmingly on the increase in these days.

This stirring ditty – so thoroughly sound and practical under all its sentiment – has been specially designed to harmonise with the recently altered tone of Music-hall audiences, in which a spirit of enlightened Radicalism is at last happily discernible. It is hoped that, both in rhyme and metre, the verses will satisfy the requirements of this most elegant form of composition. The song is intended to be shouted through music in the usual manner by a singer in evening dress, who should carry a small Union Jack carelessly thrust inside his waistcoat. The title is short but taking: —