THE MUSIC-HALL COMEDIAN

When the day of toil is ended,

When our labours are suspended,

And we hunger for agreeable society,

The relentless voice of Pleasure

Bids us spend an hour of leisure

In a Music-Hall or Palace of Variety,

Where to furnish relaxation

Ev'ry effort is directed,

Tho’ the claims of ventilation

Have been carefully neglected.

There's an atmosphere oppressive

( For the smoking is excessive )

In this Temple of conventional hilarity,

But the place is scarcely warmer

Than the average performer

With his stock-in-trade of commonplace vulgarity.

There is nothing wise or witty

In the energy he squanders

On some quite unworthy ditty

Full of dubious “dooblontonders.”

For the singer labelled “comic”

Is by nature economic-

-Al of humour, and avoids originality;

Like a drowning man he seizes

Upon prehistoric wheezes,

Which he honours with a loyal partiality,

In accordance with the ruling

Of a senseless superstition

Which demands a form of fooling

That is hallowed by tradition.

Dressed in feminine apparel,

With a figure like a barrel,

And a smile of transcendental imbecility,

All the humours he discloses

Of such things as purple noses

Or of matrimonial incompatibility;

While the band ( who would remind him

That it never would forsake him )

Keeps a bar or two behind him,

But can never overtake him.

Then he gives an imitation

Of that mild intoxication

Which is chronic in some sections of society,

And we learn from his explaining

How extremely entertaining

And amusing is persistent insobriety;

And we realise how funny

Are the wives who nag and bicker,

While the husbands spend their money

Upon alcoholic liquor.

He discusses, slyly winking,

The delights of overdrinking,

And describes his nightly orgies, which are numerous;

How he comes home “full of damp,” too,

How he overturns the lamp, too,

And does other things if possible more humorous.

And we listen con amore,

While our merriment redoubles,

To the truly tragic story

Of his dull domestic troubles.

Next he tells us how “the lodger,”

A cantankerous old codger,

Asks another person's spouse to come and call for him;

How he tumbles from a casement

In an attic to the basement,

Where the lady very kindly breaks his fall for him;

And our peals of happy laughter,

As he lands on her umbrella,

Grow ungovernable after

She has fractured her patella.

‘ Tis a more polite performance

Than “The Macs” and “The O'Gormans,”

Who are artistes of the “knockabout” variety,

Or those ladies in chemises

Who undress upon trapezes

With an almost imperceptible propriety;

‘ Tis as worthy of encoring

As the “Farmyard Imitator,”

And a little bit less boring

Than the “Lightning Calculator.”

It does not evoke our strictures,

Like those dreadful “Living Pictures”

Which the prurient wrote columns to the press about;

‘ Tis no clever exhibition

Like that tedious “Thought Transmission”

Which we all of us disputed more or less about.

But the balderdash and babble

Of our too facetious hero,

Tho’ attractive to the rabble,

Send our spirits down to zero.

For we weary of his patter,

Growing every moment flatter,

On such subjects as connubial infelicity,

And we find ourselves protesting

Against everlasting jesting

On the tragedies of conjugal duplicity.

And we feel desirous very

Of imposing some restrictions

On the humour that makes merry

Over personal afflictions.

Our disgust we cannot bridle

When we see some public idol,

Who is earning a colossal weekly salary,

Having long ignobly pandered

To the questionable standard

Of intelligence that blooms in pit and gallery.

We are easily contented,

And our feelings we could stifle,

If the comic man consented

Just to raise his tone a trifle.

If he shunned such risky questions

As red noses, weak digestions,

Drunkards, lodgers, twins and physical deformities;

Ceased from casting imputations

On his wretched “wife's relations,”

Or from mentioning his “ma-in-law's” enormities;

If he did n't sing so badly,

And if only he were funny,

We would tolerate him gladly,

And get value for our money!