Liverpool — Shakespeare (article 29 may 1902)
This article was published in The Stage on 29 may 1902.
About the play Sherlock Holmes at the Shakespeare Theatre, Liverpool, UK.
Article
LIVERPOOL.
(From our own Correspondent.)
ROYAL COURT (Managing Director, Mr. Robert Arthur; Acting-Manager, Mr. Arthur Lawrence). — Closed for the season.
SHAKESPEARE (Manager, Mr. John Gaffney). — It is quite in the fitness of things that as Mr. Charles Frohman "presented" Mr. William Gillette in Sherlock Holmes to an English audience at this theatre upon his landing from America, he should "present" him at the same house for the last time on his returning to the States. So it is, and we in Liverpool are at once complimented and satisfied over the pleasant arrangement. Who, looking at the packed state of this house on Monday night, filled to its utmost limits everywhere, shall have the courage to reiterate the cry that melodrama is dead? True, there are circumstances in the case which no not apply to all such plays, but quite apart from these, not even an Irving, a Tree, or an Alexander might have witnessed more genuine interest, more keener animation, than marked the whole course of this, after all, very ordinary story of crime and detection. There is little new in the performance to record. One or two changes in the cast give it a comparatively fresh interest. Miss Amy Betteley succeeds Miss Maud Fealy as Alice Faulkner, and plays with — if we may put it so — a firmer hand than her predecessor. Possibly we miss the lighter grace and naïveté of the original Alice; but we have, in lieu thereof, a greater grip. Miss Alida Cortelyon is pre-eminently dramatic and convincing as Madge Larrabee, and the other newcomer of importance is Mr. Harry Paulton, jun., who gives Cockneyised reading of Sidney Prince, which is very smart. There is no occasion to speak further of Mr. Percy Lyndal's careful playing of Dr. Watson, Mr. Sydney Herbert's clever and admirable Forman, or Mr. W. L. Abingdon's masterly work as Moriarty. Certainly criticism is not now required of Mr. Gillette's superb playing of Sherlock Holmes.
