TOPICS OF THE DAY.

Press, Volume XLVIII, Issue 14546, 24 December 1912, Page 8

TOPICS OF THE DAY.

"Happy is the man who Mr Stead ha& no special reason to on remember any one Christmas. Christmas Day beyond

another—for to mo all Christmas Days have been happy days." So wrote Mr W. T. Stead just previous to the Titanic voyage, when, like a good journalist, ho prepared a Christmas article long beforehand, to appear in the December "Quiver." But these Christmas reminiscences of his call back some very early years, in the somewhat bleak and stern North Country, when the Decomber feast was rather looked down upon than otherwise. It savoured of prelacy in that region where Presbyterian prejudices were scattered wide, and, besides, it was held in ill-repute because of the selfindulgent extravagance the sea-son allowed. To keep Christmas was only to be condoned by superior persons, after the same manner in which tho educated Irish may excuse the excesses of a village "wake." W. T. Stead was nearly ten old when the antiChristmas prejudices began to molt away. "It was not ■DSekens who effected this change, foT it began long before ho published any of liis Christj mas stories. And Dickens, like other i novelists, was regarded more or less as a pagan to whom no admission was given to our household.'" Literature had some hand in it, however, for it was an American story entitled "Iho Christmas Stocking" that first beguiled the household into one pleasant Yuletide custom. "From that year the Christmas stocking was one of the fixed stars in the firmament of my youth." After the Christmas stocking, the Christmas carol is the most

notablo remembrance. To wake at night—or rather at unearthly hours ia early morning—to tho sound of "Christians Awake," accompanied by many fiddles groat and small, was ecne and fascinating enough to dwell in childish memory. Incidentally we are reminded that "the number of violinists was quite stirprising in those days before the organ and the harmonium had banished tho violin from the service of sacred song." Later Christmases were too aliko in feature for any to be. remembered specially by its Anno T>omini, unless it was & Christmas spent away from home. "The modern practice of meeting tho season at hotels, hydropathic resorts, or in Switzerland has always been abhorrent to mc. It is spreading, and will spread, to tho destruction of the traditional Christmas which Dickens made famous." In his sirty-two years of life only half-a-dozen times was Mr Stead's Christmas spent otherwise than in his usual homo—but one of theso occasions was really memorable, for it was his Christmas in gaol. As a firstclass misdemeanant in Holloway, the privileged prisoner fart-d well. His wife and five children wcro allowed to share the festivities in his cell. "We had a rare, old timo with Christmas presents, Christmas fare, Christmas cards, and yes, no end of Christmas games. Seldom before or since have tho corridors of Holloway gaol iesounded to such peals of merriment."

A certain dramatist once Actor remarked, in commenting

and on tho first production Audience, of one of his plays, thnt

his audience was a thorough success. Undoubtedly tho audience is a potent, although a generally overlooked factor in tho kuccoss of a play. The public does not realise the power it possesses to mako or mar a play, but to the actor, the manager, or tho dramatist it is an object of keen interest. A lecture was recently delivcTod to the Manchester "Playgoers' Club by Mr James Welch on the subject of "Audiences from the Actor's Point of View." Tho audience was, tho speaker said, more interesting from tho actor's point of view than tho play itself. In a quarter of a century's experience he had never known two audiences alike, and just as a fisherman never tired of playing ■pn*mon, go an actor did not tire, though he played the same piece fifteen hundred times. Audiences did not realise how much they depended on themselves for thoir entertainment. When they said: "L<rt us go to the* theatre and enjoy ourselves," they put the emphasis on the wrong word —on "enjoy" and not on "ourselves." They ■would get three times the enjoyment out of a show if tiiey went with tho intention of enjoying themselves. The ideal audience, Mr Welch thought, was to bo found at Oxford or Cambridge, where tho peoplo leaned forward to listen, resting their arms on the backs of the seats in front—the proper ueo for scat-backs, the speaker added. A Scottish audience also leaned forward, but that was to get .a. shilling's-worth for sixpence. As for the Irish audience, it did not exist at all. lil'sh audiences would not listen; they wanted to talk themselves, they were all born actors. An Irish audionoo was by far tho most difficult to get to appreciate a joke on tho stage, though it did not mind making a joke for itself. A Welsh audience was "as keen as mustard." Among the people who ehoiild not go to the theatre, Mr Welch sientioned those who havo colds -which mako them sneeze or cough, and the inevitable deaf person, to whom all the jokes have to be repeated in extremely audible tones. As a- playgoer, ho himself would rather bo blind than deaf, for it is the ear rather than the eye which is the door to the brain, and tho auditor is greater than tho spectator. Theso remarks by Mr Welch ■on the duties of the audience are worth bearing in mind. There is no doubt that it is very difficult, quite an art in fact, to be a goorl audience. Aβ it is, audiences seem to have an extraordinary gift for doing what they ought not to do. On© of the livsons they greatly need to learn is how and when to applaud.