DEATH OF MR ARTHUR SHIRLEY

Evening Star, Issue 19062, 3 October 1925, Page 19

DEATH OF MR ARTHUR SHIRLEY

A DRAMATIST OF THE OLD SCHOOL Than Mr Arthur Shirley, whoso death is reported in English papers, there cannot have been many more prolific dramatists, for ho wrote, or collaborated in, moro than 100 plays. _ His collaborators were usually playwrights as gifted as himself in the art or knack of gauging the popular taste in melodrama. with the result that he was invariably successful as well as prolific. Mr Shirley acquired the rudiments of his craft as a dramatist at the Surrey Theatre. ' Then ho wrote the famous stage “shocker,” ‘The Grip of Iron,’ first called ‘ The Stritnglers of Paris,’ a melodrama of physical violence, which toured the provinces continuously for a quarter of a century. The part of Jagon, the strangler, who gnashed his teeth ferociously, was performed by a country actor, Mr Fred Powell, more than 5,000 times. One Shirley melodrama was much akin to another until his collaboration with Mr Sims resulted in the great Princess’s success, ‘ Two Little Yagabonds.’ The most characteristic of Mr Shirley’s numerous Lyceum successes was probably ‘Woman and Wine.’ In this there was a tremendous duel with knives between two bad women. Worthier work followed on behalf of the famous coster comedian, the late Albert Chevalier. In Shirley’s ‘My Old Dutch,’ Chevalier was perfectly suited as Joe Brown, the costermonger. The play began with Joe courting on Hampstead Heath in 1870, and continued through various vicissitudes of his career until 1912, when, to the accompaniment of stilled sobs in the audience, ho entered the workhouse with his " dear old Dutch.”