The Magpie Minstrels.

Hastings Standard, Issue 350, 17 June 1897, Page 2

The Magpie Minstrels.

This novel combination appears at the Princess Theatre to-night, and judging from last evening's dress rehearsal the whole show should go with a swing. The farce " Whitebait at Greenwich " is a charming absurdity rejoicing in a most bewildering medley of kaleidoscopic events which does duty for a plot. Miss Lucretia Buzzard and her brother P>enjamiu will inherit a large fortune from an aunt on condition they live a life of single blessedness, but alas for human frailty, both get entangled in Cupid's snares. Miss Buzzard falls in love with their lodger, Mr Glimmer, and Mr Buzzard falls in love with Sally, the maid of all work, both couples getting married unknown to each other on the same day. After the ceremony each couple goes down to Greenwich secretly, and there they celebrate the occasion by a whitetbait supper. Now it so happens that they put up at the same tavern, " The Crown and Sceptre," but are shown into different dining rooms, where their wants are attended to by the same waiter, and after the supper they repair home by different routes each quite satisfied that they had deceived the other. The immediate result of the marriages is that Sally commences to give herself airs and thereby collides with her mistress, Miss Buzzard, who is discovered dismissing her when the curtain rises. She engages a man servant, John Small, without seeing him, on the recommendation of the aforesaid aunt. When Small arrives he turns out to be the very waiter that attended on both couples at the Crown and Sceptre, and it instantly becomes the business of both parties to conciliate him in order to bribe him into keeping the secret. Small, not recollecting meeting the people before, attributes these attentions to insanity and a variety of causes, finally concluding that Miss Buzzard is in love with him, and that Buzzard and Sally are his long lost father and mother. Several ludicrous situations result until all complications are gradually cleared up and matters are generally placed upon a firm basis when fhe curtain falls. Apart from the fact that the proceeds from to-night's entertainment are to be devoted to the relief of the widows and orphans of the brave fellows who perished in the recent flood, the performance itself is good and well worthy of the extensive patronage it is certain to receive.