MR. ARTHUR SKETCHLEY'S ENTERTAINMENT.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XVII, Issue 5760, 4 May 1880, Page 4

MR. ARTHUR SKETCHLEY'S ENTERTAINMENT.

There was a numerous and fashionable audience last evening at the theatre to hear Mr. Sketchley's readings, for his reputation as a public entertainer had preceded him. His entertainment, it heeds hardly be said, appeals to a special taste, and for those who have not acquired tbe taste a precedent mental inclination must be created. Those who are not accessible through auxiliary sources of exhilaration will hardly appreciate the flavour of the amusement provided. It was doubtless with a view to create the necessary mental aptitude that a comedy of the lightest kind, entitled " Love's Duel," from the French (" (Jn Duel en Amour "J was chosen to precede the "Sketches," but the comedy was scarcely successful. The comedy is precisely one of those pieces which require not only most delicate rendering, but the interpretation must be accompanied by those qualities of personal manner and esprit that even the best English actors have not always at command. The object to be gained by the coctedy wa3 not attained, for instead of creating the tone of mind which would readily accord with the light and sketchy humour that was to follow, the audience was rather depressed than enlightened. It is essential in such entertainments as those of Mr. Sketchley that the audience shall be at the outses put en rapport with the reader. As to the reading itself, it afforded much amusement. There is a Falstaffiau aspect about the reader that secures for him favour and sympathy. " Mrs. Brown's Trip to Margate" aud ' ■ Mrs. Brown at the Play" are narratives something after Mrs. Partington's vernacular, and the sources of the amusement are partly in the manner of the entertainer, party in the colloquial similes and metaphors with which his text is garnished, and partly in the surprise occasioned by homely illustrations set antithetically. These remarks will therefore account for the fact that a speciality of temper, as well as mental apprehension, is requisite to thoroughly appreciate a performance of this description. The story of "Mrs. Brown at the Play " is irresistibly funny, and those who would not be moved to laughter by it are certainly deficient of the sense to which it appeals.