Vol. VI No. 1 - Modernist Magazines Project

THE BERMONDSEY BOOK
in being conceived without sin. What would Plato, Rabelais, Calvin
and John Masefield think of us I wonder? In some such mood then we
drifted into the Adelphi Theatre. Irrational hope. "Clowns in Clover,"
a revue, and who is responsible for it I don't know.
Time was when we were wont to see on a programme "Libretto by
Farnil (or Gilbert), Music by Audran (or Sullivan). Two people
seemed capable in those days of providing an evening's entertainment.
Times have indeed changed, for the number of chefs employed in
concocting one of these modern mixtures seems beyond all recording.
Music by one, interpolated songs by another, lyrics by someone else,
sketches by others, another for lighting and yet a further one who
"devises" matters and even then we haven't finished. The modern
method.
Now to attempt to criticise such a thundering success as this is more
than a trifle fatuous—the thing has long justified itself. What it sets out
to do, it does. If it failed to set me alight so much the more unfortunate
for me and the better for everyone else, for, truth to tell, the whole
thing affected me like some particularly virulent form of nightmare.
Any detailed account of the concussion of events seems impossible.
Rather would one emulate the methods of these ultra-modern painters
who synthesize a multitude of diverse impressions and stagger you with
a canvas that can only be described as a violent assault on the senses.
The very pace at which the thing is taken stupefies me. Heaven
be praised that we are not members of Mr. Jack Hulbert's company,
for he can have no mercy for himself or for anyone else. It is very certain
that none of these people can lengthen their days by stealing a few
hours "from the night, my boys" or dissipate their energies over golf
courses and midnight cabarets. What would a chorus lady of thirty
years ago think of her unfortunate sisters of the present day, I wonder?
One feels a trifle exhausted simply watching them and they are the
chief impression one carries away.
Phantasmagoria (gorgeous word) sums up "Clowns in Clover"
for me. A phantasmagoria in which colour, movement, sound, are all
actively pegging away in an optic, aural, brain-shattering cacophony. Impressions
slowly emerge and one wonders at many things. The whole
thing lacks contrast. It is too uniformly bright. Something grim should
be thrust into its bowels. A Grand Guignol, say, that would not end in
an anti-climax and let one down in the last line. Also as the thing is so
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