3-053-234 - The London Archives (City of London)/Heritage Images

Mr. W. S. Woodin's Entertainment, "The Olio of Oddities" - Scene, "The Lakes", 1856. Performance at the Polygraphic Hall, King William Street, '...one of the best-attended places of amusement in London. Of the talent Mr. Woodin has shown in here sustaining, night after night, some fifty distinct characters, embodied by himself with wonderful rapidity of contrast, our readers have already had...an opportunity of judging. It is very rarely we find so many varied qualifications united in one individual; and with these elements of success, combined with the great advantage of youth, there is some certainty in prophesying for Mr. Woodin a long and triumphant career in the vocation he has adopted. Our illustration exhibits the polygraphist in his own person - the most difficult achievement for the artist, as he is somebody else every three minutes - and at the same time indicates one of these beautiful views which pass before the eye of the spectator in Mr. Woodin's admirably-painted panorama of the lakes of Cumberland and Westmorland'.