3-070-849 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

Scene from "Michael Strogoff," at the Adelphi, 1881. 'The career of the play of "Michael Strogoff" on the English stage promises to be as fitful and contradictory as that of its gifted and imaginative author...the telegraph wires are cut by the Tartars, and in this predicament what is to be done? Up starts a young Russian courier, one Michael Strogoff, and undertakes the mission, not for reward or military glory, only "For God, my country, and the Czar."...But no drama of the kind can possibly hope for success without a strong comic interest...This ingredient has been very cleverly supplied by Mr. Henry J. Byron, who himself enacts an English special correspondent, as cool as the traditional cucumber, and accompanied by a foil in a perky and jerky little Frenchman, cleverly acted by Mr. F. W. Irish...one of the funniest, because the most outrageous, scenes of the play is where the special correspondents are saved from death by the intrepidity of the Englishman, who cracks cockney jests with the Emir of Bokhara. The production at the Adelphi will be remembered by the accident that occurred to Mr. Charles Warner during a dagger fight in the last act, whereby that impulsive young actor has unfortunately lost the use of one of his fingers'. From "Illustrated London News", 1881.