3-028-580 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

Christmas Pantomimes and Burlesques: scene from "Beauty and the Beast" at Drury-Lane Theatre, 1870. London stage show. '"Beauty and the Beast; or, Harlequin and Mother Bunch" by Mr. E. L. Blanchard...Mr. Beverley has lavished upon it all that his fancy could conceive of Oriental luxuriance...we have the old familiar faces of Mother Bunch and Old Custom, (Miss Hudspeth and Mr. Moreland), who exhibit to us a series of modern improvements including the Suez Canal, and...present Azalea (Miss Kate Santley), the Peri of Moore, who, in the form of a servant, enters the family of Ali (Mr. Brittain Wright). This worthy, with his three daughters, the beautiful Zemira (Miss Vokes), the cross Lankinela (Miss Harriet Coveney), and the covetous Fatima (Miss Rosina Vokes), meet at a caravanserai on the borders of the Persian desert, and then, with his servant Scanderino (Mr. Fawdon Vokes), departs with the caravan, which is assailed and plundered by Arabs...One remarkable point is the extensive use of the Vokes family, eight of whom are engaged in the performance. The dances and the pantomime action in general do credit to the taste and invention of Mr. Cormack; Dykwynkyn's masks and Oriental designs are admirable; and Mr. W. C. Levey's music very pleasing'. From "Illustrated London News", 1870.