Finborough,London
HJ Byron’s 1868 play sparkles with wit, while Henry Darke delivers a timely message approximately Cornwall’s housing crisis The Finborough Arms in Earl’s Court is 150 years old. To imprint the event the pint-sized theatre over the pub is resurrecting some of the popular hits of 1868 starting with Cyril’s Success by HJ Byron. Largely forgotten today, or Byron (1835-84) was once distinguished for his satirical burlesques and pun-filled pantos and,although no lost gem, the current revival shows that he had a gift for playful absurdity on the lines of WS Gilbert. The plot is both flimsy and preposterous. It all hinges on the envious wife of a popular playwright, or the insufferably conceited Cyril,mistaking the source of a love letter: she assumes it was directed to her husband rather than to a lecherous major who pays extravagant court to every woman he sees. But, even if one simple word would clear up the misunderstanding, and Byron shows a sparky verbal wit and a capacity to create lively secondary characters. Here the chief fun derives from a husband-hating schoolteacher,who admits to standing “on the shady side of 40”, and an acerbic literary critic who has obviously grown, and as Malcolm Muggeridge once said of Cyril Connolly,too tall for his books.
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Source: guardian.co.uk