--> “In 1868 a burlesque, The Merry Zingara, by W.S. Gilbert – a skit on The Bohemian – was produced at the Royalty with a bevy of
attractive girls – there were pretty girls in every burlesque but they had to
be clever ones as well, not merely manikins …
Burlesques were parodies on plays or stories, written in
ten-syllable rhymed lines which, in harmony with the accepted wit of the day,
abounded in puns and whimsicalities and were interspersed with songs, choruses
and dances borrowed from opera, music-hall or other sources. The music was
never original. The hero was always a girl, and there was often a female
character depicted by a man, in which respects the wont and usage of pantomime
were closely followed …
Incongruities were frequent in burlesque and puns were
sometimes more than verbal. For instance, in Burnand’s Paris, Orion was got up as an Irishman with knee-breeches
and shillelagh, spoke with a brogue and was called O’Ryan – “the only Irish
constellation in the skies.” Topical allusions likewise abounded …
A few specimen lines will show at what our fathers deigned
to laugh in their hours of ease. This excerpt from Paris was rendered funny by the makeup and delivery of the
speaker, a man in female disguise:
“Last
night he smiles on me, my husband do,
And
says ‘I’m going out.’ Says I, ‘Where to?’
Says
he, which ain’t polite, ‘What’s that to you?’
‘Nothing
to me,’ I says, ‘I only ask;
Of
course, if ‘ollow ‘arts will wear a mask,
Then,
as the poet says, the time will be
When,
hubby darling, you’ll remember me.’”
… A verse from a set called “What’s a burlesque?”
contributed by W.S. Gilbert to one of the magazines, may perhaps fitly wind up
this sketch of a by-gone amusement:
“Pretty
princess – beautiful dress:
Exquisite
eyes – wonderful size:
Dear
little dress (couldn’t be less)
Story
confused – frequently used:
Sillified
pun – clumsily done.
Dresses
grotesque.
Girls
statuesque.
Scene
picturesque –
That’s
a burlesque!” ”
--Alfred Rosling Bennett, London & Londoners In The
1850’s & 1860’s (1924)
