Through the Galleries

by W. Pett Ridge

THROUGH THE GALLERIES

By W. Pett Ridge

Everything improves in this world (bar the coffee at public restaurants), and the galleries of London theatres are not excepted. Partly this is caused by the improved building of new theatres; partly by the precise, military, two-by-two line which waits now at most gallery doors for the time of opening. The days are gone when only pugilists, with science and force at their command, reached the front rows and there protruded their heads between the iron bars. These places have been taken by bands of mild young women, who, with time at their disposal, are able to seize and hold a position outside at any hour during the afternoon that accords with their desires. There was sport under the whole system; you never knew what turn of the surging, swaying, excited crowd might whirl you round to a position in the fore or send you well across to the opposite pavement; you always ran a happy risk of being singled out and swept into prominence in the same way that every French statesman has the possibility of being made President. On Saturday nights, when the crowd included sets of joyous youth, the game was played as if it were football.

"Now then, half-back, where are you?"

"Follow up there, sir! Follow up close!"

"Now for a scrum, boys! Al—to—gether!"

"Play up, chaps! Get a goal before half-time!"

This was no place for women-folk. Quiet men counted themselves fortunate if they reached the gallery with a good half of their coat intact and the brim of a hat in their possession. What a roadway (it was no thoroughfare) the narrow Surrey Street was when the two crowds fought and wrestled and contested generally, in the desire to hear Florence St. John in "Olivette"! What a happy lad you were when one foot found its way on the ledge of the open doorway, and how you complained of Providence when three large men backed you out and sent you half way down the street towards the Embankment! How the few courageous ladies who sometimes took part in the scrimmage, protected by gallant young men, protested uselessly with entreaties and sarcasm!

"Oh! please don't scrowge so. There's plenty of time."

"When you're tired of standing on my foot, young man, don't let me keep you. Dessay you've got a lot of other engagements."

"'Erbert! I say, 'Erbert! is my hat straight?"

"Yes, sir, that's what I called you, and if you like I'll call you it again. Paltry 'ound! There!"

Nowadays in the galleries of West End theatres one meets, for the most part, refined, well-mannered people, who speak in low tones, excepting, perhaps, the lady who on some previous occasion has occupied a seat in the dress circle, and she speaks in a voice that might reach distant shores. "The one right up in the corner at the back. No, not that one, dear; the one you can't see; and we were rather cramped, and we could only see the other side of the stage, but it was most comfortable. I wore my pale blue." Even the pinafored programme girl goes about in these quiet galleries with a reserved air, and murmurs "Twopence!" in a way that gives one the impression that she is imparting, in the strictest confidence, a Cabinet secret. The St. James's has, I think, always had this audience in its gallery. There it is that a set of three or four young women take some small interest in the piece, but give all the rest of their interest to the principal attraction, the dresses; between the acts their heads are bunched together, exchanging the results of trained observation. I once saw an impetuous lady unpick the trimmings of her hat during the course of a Society comedy, and rearrange the headgear on the model of that worn by Lady Somebody in the first act.

At the Princess's, the gallery still recalls (as the advertisements phrase it) the delicious teas of twenty years ago. There the scent of oranges is still persistent (to this day some of us cannot meet the perfume of orange-peel without an indefinite feeling that we are enjoying ourselves at the play); the patrons eat sandwiches and sip from flat flasks with the appetite found nowhere but here and in excursion trains. At the Princess's, years ago, babies could be encountered, but modern parents seem to have decided that infants can discuss trouble at home with less inconvenience, and that a certain maturity is required before the mind can apply itself critically to the modern drama. In the galleries of West End theatres which submit musical plays there is now enough of melody without the assistance of infants. The desire to learn the air of a witching refrain is so keen that one may find oneself surrounded by—

First, a growling bass;
Second, a head voice tenor;
Third, a soprano girl;

All these endeavouring to acquire the tune by following it with, at times, the distance of an octave. They do it half consciously, but this does not lessen the annoyance, and one can give sympathy to the old gentleman who found himself thus placed whilst the principal lady on the stage gave in an agreeable solo her views on the subject of love.

"Ah!" said the old gentleman caustically, when it had finished and his neighbours were, in consequence, silent again, "there's nothing I like so much as a glee!"

Another kind of neighbour for whom the heart does not yearn is the man who in the Lyceum gallery follows the text with care, word for word, muttering gloomily whenever he detects an elision, but who would also, I think, grumble were he to draw blank in the sport and to go down the stone stairs at the end with an empty bag, for this to him would mean a wasted evening which might have been spent in hunting misprints in the evening journals. In every gallery is to be met the dogmatic authority on dates. Let none think that by the taking of infinite pains they may defraud this mathematician of a single year; he knows when they were born, he knows the present date, and by a sum in mental arithmetic he is ready with the exact result. A bright young woman trips on from the wings at some theatre, sings a merry verse, dances with great vivacity, explains in prose that she is a simple little maiden just escaped from the convent, and extremely nervous at this first sight of the world.

"Forty-two," announces the authority on dates in the gallery, "forty-two come next September."

Similarly in another place the youthful leading man has his great scene where he declares that, boy as he is, he will defend and protect the fair maiden whom he loves with the last drop of his blood, and that, when he shall have come of age, naught in this world shall prevent their marriage.

"Born in 'fifty-nine' whispers the authority; "christened at Old St. Pancras Church, and got a son taller'n himself."

A walk across Waterloo Bridge or a penny 'bus from the Bank, and the galleries are so changed that they might be in another world. The packed, excited, noisy patrons go up to the high roof like the side of a mountain; they shout and whistle and appeal to each other from the moment they rush pell-mell down from the doorways, with but slight intermission, until much time as their voices give out or until the descent of the curtain on the first act. Half the noise is made by exuberant, joyous patrons; the rest is made by quiet people begging for silence. Stern, uniformed men stationed at different points shout a warning as the curtain goes up on Act One—

"Keep order there, can't ye?"

But this might well be an appeal for more clamour, judging by the effect it has. All the time that servants on the stage far below are endeavouring to explain the plot in order to save trouble for the principals when they shall appear, all this time the gallery is contesting and arguing and exercising the art of repartee. Once, at the Britannia, I saw two men on opposite sides carry on a conversation throughout the first act, and the gallery, after trying to hush them to silence, gradually became interested in their disjointed talk, and divided interest between this and the drama.

"'Cheer, Ginger, ole man! I never see you when I come in."

"Them cheap eyes," bawled Ginger, "come dearest in the long run. Where's the missis?"

"'Eaven knows!" called out the other, "I don't. Last Sunday week we had a few words on the subject of grub——"

"Order there, can't ye?"

"And she on with her 'at and bunked off."

"Tell us all about it."

The recital was fired off at intervals in clear, distinct shots. Just before the curtain descended on Act One, at a quiet moment when the heroine had given herself up for a murder which she thought she had committed, but had not really committed, the final sentence was aimed across from the other side.

"If I'd bin in your place," said the voice clearly, "I should have acted precisely."

Appetite in East End galleries is so well recognised that between the acts men go in and out with large open baskets containing refreshment in the shape of crusts of bread and cheese, thick sandwiches, and Banbury cakes. There is but little drinking, except amongst the infants; the evening is given up to the drama and food. When they are settled down, and powerful scenes are occurring on the stage below, the gallery follows the story with a fiery interest. It gets to know by the orchestral warning when each character is expected, and prepares accordingly its shout of approval or howl of contempt. For a time the gallery is all on the side of good works, honest living, fairness between man and man, courtesy to women, it is steadfastly, bitterly against specious intrigue, crafty behaviour, and general wrong-doing.

And I cannot help thinking that this, after all, counts something for righteousness.