SMAD. An Organ of Student Opinion. 1931. Volume 2. Number 3.
"Willum the Conk"
"Willum the Conk"
The orchestra was a great advance on recent years. Mr. Paul deserves a line to himself. For a little it looked (I refer to the second night) as if the whole show was going well; but after some good hard work by Mr. Bishop and Mr. Larkin, and a good song by Mr. Dowling, it went pretty sharply downhill, and we came to the flat inanities of the politicians and the interminable waste of Mr. Mountjoy's speeches. What was the producer doing? The audience never recovered.
The dresses and decorations were again good, and once again the male chorus sang with gusto. Once again it was clear that there was ability lying about waiting to be used. Mr. Larkin, helped by a good make-up and a well-designed costume, was very self-possessed in a part that was plainly congenial. Mr. Bishop had a lot to do, and did some of it really well. Miss Breen looked very comical, but had nothing to say worth saying. The producer had his own little flutter (to the accompaniment of Mr. Mountjoy's sonorous elocution) in the scene in the lower regions. It was well down, but had no very obvious place in such a show—too dashed solemn by half. The dialogue from beginning to end was a nightmare. It once or twice rose to a well thought-out riddle, but immediately subsided to mere gabble. And the whole thing was too long: it ought to be over as near to 10 o'clock as possible. And then there was the mutual admiration society meeting at the end—are these things necessary?
It looks as if the writing of Extravaganzas is a lost art. There is a fairly credible tradition that once upon a time students could invent fresh jokes and songs and scenes, and even put them together with a sort of plot; even—it is darkly suggested—make them altogether illustrate some great notion of cosmic or at any rate municipal or academic interest. Is it too much to hope for a recovery? The best I can suggest is that before we have another show we call in one of the pre-war "authors" and get him to give us a lecture on what an Extravaganza is and how it should be run.
H.M.