Graphics, Image for <i>Helping Hands</i>
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THE   ADELPHI   THEATRE   CALENDAR
A Record of Dramatic Performances at a Leading Victorian Theatre
Formerly the Sans Pareil (1806-1819), later the Adelphi (1819-1900)
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Title:Helping Hands check.png
Description:Mm. Céleste's benefit night.  Helping Hands by Tom Taylor.  Robert Keeley as William Rufus and 'Tilda, by his wife. space.gif
1st Performance:Jun 20, 1855 space.gif
Theatre:Adelphi space.gif
Source:The Illustrated London News, Jul 7, 1855, p. 29 space.gif
Review:The Illustrated London News, Jul 7, 1855, pp. 29-30 space.gif
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"HELPING HANDS" AT THE ADELPHI THEATRE.

As we have already remarked, the heroine and hero of Mr. Tom Taylor's last new play are 'Tilda (Mrs. Keeley), and William Rufus (Mr. Keeley).  Our artist has selected these two personages for Illustration.  The situation is that of mutual recognition--the first since their separation.  Both are now in a condition of honesty and have commenced a new course of life likely to lead to a prosperous issue.  Our picture, however, can but indicate the position--it cannot explain its moral spirit.  This demands the dramatist's dialogue.  Mr. Taylor's is peculiar.  He is no writer of light conversational, punning repartee, but indulges in rhetorical demonstration.  His characters talk logically.  There is much that is evidently scholastic in Mr. Taylor's composition.  There is, accordingly, considerable weight in his scenes, and the mind of the audience is set thinking; but somehow Mr. Taylor's logic serves him instead of wit, and the philosophical syllogism will often extort as hearty a laugh as the most exoteric jest.  There is an abundance of natural sentiment, however, at the bottom of all this brain-work, and Mr. Taylor constantly calls in the heart in support of the head.  This is particularly the case with 'Tilda, whose benevolence is sometimes too much for her honesty; but there is a souse of justice even in her wrong-doing which conserves her respectability.  As to Rufus, he is the very type of a shrewd, worldly-minded youth, whose knowledge of the wrong serves to keep him in the right.  He well knows the distinction between them, and is likely to keep out of harm's way, and on occasion to overreach the duper, paying him in his own coin, and taking the change out of him, with the high feeling of a retributive avenger.  Cunning delineations of this kind are all in Mr. Taylor's best manner; and these two characters will doubtless act as "the salt" of this especial drama, and preserve the more questionable portions of it from decay.  In them is the real living principle; the rest, it must be acknowledged, is somewhat too artificial for independent existence.

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The Illustrated London News, Jul 7, 1855, p. 29

 

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The Illustrated London News, Jul 7, 1855, p. 30

 

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DANCE,
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Copyright © 1988, 1992, 2013 and 2016 by Alfred L. Nelson, Gilbert B. Cross, Joseph Donohue.
Originally published by Greenwood Press as The Sans Pareil Theatre 1806-1819, Adelphi Theatre 1819-1850: An Index to Authors, Titles, Performers, 1988, and The Adelphi Theatre 1850-1900: An Index to Authors, Titles, Performers and Management, 1992.
Creative Commons License
The Adelphi Theatre Calendar revised, reconstructed and amplified.  Copyright © 2013 and 2016  by Alfred L. Nelson, Gilbert B. Cross, Joseph Donohue.  This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 Unported License, with the exception of graphics from The Clip Art Book, edited by Gerard Quinn and published by Crescent in 1990.  These images are reproduced in accord with the publisher’s note, which states "The Clip Art Book is a new compilation of illustrations that are in the public domain.  The individual illustrations are copyright free and may be reproduced without permission or payment.  However, the selection of illustrations and their layout is the copyright of the publisher, so that one page or more may not be photocopied or reproduced without first contacting the publishers."