AustLit

Adapted from John Strachan's Humpty Dumpty (1873, Prince of Wales Theatre, Birmingham, England), with songs to operatic and other music, the Age proposed that this localised version by Messrs Carrington and J. Eville 'received an Australian complexion that adds to its native cleverness. Thanks to the labours of these gentlemen', wrote the paper's theatre critic, 'several leading incidents of the past year have been turned to merry account, and folly and fraud are held up to ridicule and contempt' (28 December 1874, p.3).

The story concerns Flameau the Fire King, who attempts to increase his power by forcing Princess Roseleaf to marry his close ally, the evil and ugly Humpty Dumpty. With the aid of Fairy Fern, queen of the fairies, Prince Prettyboy overcomes their dire intentions and wins the hand of the princess. A review of the premiere production notes that, as the pantomime progressed, the growth of Humpty Dumpty's head was 'cultivated at the expense of the other portions of his body, and he [came] on stage looking like a goblin that [had] just stepped out of an illustrated children's fairy book' (28 December 1874, p.3).

Numerous references to the Melbourne scene, politics, theatre (including J. C. Williamson's Struck Oil and Trollope's Bogus Clarke productions) were incorporated into the storyline. One of the topical hits saw J. R. Greville dressed as an overgrown boy dressed in knickerbockers and socks singing 'the song of the lively larrikin, in which an altogether groundless aspersion [was] cast upon a recent decision given in the Melbourne General Sessions' (28 December 1874, p.3).