AustLit

A theatrical sketch based on the iconic World War One song 'Mademoiselle from Armentieres' (aka 'Hinky Dinky Parley Voo'), this presentation is believed to have continued the tradition established by soldiers from other countries of adapting the words to reflect their own experiences and perspectives of the war.

The Argus theatre critic writes of the 1925 Athenaeum production, 'With a touch of pathos and well-staged, 'Mademoiselle from Armentieres' was another of the items which gave exceptional pleasure. It was sung by Mr Ern Kopke, and the chief acting parts were taken by Miss Jessie Hanna, Mr Clyde Fields, and Miss Rosette Powell. With the song most people who patronise amusements are now familiar, it is the acting and the stage effects which make it so well worthy of a place in a programme of the kind' (7 September 1925, p.14).

The Age theatre critic was similarly taken with the theatricality and sentiment of the piece, recording, 'The little sketch, admirably conceived and carried out, is heartbreaking in a way; and yet the heart does not break, but is stirred to beat faster. There are diggers - real diggers - in that little rest house somewhere in France, and when the call comes and they move out and pass the window in a long file, some never to come back, one feels that there is a truly simple little relic from the ghastly past now happily over - a relic crowded with the dogged spirit and the incomparable valour of those who were men. Nothing quite as touching, quite so simply grand has ever been presented here before as that picture of those war-weary men filing past the window in the dusk, bound for the inferno of the trenches' (7 September 1925, p.12).

The Daily Mercury (Mackay) records, too, that 'The parting with the Digger's "Froggie" sweetheart, and her heart-broken prayer and mourning when she was told that he had been killed in battle, presented "Mademoiselle from Armentieres" in a light totally different and more fitting than has ever been heard before' (13 May 1925, n. pag.).