Without that monotony there would not be the
same air of general enjoyment, the same constant guffaws. That
monotony is the secret of the success of music-halls. It is not enough
for the public to know that everything is meant to be funny, that
laughter is craved for every point in every `turn.' A new kind of
humour, however obvious and violent, might take the public unawares,
and be received in silence. The public prefers always that the old
well-tested and well-seasoned jokes be cracked for it. Or rather, not
the same old jokes, but jokes on the same old subjects. The quality of
the joke is of slight import in comparison with its subject. It is the
matter, rather than the treatment, that counts, in the art of the
music-hall. Some subjects have come to be recognised as funny. Two or
three of them crop up in every song, and before the close of the
evening all of them will have cropped up many times. I speak with
authority, as an earnest student of the music-halls. Of comic papers I
know less. They have never allured me. They are not set to music--an
art for whose cheaper and more primitive forms I have a very real
sensibility; and I am not, as I peruse one of them, privy to the
public's delight: my copy cannot be shared with me by hundreds of
people whose mirth is wonderful to see and hear.
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