Madge Lessing (1866-1932)

"NOAH'S ARK"
By Percy French and Brendan Stewart.
Produced at the Waldorf Theatre - January 1st, 1906..

Merry Play For Children at the Waldorf Theatre

Any child who has been very good ever since Christmas deserves to be taken one of these afternoons to the Waldorf Theatre wherer it will shriek with laughter over the jovial ferocities of "Jamboree; the Bottled Blizzard of the Bahamas" and his band soft-hearted cut-throats.

"Noah's Ark" is a capital dream-play in two acts written by Messrs. Percy French and Brendan Stewart and set to music - light jolly music - by Messrs. Houston Collison and J. St. A. Johnson.

It is rather like "Peter Pan" without the subleties. The children go to sleep in the first act and dream of a real, big Noah's Ark. in which they trayel to the island of Bangaloo in company with a lion, and a tiger, and a giraffe, and a donkey, and a sea-serpent, and Noah himself and any number of pirates. There are songs and dances and costumes innumerable; and at the opening performance yesterday afternoon that first act went with a fine swing. The second act hung fire a little but that will be all right, no doubt, in a day or two.

Mr. Harry Paulton was the chief of the pirates, and his dry, droll manner made his lines irresistibly funny. He never smiled once himself, though, because, of course, pirates do not smile. Miss Madge Lessing laughed and danced and sang very charmingly, and seemed to enjoy everything quite as much as the children on the stage or in the front of the house. We must record the success, too, of Miss Norah Nagle, the quaintest little mite to be seen in London.

Daily Mail (London) - January 2nd, 1906.