Foggerty's Fairy

The story concerns a man who, with the help of a fairy, changes a small event in his past to try to save his engagement to the girl he loves.

Charles Wyndham, the manager of the Criterion, starred as the lead character, Frederick Foggerty.

By the time Foggerty's Fairy premiered, Gilbert and Sullivan had already written half a dozen comic opera hits.

The same issue of The Era states that definite plans had been made for Sothern to appear at the Gaiety Theatre, London in Foggerty's Fairy, as the new play was now called, in October 1880, after the end of his American tour.

Sothern did not produce the play in the spring, and scholar Andrew Crowther speculates that Gilbert was late in completing it.

[1] Sothern came to England for a six-week holiday in June 1880, still planning to produce Foggerty's Fairy in New York.

His health declined until he died in January 1881 never having performed the play but leaving behind a heavily annotated copy.

This novel plot elements anticipates numerous fantasy and science fiction stories like Back to the Future.

The Ko-Ko, Nanki-Poo and Yum-Yum exchange from The Mikado, about lovers being too affectionate in front of another man who loves the woman, is used in the first act of Foggerty's Fairy.

The "romantic" old lady, Malvina de Vere, is described as "having the remains of a fine woman about her", as is Ruth in The Pirates of Penzance.

The idea of the parallel universes conjured by the fairy was novel and intriguing but bewildering to audiences and critics, who were required to remember the original state of affairs and compare them to the magically transformed one.

I hear the Fairy spoken of on all sides as one of the wittiest and as the most ingenious and daring of Mr Gilbert's dramatic productions."

Unfortunately, he never published his review – Fogerty's Fairy closed on 6 January 1882, before the next edition of his weekly paper.

Jenny's father, a "wholesale cheesemonger", and her guests do not much like Foggerty, and the best man, Walkinshaw, still bears a grudge.

Foggerty is afraid that Spiff will ruin his marriage, but a fairy guardian named Rebecca arrives and offers help.

Jenny calls off the engagement, Walkinshaw is pleased, and in desperation Foggerty drinks the elixir.

Malvina de Vere, a "stately lady of middle age and tragical demeanour" meets Jenny, now in her wedding dress.

Malvina has previously had 18 lovers, all of whom had left her, though not before paying substantial damages in breach of promise lawsuits.

Threatened with a suit for staggering damages, and having lost Jenny, Foggerty decides to marry Malvina.

For the hand of pretty Jennie Talbot, the sentimental daughter of a wholesale cheesemonger, there have been two rivals, Foggerty and Walkinshaw....

The... business-like air of the fairy, the incredulity of Foggerty, and the means by which a charm is made to work through a pill and a draught — all these combine to render this unique scene irresistibly ludicrous.

It is, of course the very crux of the play, and if it were either misunderstood or resented the rest could not possibly succeed.The spell itself and its consequences are certainly less easy to work out effectively than was the case with the famous spell in The Sorcerer.... After this the fun soon becomes fast and furious — too furious to be in our judgment characteristic of the author's happiest manner.

There is certainly a good deal of drollery in Foggerty's interview with Malvina de Vere, and their friendly steps towards an action for breach of promise.

But there is almost too much of it, and there is certainly too much of the satire upon mad-doctors and their ways which occurs when Foggerty's friends believe him demented, and try to get a certificate to that effect from Dr. Lobb and Dr. Dobb.

The climax, therefore, which is brought about when the hero takes a pill, summons the fairy once more, and brings matters back to their status quo, is very welcome, for towards the last the fun is felt to be flagging.

This fault, if it be found to exist, can, of course, be readily remedied, as there seems no real need for the hero's false confession, à la Topsy, of a crime which he never committed.It would be difficult to say too much in praise of the spirit, the appreciation, and the judgment, with which Foggerty's Fairy is acted at the Criterion by all concerned....