The Sketch, October 30, 1918

“WEAK ‘WEEK END’

London, Sept. 18

At the Kingsway, ‘A Week End,’ by Walter Ellis, was presented by Fred Krano and Leon Vint. It is a noisy, bustling farce of the Palaise Royale impropriety type, with little humor or spontaneity.

Ernest Thesiger and Yvonne Arnaud labored to give reality to an impossible play.”

Variety, September 20, 1918

The Illustrated Sporting and Dramatic News, October 19, 1918

caricature by Thomas Downey

The Illustrated Sporting and Dramatic News, September 21, 1918

“...it became artistically inevitable that Mr. Ernest Thesiger should be a railway porter who longed for an operatic career, spent most of his time in a professor’s well-appointed combination of entrance-hall and drawing-room, and tied his shoelace up with the shoelace of Mlle. Yvonne Arnaud.  Perhaps I could also explain, but of this I am not sure) why, in spite of the fact that Mlle. Arnaud and Miss Kate Cutler were there, the whole thing was not set to music, called a grand opera and mistaken by many for a revue.  Possibly progress in this direction was abruptly stayed as soon as the management heard Mr. Ernest Thesiger sing. But that should not have discourage them.  I feel sure he would have been a great success.  He has won his way in farce by a certain engaging awkwardness, which, for all his experience of the last few years with ‘A Little Bit of Fluff,’ has still left round him the suggestion of the clever amateur; and there seems no reason why he should not find a place for himself in musical comedy.”

The Illustrated Sporting and Dramatic News, September 21, 1918

“Mr. Ernest Thesiger in ‘A Week-end’ at the Kingsway

Mr. Thesiger is shown as a country station railway porter, station-master, and ticket collector all rolled into one.  He has just woke up in the dawn with a comparatively busy day before him, since there will be a train through in the evening.”