The Dumb (?) Waiter is the title of an obscure, short-lived and most likely lost comic sketch written by P. G. Wodehouse and Lennox Pawle, first produced in London at the Tivoli Theatre on October 24, 1910, according to A. Nicoll, English Drama, 1900-1930. The Beginnings of the Modern Period (2009), vol. 2, p. 1035. It is not mentioned in D. Jasen's The Theatre of P. G. Wodehouse (1979).
The most complete review I have been able to find is in The Era for October 29 of that year. It provides a few details of the piece's plot, language and humor:
THE TIVOLI.
Mr. Joseph Wilson's latest novelty at the Tivoli is a sketch without a plot, from the joint pens of Mr. Lennox Pawle, the popular comedian, and Mr. P. J. [sic] Wodehouse. It is entitled The Dumb (?) Waiter, the ironical significance of the adjective of the title being marked by a note of interrogation. In a restaurant scene a deaf-and-dumb gentleman and a Hebrew of uncultivated manners are dining. The Jew, after addressing several observations to the deaf mute, appropriates his evening newspaper, which is promptly snatched back by the silent one. After one or two little skirmishes the waiter arrives on the scene. He is quite a greasy specimen of his class, but his clatter of speech is prodigious. Like Gratiano, he speaks an infinite deal of nothing. His deaf-and-dumb customer has, he thinks, a sympathetic soul, and when he pours his family history into his ear, with incidental references to the doings and love-troubles of a kindly-hearted innkeeper, he has no idea that his talk flows "in one ear and out of the other." The old gentleman at last understands that he is being spoken to, and taking a small scrap of paper, he scribbles thereon: "Any statement of importance you have to make you must put it in writing. I am deaf and dumb." The sketch has the merit of giving a droll comedian a real chance as a humorist, and its chief recommendation is that it introduces to the London variety stage Mr. John Humphries, of whom too little is seen in the West End. Such a capital comedian should be permanently established in the metropolis. The music halls, at any rate, can do with him, for his waiter is a joyous optimist, and a refreshing exponent of a Cockney type as amusing as it is lifelike. Mr. Humphries may be said to have "found himself" in the halls. He should remain there.
Now, scanty as these particulars are, they allow us to connect the sketch with Wodehouse's short story "By Advice of Counsel," first published in The Strand Magazine in July of 1910 and collected in The Man Upstairs (1914).
In the story, a waiter recounts to a silent customer how he and his partner, Bailey, once lived comfortably off Jerry Moore, a meek bachelor. When Jerry falls for the domineering Jane Tuxton, the freeloaders fear losing their easy life. Hoping to sabotage the romance, Bailey advises the timid Jerry to flatter Jane's family by consulting them. However, Jerry is slightly deaf and mishears the advice. At dinner, Jerry aggressively insults the family and kicks their dog. Surprisingly, this sudden dominance captivates Jane, who accepts his proposal, leaving the scheming partners out in the cold. As he finishes his tale, however, the customer looks at the waiter inquiringly and says, "I don’t know what you are saying. If it is important, write it on a slip of paper. I am stone-deaf."
The similarities with the plot described in the Era review are unquestionable, starting with the almost identical concluding sentences. Both waiters are garrulous and speak with a strong Cockney accent. It seems clear that the sketch started life as an adaptation of the story, or at least a separate development of the same basic idea.
Nevertheless, even from the brief synopsis of the sketch we can tell that the two plots are different. The Jewish diner is an original addition, and the waiter's tale apparently concerns events relating to his family and an innkeeper. We don't know if the story of the innkeeper is similar to that of Jerry Moore. From the review alone, it might appear that the deafness of the customer is known to the public from the start, but it seems to me likely (and theatrically much more effective) that here too this fact was only revealed at the end, and that his stony silence is first interpreted as a sign of concentration and perhaps annoyance at the prattle of the waiter. As the notice suggests, it must have relied on the lead actor's delivery as much as on the quality of his lines. We need only imagine the story that we know translated to the stage to see that a flat or uninspired performance would ruin the sketch.
This is the first time I've heard of Lennox Pawle in association with Wodehouse. Immediately after the production Pawle went to America to start a career on Broadway: he was part of the all-British cast of Louis N. Parker's comedy Pomander Walk that opened in Montreal on December 12. There are two excellent articles on him at the Immortal Ephemera website, here and here, with plenty of additional information ahd photographs. As far as I'm aware, the only time Wodehouse used his surname at all in his writings was in the person of the nonexistent Mrs. Matilda Pawle, a creation of Judson Coker in Bill the Conqueror, but the connection is too tenuous to be much more than a coincidence.
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