PLAYGOER'S
MEMORIES
Photo : /:". c.
II. (.. MlKBKKT
A PLAYGOER'S MEMORIES
A PLAYGOER'S
MEMORIES
BY
H. G. HIBBERT
AUTHOR OF
"FIFTY YEARS OF A LONDONER'S L1FK*
PREFATORY NOTE BY
WILLIAM ARCHER
'/ TWELVE ILLUSTRATIONS
LONDON
GRANT RICHARDS LTD.
8T MARTIN'S 8TRBBT
MDOOOCX3
OCT 21 1965
6179
PRINTED IN GREAT BRITAIN BY THE RIVERSIDE PRESS LIMITED
EDINBURGH
TO
MARIE LOHR
PREFACE
LONDON, 2yd September 1920.
MY DEAR HlBBERT,
I don't know why you should apply to me for a
foreword to your book on the inner history of the
late Victorian and Edwardian stage, unless it be for
the reason that no one else in the theatrical world
is so ignorant as I of the said inner history. I
have never in my life been in a green-room does
such a thing exist nowadays ? and at theatrical
clubs I have been a very infrequent and somewhat
depayse guest. Therefore I could as easily have
written a book on Einstein's Theory of Relativity
as on the subjects which you handle with such suave
and humane omniscience. I suppose, then, that
you apply to me as the least expert and the most
appreciative reader you can find. You know how
I delighted in your Fifty Years of a Londoner's Life,
and you make with confidence a second appeal to
my interest in the men and women whom I have
hitherto known only, or mainly, as actors and
actresses.
Your confidence is well founded. I have read
your book with the keenest interest, and I fully
understand and share that mood of pensive melan-
choly which runs through so many of its pages.
We shall be set down, I dare say, as puling senti-
mentalists when we shed " tears, idle tears " over
those tragedies of the stage which are enacted
wholly dans lex coulisses, and of which, very often,
8 PREFACE
no rumour reaches the public. We shall be told
that a solicitor or a stockbroker, looking back
over half-a-century of his professional life, would
have just as good right to wax maudlin over the
vicissitudes of fortune he had witnessed and the
inevitable casualty-list of the battle of life. But,
with all respect to the solicitor and the stockbroker,
there is a very real difference between the cases.
A glamour hangs about the stage which is, to say
the least of it, not equally perceptible in the purlieus
of Lincoln's Inn and London Wall. Antithesis,
contrast, has been from of old one of the most
impressive figures in the rhetoric of life. ; and while
we are human we cannot but be sensitive to the
contrast between the glitter of the footlights and
the pauper's cubicle or the suicide's grave. To
pass from the solicitor's office to the tomb is only
to pass, quite literally, from dust to dust ; very
different is the transit from the factitious, hectic
vitality of the stage into the squalor of poverty
or the " cold obstruction " of death. A theatre
always seems to me, as I am sure it seems to you,
like a richly-coloured meerschaum, impregnated
with the essence of countless hopes and dreams,
triumphs and disasters. Like you, 1 cannot go to
any of the older playhouses of London without
being haunted by troops of ghosts, both before and
behind the curtain. With a gentle and sympathetic
conjuration, you have summoned up some of these
spirits and made them defile across the gauze-hung
stage of memory, commenting the while, without
either cynicism or censoriousness, upon their
splendours and their miseries. There is nothing
of the scandalous chronicle in your reminiscences.
Sometimes, indeed, you drop the curtain, with
tantalising discretion, just when our curiosity is at
PREFACE 9
the keenest. But, when in doubt, it is far better
to say too little than too much. I am sure you
have proceeded on that principle, and it has helped
you to produce a uniformly urbane and attractive
book.
Some of the people of whom you treat ranked high
among my pet aversions. But as you revive them
for me in the magic twilight of the past, I forget
what I have endured at their hands, and think of
them with compassion, not as bad artists, but as
struggling, aspiring, suffering human beings. Did
I, in their lifetime, ignore their humanity, and tell
the brutal truth about them ? I sincerely hope not.
A piece of bad acting is, after all, such an ephemeral
thing that (unless there are aggravating circum-
stances, such as grave injustice to an unfortunate
author) it is mere cruelty to stick a pin in it and
preserve it in a museum. Let criticism do the little
it can to embalm the memory of fine acting, and
suffer the rest to pass unchronicled into oblivion.
I can only applaud, therefore, your abstention
from any attempt to range your subjects in an order
of merit, or to distribute aesthetic praise and blame.
You are concerned with the stage, not from the
artistic, but from the purely human point of view ;
HI id there is as much human nature in a leg-show
as in a Shakespearean tragedy. The tragedy,
indeed, deliberately sets forth to remind us of the
pi I lulls that beset our path in life. It is, so to
s|>;ik, self-consciously pathetic. How much more
poignant is the unconscious pathos of the gaudy,
^littering, jigging and jazzing operetta, with its
'* beauty chorus," its bouncing comedians, and its
idolised i>rima donna, the goddess of a few lime-lit
hours ! It is not at the St James's or the Hay-
markel, Imt at Daly's and the Hippodrome, that I,
10 PREFACE
for one, am apt to be haunted by the refrain:
" Into the night go one and all."
Deep as is my ignorance of the intimate history
of the stage, there are one or two points where I am
tempted to add a footnote to your records. For
example, in speaking of the Kings way as a " house
of many mutations " (p. 225), you do not mention
that it was the scene of the first serious introduc-
tion of Ibsen to the British stage. In those days
(7th June 1889) it was known as the Novelty Theatre.
The play was A Doll's House and the Nora was
that brilliant but ill-starred actress, Janet Achurch,
who ought to find a place in any future "Legend
of Fair Women " that you may compile. That short
season was certainly, in its consequences, the most
memorable of all the vicissitudes through which
the Kingsway has passed. The same boards, too,
witnessed the latest Ibsen performances a revival
of Ghosts in 1917. Miss Darragh, who made perhaps
the greatest success of her career as Mrs Alving,
succumbed to an operation within a few weeks
of the end of the run. " Into the night go one
and all." Yours very sincerely,
WILLIAM ARCHER.
CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAR!
I. "OUR BOYS" ... .17
"This cursed nonsense will not run a week" A Record
of One Thousand Three Hundred and Sixty-Two Perform-
ances Theatre Rents in the Seventies Our Boys 1 Earnings
Some Byron bans mots A Cast o'ertaken by Tragedy
II. OPRA BOUFFE ..... 25
The Coming of Offenbach La Grattde Dufhesse de Gerold-
stcin Ilervc at the Lyceum Chilperic Some Popular
prime donnc All the World at Islington Florence St John
arrives And Arthur Roberts
III. THE ROMANTIC STORY OF " LES CLOCHES DE
CORNEVILLE" . . . . -33
Alias the Costumier And Farnie the Librettist Inane
Opera Books-rtri. Thrilling First Night Shiel Barry's
Gaspard, and Others A Mummer's Wife How 20,000
went astray
IV. THE REAL FLORENCE ST JOHN ... 38
An Ideal Nell Gwynn -^"Early Music-hall Experiences
Madame Favart's Salary Maggie Greig with the Four
Husbands
V. THE AVENUE THEATRE AND ARTHUR ROBERTS . 43
St;iii,tics of London Theatres St John revives I. a Mascotle
Lord Alfred 1'aget, Fish Merchant The Coming of
Arthur Roberts
VI. "JACK SHEPPARD" .... 48
Nellie Farren in Drama and Burlesque The Real Jack
Sheppard Predatory Playwright-, |.'ii.ith.m Wild takes the
Receipts -Mr: lack John"! It.ilin^shead's Legacy
VII. THE GAIETY QUARTET . . . .56
The Sole Survivor" We are a merry family ! We arc ! We
are!! We are!!!" Edw.u.i '".hty not <ut --Tlir
of II. J. Byron The Beginning
of the Quartet And its Kn<!
II
12 CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
VIII. "DOROTHY" ... 62
A Failure at first Its Curious Origin Saved by a Song
A Bargain Sale and a Fortune Arthur Williams The
Downfall of Jack Leslie
IX. "THE BELLE OF NEW YORK" ... 68
A Failure in New York How Edna May was found An
Old-time Manager The Invasion of the American Chorus
Record of the Belle Her Huge Fortune
X. DELIRIOUS DANCERS . . . . -75
The Can-can Clodoche in London An Incident of
Genevieve de Brabant Legmania The Majiltons and the
Girards The Yokes Family Pantomime Amenities
XI. "MARIA MARTEN" AND "SWEENEY TODD" . 80
The Demon Barber of Fleet Street No sich Person !
A Mediaeval Sweeney The Murder in the Red Barn Fore-
stalling Cinema Record Sale of a " Dying" Speech
XII. " SWEET LAVENDER" ..... 87
History of Terry's Theatre The Coal Hole Terry's Early
Struggles Sweet Lavender The Tragedy of Rose Norreys
Theatrical Rents
XIII. "CHARLEY'S AUNT" .... 94
"Still Running" Penley and Brandon Thomas Their
Characteristics and their Quarrel How Charley's Aunt
came to Town Henry Dana Fortunes made and lost
XIV. "A PANTOMIME REHEARSAL" . . . 101
An Amateur Impromptu The Beginnings of the Vokes
Family Rosina runs away The Discovery of Weedon
Grossmith Early Entertainers Touring America A
London Run
XV. "THE PRIVATE SECRETARY" . . . 108
His Original Exponent Not Beerbohm Tree Humours of
his Performance A Disastrous Season Touch and Go at
the Globe Imperturbable Hawtrey Nearly a Thousand,
not out
XVI. CRITERION COMEDY .... 113
French Farce via New York The Germ of Obscenity
Wyndham's Origin A Business Comedian Pink Dominoes
and Betsy -F. C. Burnand Lottie Venne
CONTENTS 13
XVII. LONDON PLAYS ..... 120
Tom and Jerry A Picture of Pierce Egan A Complacent
Censor Charterhouse Characters Barry Sullivan New
Babylon
XVIII. "THE LIGHTS OF LONDON" . . .129
A First Meeting with Sims Henry Pettitt Genesis of
The Lights of London Wilson Barrett's Early Struggles in
London A General Rejection Zola diluted at Aldgate
Pump Barrett's Downfall and Uprising
XIX. "THE SILVER KING" . . . .135
The Most Famous Melodrama of Modern Times A Run of
a Year The last Silver King H. B. Irving "Daddy"
Herman Willard's Spider A Remarkable Death Roll
Matthew Arnold as a Critic
XX. NEW LAMPS FOR OLD . . . 144
Belphegor the Mountebank Variations on Faust Oscar
Wilde on the Stage Peg o' My Heart's History 714* Forty
Thieves Chu Chin Chow's Record Run
XXI. HORSE- PLAY . . . . .154
Mazeppa From Byron to Menken The Original Exponent
Gomersal's Napoleon Dickens and Astley's The Life of
the Circus Dick Turpin Claude Duval
XXII. "THE MIRACLE" ..... 168
How the Great Spectacle was evolved Reinhardt Statistics
of the Production Its Costs, its Expenses and its Receipts
Some Personalities A Failure, then a Harmsworth Boom
And its Secret
XXIII. "THE ARCADIANS" . . . .176
Comic Opera in English Robert Courtneidge's Career
The Arcadians Always Merry and Bright London
Catchwords
XXIV. "THE MERRY WIDOW" . . . .183
Two Struggles for Life George Edwardes's Reluctance to
Edwardes as a Gambler Run of Two Years Audiences
and Earnings A World- wide Popularity
XXV. KATE VAUGHAN ..... 190
Death in South Afiira Drui> ! miim- I- ail) Days
at the Grecian I.niU- F.m'ly OMStyl. I.mli s|ii,-' i
Sisters Vaughan At the Gaict .,,-dy
14 CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAOK
XXVI. A PAGEANT OF PRINCIPAL BOYS . . . 201
The Coining of Augustus Harris Most Music Hall, most
Melancholy Vale the Yokes Family Blanchard's Bitter
Cry Some Salaries Spangles in the Dust Tragic
Comedians
XXVII. A DWARF, SOME MONSTERS AND A MAGICIAN . 211
The Countess Magri and Tom Thumb Egyptian Hall
Alumni The Siamese Twins The Two-headed Nightingale
Chang Maskelyne and Cooke's Entertainment
XXVIII. FRENZIED FINANCE {/ . . 219
War and the Theatre Changing Audiences An Immense
Increase of Rents The Evil of the Syndicate What the
" Bars " mean
XXIX. THEATRICAL FORTUNES .... 228
A Salary of 750 a Week George Edwardes's Estate
Garrick, Kean, Macready The Savoyards Dan Leno at
20 Some Music Hall Magnates Circus Celebrities
XXX. EVERLASTING FLOWERS .... 233
Too many Cooks ! Three Generations of Cowell A Royal
Romance Extinct Celebrity The Emerys and the Farrens
" Lay" Parents
XXXI. THE PASSING OF THE Music HALL . . 240
Sale of the Empire Its History The Pernicious Promenade
Memories of the Middlesex William Tell's Bad Shot-
Vesta Tilley's Farewell Some Male Impersonators
XXXII. CONCERNING GILBERT AND SULLIVAN . . 259
A Wonderful Revival Gilbert and Sullivan's First Colla-
boration A Gaiety Burlesque Trial by Jury The Savoy
Choosing the Company A Quarrel and a Reconciliation
XXXIII. POSTSCRIPT . . . . .268
Tom Thome's Death Actors as Horsemen Story of Two
Roses Irving's First Appearance Good-bye to Cecil Clay
APPENDICES ....... 275
INDEX ....... 291
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
H. G. Hibbert
Miss Kate Bishop ....
Florence St John ....
Scene horn Jack Sheppard .
William Harrison Ainsworth
The Gaiety Quartet ....
Mr Cartlich : the original Mazeppa .
Adah Isaacs Menken as Mazeppa .
H. G. Hibbert : Caricature by George Belcher
The Vaughan Sisters
A Wedding Group ....
Dearer than Life
Frontispiece
. To face page 1 8
38
48
50
56
154
156
170
I 94
210
270
'5
CHAPTER I
" OUR BOYS"
"This cursed nonsense will not run a week" A Record of One
Thousand Three Hundred and Sixty-Two Performances Theatre
Rents in the Seventies Our Boys' Earnings Some Byron bons
mots A Cast o'ertaken by Tragedy
" THIS cursed nonsense will not last a week." Such,
somewhat expurgated, is said to have been Charles
Warner's comment on Our 7/o//.v after a reading-
interrupted by one outbreak of silly laughter in lite
wrong place. Byron, suffering from the harsh cough
that warned him already of the illness painfully
leading to his death five years later, sipped his brandy
and water, and remarked that it was stronger than,
apparently, the play was.
Our Boyt had the unprecedented run of one
thousand three hundred and sixty-two nights ; it has
been again and again revived ; it still meanders
among the amateurs, yielding a little income to
Myron's surviving daughter. This amateur trallic, by
the way, is incredible, l-'rench's. from their million
slock of plays, supply .'is many as live hundred
applicants in a day, and pay thousands a year to
authors Cor otherwise unconsidercd dramatic trill-
Of course the "run" off)///- />o//\ has often, mean-
while, been overtopped. Hut it must he remembered
that all the conditions of play-going are now
B IT
18 "OUR BOYS"
improved, that the matinee was unknown, and that
provincial and world touring was in its infancy.
Our Boys was produced at the Vaudeville Theatre
on 16th January 1875. To-day you may take up
the thread in a Buckinghamshire garden. Windsor
Castle is silhouetted against the sky. A dear, white-
haired lady plucks a dead leaf from a rose-tree, and
proudly tells you that she sent more eggs to stricken
soldiers than she registered appearances as Violet
Melrose ! A few years ago Kate Bishop quietly left
the stage she had adorned for fifty years. Trained to
it from childhood by her mother, the sweetest ingenue
of a generation is now content to watch with love
and admiration the career of her own daughter,
Marie Lohr ; and to busy herself on her tiny farm.
Strange coincidence that Kate Bishop should be
in Australia when the associate of her girlhood,
Amy Roselle, died there in such tragical circum-
stances. Strange that her stage lover too, handsome,
exuberant Charles Warner, should die by his own
hand in America. Strange that one of the parti-
tioners in a huge fortune made out of Our Boys
should die in middle age, leaving upwards of
40,000, while the other, verging on eighty, lingered
in a public institution, mentally deranged.
It was recently in order for the Vaudeville
Theatre so named, no doubt, because nothing in
the nature of a vaudeville was destined to occupy its
stage, for vaudeville is a very definite form of French
dramatic art to celebrate its jubilee. It was built
for three popular favourites of the day David James,
H. J. Montagu and Thomas Thorne and opened in
- K \i i I'.i-ii
.Al \l
THEATRE RENTS IN THE SEVENTIES 19
April, 1870. The new firm was quickly named in
Bohemian circles, " The Jew, the Gent, and the
Gentile." James, a popular favourite in burlesque
at its real home, the Strand, was actually Belasco.
" Handsome Harry " Montagu had been the " lead-
ing juvenile " with the Bancrofts. Thorne was James's
companion at the Strand, though the intimacy of the
three men began twenty-five years earlier, at Sadler's
Wells.
Wybrow Robertson, a person of importance in the
theatrical world then he married the beautiful Miss
Litton, and projected the Westminster Aquarium-
built the Vaudeville, on a site absorbing the offices of
77/6' Glow-worm. It is unique in having had but two
lessees allowing for the mutations of the James-
Thorne- Montagu partnership. In 1891 the Gattis
became the proprietors of the Vaudeville, which they
never let outright, preferring to retain an interest
in the productions there. If it were in the market
to-day it might command a rental of 400 a week
aggregating in a year a sum probably equal to
that expended on its original structure. For years
the rental nominated for accountancy purposes was
C200 a week. Twenty years ago it was 00 a week.
I do not suppose it cost James and Thorne 50 a
week.
Their plan was to do burlesque a short burlesque
and a short comedy was the conventional programme
of the day. But their beginning was unfortunate.
Albery's Two /I'o.vrv was their first success, as it was
that incorrigible Bohemian's one remarkable play.
I It- was one oi' the parly that used to drink small and
20 "OUR BOYS"
dewy cups in the long-demolished Albion Tavern,
Drury Lane. Another of the group .was Henry
Irving, who to the end of his days loved late hours,
and who incidentally made so great an impression
as Digby Grant in Two Roses that Colonel Bateman
tempted him round the corner to the Lyceum and so
began a most important chapter in the history of the
English stage. Albery got a good connection as an
adapter of French farce. He was Mary Moore's
first husband, and in his Little Miss Muffit she made
her debut as a regular actress.
Montagu soon quarrelled with his partners, and
became manager of the Globe. He did not succeed ;
accepted an American engagement, and died in the
United States. Actually Our Boys was written for
him, and Sam Emery, a popular comedian of the
time there have been five generations of Emerys on
the stage was the selected Middlewick. But Byron
eventually took his play to the Vaudeville, where he
narrowly escaped selling his manuscript outright for
a few hundred pounds, according to the custom of
the time. He took a weekly fee of, I believe, twenty
pounds. That would mean no more than a few
thousands, though he made a better deal in regard
to the country rights. It is not too much to say
that an author who could produce the counterpart
of Our Boys to-day would be in clear view of
100,000.
William Duck, who first leased and then bought
outright for 1000 the provincial rights, afterwards
all rights remaining, probably made the largest
fortune of all. He was a common, illiterate man,
SOME BYRON BONS MOTS 21
who, having purchased busts of Shakespeare and
Milton for his drawing-room, returned them to the
itinerant vendor when the unhappy Italian tendered
a third of Byron "Not a damned bit like him,"
as Duck roundly swore. At Plymouth he told the
dramatist that he had "been for a walk round the
'oe." Said Byron: "Try one round the aitch for
a change."
One of his best mots was uttered on his death-bed.
His groom, reporting the illness of a horse, " thought
he would give the sufferer a ball." " Ye-es," said
Byron; "but don't ask too many people." He
comforted a sandwich-man complaining of poor
pay with the reminder that he "got his board."
Byron died a poor man ; nominally, he left 4200.
Hut probate figures are apt to be so deceptive. He
hud speculated unsuccessfully in theatrical manage-
ment. He had been generous. But especially he
had an expensive mania for changing his residence,
and not infrequently was paying rent for four aban-
doned houses. His habit of word contortion, or pun-
ning, in burlesque is tiresome to us now, and seems
laborious, but it was natural to him. His humour is
homely, and even vulgar. His characters are mostly
conventional creatures of the stage. But he never set
up a suggestive situation, or wrote an indecorous line.
On the same day, 10th April 1884, died, well
ad\anccd in years, another dramatist, novelist, grim
humorist, and social reformer, Charles Reade.
Byron was already an author of renown when he
wrote Our 7/o//\. lie was forty, but he had nearly
a hundred plays to his credit, mostly burlesques.
22 "OUR BOYS"
There is not a classical story, nursery tale, opera or
drama to which he has not applied a sacrilegious
pen. In his youth he coquetted with medicine,
became a barrister, journalist, actor, novelist. He
was the first editor of Fun, the only effectual rival of
Punch. His intermittent appearances on the stage
were mostly in his own plays the most remarkable,
Charles, in A Fool and his Money ; the last as the
war correspondent, in Jules Verne's Michael Strogoff\
at the Adelphi. He rejected make-up, and would
step from a cab on to the stage, a tall, handsome,
heavily moustached man, who was hardly ever known
to lose his temper, who was universally beloved for
his charm and for his ready wit.
James when he separated from the Vaudeville
accepted engagements here and there he returned
to his first love, burlesque, in Jack Sheppard, at the
Gaiety. He died in middle age, leaving 41,594,
most of which, no doubt, he made out of Our Boys.
His long-time partner continued in management
to a disastrous end. Poor Amy Roselle !
Arthur Dacre, her husband, was a medical man in
early life and never really distinguished himself on
the stage. He belonged to a little group of men re-
markable for their physical attractiveness, and known
as stage beauties. There was " Handsome " Harry
Conway, "Handsome" Jack Barnes, Kyrle Bellew
and Dacre. Barnes has had the rare art of bending
to the years he is one of our finest actors of old
men. All the rest are dead Dacre by his own
hand, the victim of inordinate vanity.
Amy Roselle, who in childhood had shared the
CAST O'ERTAKEN BY TRAGEDY ->;*
triumphs of her diminutive brother, Percy, the
Master Betty of his day, was still an actress of a
certain consideration. But Dacre stubbornly con-
tended for the position of joint "stars." Their
circumstances here became deplorable. In Australia
they seemed to be on the eve of better things it is
untrue that they were in distressed circumstances
when, in November, 1895, the whole world was
shocked by the news that Dacre had, after deliberate
agreement, cleanly shot his wife. He then appar-
ently lost his nerve. His own bullet missed a vital
part. He clumsily cut his throat, standing at the
mantelpiece moaning : " Oh, the pain ! the pain ! "
He died shortly after the horrified servants of the
hotel in Sydney broke into his room.
William Farren had joined the Vaudeville company
for intervening revivals of Tfic School for Scandal
and other comedies of that kind. In his youth
a hard, unappellant actor, he developed into a
comedian of consideration when he succeeded to the
series of characters with which his father, the real
"Old" Farren, had been identified. It became a
convention to speak of him as the last embodiment
of the traditions of eighteenth-century comedy. Not
so ! That honour belonged to Lewis Ball, Phelps's
stage manager and friend, in the long autumn and
crisp winter of his lii'e the mainstay and preceptor of
the Compton Comedy Company; the best Sir Peter
Tea/le I ever saw.
Farren had the reputation at the Vaudeville of
eantankeroiisness and penurious habit. He always
played the last act with as much of his stage gear
24 "OUR BOYS"
removed as possible, his man waiting at the wings
with greatcoat and rug so that he might make a
bolt for his suburban train at Charing Cross and so
save a cab fare !
Of other women there were two Sophie Larkin,
the Clarissa Champneys, who came from the home
of Robertson comedy, the Prince of Wales's, her
ugliness beatified by good humour and bright black
eyes ; and Cicely Richards, just emancipated from
the wardrobe to play her first part, as Belinda,
which she was encouraged by the kindly Byron to
expand into a study that Dickens might have
fathered. And there was William Lestocq, now
the faithful guardian of the Frohman interests, pro-
moted from the rank of a super at eighteenpence a
night to that of a footman at twenty-five shillings.
For the Vaudeville management was economical,
though it did burst out into champagne each fiftieth
night and massive gold lockets on the hundredth.
Our Boys had a keen admirer in the then Prince of
Wales. He visited the Vaudeville on the eve of his
departure for India and immediately after his return.
" Do you think," petulantly retorted an actor re-
proached with forgetting his lines, "that we can
remember the damned thing for ever ? " He was
released on 18th April 1879.
CHAPTER II
on-ill A BOUFFE
The Coming of Offenbach La Grande Duchesse de Gerolstein Herve
at the Lyceum Chilperic Some Popular Prime Donne All the
World at Islington Florence St John arrives And Arthur Roberts
WIIKXKVKK two or three playgoers gather to-
gether someone is sure to wonder why the old
operas are not revived, and another to remark in
explanation that the "books" were so bad! It
seems to be overlooked that revivals of opera boit//c
have had a very fair trial. Quite recently, at Drury
Lane. Sir Thomas Beecham did La Fille dc Mndamc
An got, with a brand-new libretto by a distinguished
liftcnttcur. I do not believe he found much satis-
faction in the result. At the Ambassadors Mr
Charles B. Cochran introduced to revue a generous
selection from old-time favourites. Hundreds of
letters reached him from grateful enthusiasts, but
they were marked "private," and not addressed to
the box office. Sir Oswald Stoll tried a similar ex-
periment at the Coliseum, but very soon desisted.
One remembers a more serious ellbrt at the Garriek,
aging Florence St John; others at the Gaiety
and at the Criterion; and an earlier one by Edward
Saunders at the then distinguished Coronet Theatre,
with that experienced veteran, Richard Mansell, at
26 OPERA BOUFFE
his right hand. It was interesting, but costly-
There are on my book-shelves many volumes that I
love, and sometimes dust, but never dare reopen.
I think the operas boujf'e that enchanted us in youth
were better treated as sacred memories now.
Casual writers speak of Mansell's production of
Chilpcric at the Lyceum in 1870 as the starting-
point of opera bouffe in England. Not so ! Planche,
in 1865, found some material in Offenbach's work
for Orpheus in the Haymarket, and Burnand in
Herve's L'CEil Creve for Hit or Miss ; or, All my Eye
and Betty Martyn, in 1868. There were interesting
seasons of opera in French at the St James's which
absorbed a liberal sowing of wild oats ere the
efflorescence of " the beautiful " Miss Herbert, of
Hare, of the Kendals, of Alexander. In its foun-
dations you may still find the cages of performing
lions. Here the first Christy Minstrels drew tears
to the eyes of William Makepeace Thackeray facts
over which Alexander unnecessarily drew the curtain
of shame in his history of the theatre. Schneider
played the Grand Duchess at the St James's, dancing
the can-can, and Descauzes played Madame Angot.
In fact the first serious production of opera boujf'e
in English was that of The Grand Duchess at Covent
Garden by the elder Augustus Harris in 1867. Mrs
Howard Paul, Julia Matthews, and Emily Soldene,
who had just descended from the concert platform
to become a music-hall favourite as Miss Fitzhenry,
were, in succession, the representatives of her
eccentric highness. Then came Harbe Bleue, in
which, at the Gaiety in 1870, Julia Matthews played
POPULAR FAVOURITES 27
Boulotte a second time, to be succeeded on tour
by Emily Soldene. It importantly occurs that
parallel with the long line of successful operas runs
a long line of popular favourites as, Julia Matthews,
Emily Soldene, Selina Dolaro, Kate Santley, Con-
stance Loseby, Corneille D'Anka, Kitty Munro,
Florence St John and Violet Cameron. They were
nurtured in the atmosphere of opera bouffe to
which Sir Thomas Beecham's academic artists seemed
strange in the recent revival of jMndntnc Angot. So,
too, were the comedians the Marshalls, the Mariuses,
the Paultons and the Coxes.
Soldene got a late-life reputation as a vivacious
writer, mostly of reminiscences. A benefit was
managed for her at the Palace Theatre by Mr
Richard Northcott, to whose invaluable brochures
on composers one is so deeply indebted ; and with
the 1000 it raised she went to friends in Australia,
but she returned to die in London, at seventy-two,
and is buried at Shirley, near Croydon.
In the early seventies the Mansells ran the Lyceum.
They were Irishmen, of a good family, Maitland by
name. They were absolutely irresponsible. Later
at the St James's Theatre Richard Mansell got into
trouble with the Lord Chamberlain about some
scanty frocks and an indecent dance in Vert- Vert.
Mr was impudent, and promptly lost his licence,
the Lord Chamberlain informing the culprit that he
had added a note to the record which would prevent
any succeeding Lord Chamberlain from removing
the ban. Poor "Dick" .Mansell found this was
quite true !
28 OPERA BOUFFE
When Chilperic was done at the Lyceum the
composer, Herve, an elegant, irresistible creature,
played the hero, making an impressive entrance on
a white horse a pre-mtitince idol. Again, Soldene
had the reversion of the part, but in the succeeding
production of Little Faust she was called upon
actually to " create " the character of Margaret, much
to her disgust, for she did not like her Faust, Tom
Maclagan, the music-hall singer. Jennie Lee, who
had been a pert page in Chilperic, was promoted to
the condition of a crossing sweeper, in silken rags,
brandishing a golden besom, and crying, " Copper !
Yir'onor ! Copper ! " which became a London catch-
phrase. Hollingshead, feeling his way toward a
definite policy at the Gaiety he certainly had no
vision of "the sacred lamp" at the outset of his
journey tried opera bouffe, notably Offenbach's
The Princess of Trebizonde, in which Toole played
the Showman, and Nellie Farren his daughter
Chaumont's original part. La Belle Helene, Genevieve
de Brabant, Barbe Bleue and many minor works of
Offenbach were done at the Gaiety.
Throughout the seventies the Alhambra was the
home of opera bouffe which also divagated to the
Philharmonic, Islington, where Charles Morton,
burned out of the Oxford Music Hall, had taken
refuge with Charles Head, the book-maker, for his
partner. The Alhambra had lost its music-hall
licence, thanks in part to the habit of French and
German patrons of the promenade punching each
other's noses, by way of echoing the war, and became
a theatre, running opera bouffe, with interpolated
SOME POPULAR PRIME DONNE 29
ballet. Many French artists and musicians found
their way to England at that time. Strange that
after an interval of fifty years and another war
Mr Charles H. Cochran should find a home for other
artist-refugees, and with Delysia and Morton en-
courage a new growth in popularity of French
music in London.
From 24th April 1871, when the Alhambra re-
opened as a theatre proper, for a year it ran a mixed
programme of farce, operetta and ballet. Then, with
Offenbach's Lc Roi Garotte and a ballet by Jacobi,
John Baum began a definite policy shortly secur-
ing Kate Santley for his leading lady; anon, Julia
Matthews, Constance Loseby, Lennox Grey, Pattie
Lavernc, Emily Soldene, Corneille D'Anka, Selina
Dolaro, Clara Vesey, Emma Chambers, Alice May
and Fannie Leslie. Among popular comedians here
one recalls Harry Paulton, Jimmy Stoyle, Charles
C'ollette and Fred Leslie. Notable productions at
the Alhambra during the seventies \^ere King ( V// o//r,
The Itluclc Crook. The I'/rftt/ /V/;/'/////<vr.v.v, The
(w/'ft/id Duchess. La 1'eriehole* La 1'onle an.v (J\u/'s
</'O/\ /Yrt/.sr, The rrinee of Trel*'r:o)idi\ La Wile du
Tambour M/iJo/\ Jeanne Jeanette el Jennneton* The
M err if \\'ai\ King Co/nefc, La f'"oi/fige a la Li/nc.
and The lleggar Student. To P>aum \\'illiam Hailey
succeeded, to Uailey Charlc-s Morton, and in October,
issl. the blessed [>rivilege of a music-hall licence
was restored.
Meanwhile, I MI rued out of the Oxford Music Hall,
Morton had been running the dilapidated Phil-
harmonic Mall. Islington, familiarly known as the
30 OPERA BOUFFE
" Dustbin." His first experiments in comic opera
were with excerpts, a then illegal item of a music-
hall programme. But he went the whole hog with
Genevieve de Brabant on 10th November 1871. It
ran a year. All roads led to Islington, the Prince of
Wales heading a stream of golden youth. Emily
Soldene's Drogan was the talk of the town, and every
street boy was a-whistling her Sleep Song. No less
popular was the We'll Run 'Em In of the two gen-
darmes, Felix Bury and Edward Marshall.
At the Philharmonic, on 4th October 1873, La
Fille de Madame Angot was first done in English,
with a libretto by H. J. Byron, Julia Matthews
as Lange, and Selina Dolaro as Clairette. It ran
two hundred and thirty-five nights. Morton had
quarrelled with Head, and left. In association
with Hollingshead, a month later, he did another
version, by Farnie, at the Gaiety, with Soldene as
Lange, and Annie St Clair as Clairette. The arrange-
ments of the Gaiety were not, in those days, for
long runs, but a new home for La Fille was found
at the Opera Comique, Pattie Laverne replacing
Miss St Clair. A run of many months ensued.
The disordered state of the copyright law allowed
of half-a-dozen versions. Notable Langes were
Corneille D'Anka, Lennox Grey, Dolaro and Kitty
Munro. Notable Clairettes were Carrie Nelson,
Constance Loseby, Kate Santley and Alice Burville.
Between Soldene and Dolaro, who often appeared in
the opera together, there was a genuine " quarrel "
scene, as you will find from a perusal of Madame
Emily's vivacious volume.
FLORENCE ST JOHN ARRIVES 31
Elsewhere opera boujf'c most firmly established
itself with the production of Lett Cloches de Corner tile
in 1878 at the Folly. Its long run was at its second
home, the Globe. The Strand was devoted to opera
buiitfe. Here Florence St John, who had succeeded
to the character of Germaine in Les Cloches de
Corueville, was entrusted with her first original
character as Madame Favart and Violet Cameron was
the Suzanne. Again the actresses were associated
here in Otirettc. Miss Cameron stayed for \aral
Cadet** in which Dolaro made, I think, her last
appearance. And then the Strand was devoted to
other uses.
Meanwhile the Comedy Theatre was built, for the
especial accommodation of opera boujfe, in 1881, and a
year later the Avenue. La Mascotte, previously tried
at Brighton, was an immediate success at the Comedy
it set the seal on Violet Cameron's reputation, also
employing Lionel Brough. In Rip Van Winkle
Fred Leslie gave a memorable performance. In
/////Y/ \V. S. Penley made his first remarkable success
as lay Brother Pelican.
A revival of Madame Favart began the career
of the Avenue. Les Manteaux Noirs, Lurette. La
/'/'< introducing Arthur Roberts, for whom the
authorities had recommended a change of airs AV//
'/////, AW,*;-// and The Old Guard ensued ere
r<re Alexander became the lessee of the Avenue
and laid the foundation of a fortune, to be rudely
but not disastrously shaken by a defaulting
manager.
It is preposterous nonsense to s;iy that the Gilbert
32 OPERA BOUFFE
and Sullivan operas " sounded the death knell " of
o/H-ni boujf'e. Not exactly, but nearly, contempor-
aneous are Pinafore with seven hundred performances
and Les Cloches de Cornevillc with seven hundred
and five ; Madame Favart with five hundred and two
and The Pirates of Penzance with three hundred and
sixty-three performances ; Olivette with four hundred
and sixty-six and Patience with five hundred and
seventy-eight ; Princess Ida with two hundred and
forty-six and Falka with one hundred and fifty-seven ;
The Mikado with six hundred and seventy -two and
Erminie with one hundred and fifty-four ; RudcUgore
with two hundred and eighty-three and The Old
Guard with three hundred ; Tlie Yeoman of Ihc
Guard with four hundred and twenty-three and
Pepita with one hundred and two ; Nadgy with one
hundred and sixty-two. The Gilbert and Sullivan
story ends with The Gondoliers five hundred and
fifty-four performances, while La Cigale was making
four hundred and twenty-three.
No ! The death knell of opera bouffe was sounded,
if ever, by the success of In Town, expanding to
multiform musical comedies, in time superseded
by the German and Austrian compositions which
became an obsession of managers. In 1897, when
Savoy Opera was a dead letter so far as London
was concerned, La Poupee took the liberty of run-
ning up five hundred and seventy-six performances
at the Prince of Wales's Theatre.
CHAPTER III
THK KOMANTIC STORY OF " I.KS CLOCHES
DE CORNEVILLE"
Alias the Costumier And Farnie the Librettist Inane Opera Books
A Thrilling First Night Shiel Barry's Gaspard, and Others
A Mummer's Wife How ,20,000 went astray
I r is one of the dear incongruities of London life that
for many years the frippery of the stage has been
composed in what was once a convent on the west
side of Soho Square. Near by Madame du Barry
lived from M. Alias's windows you can look o'er
the site of Madame Cornelys' reception-room, now
occupied by a Catholic church. For nearly half-a-
century Charles Alias had been costumier-in-chief to
every important production of opera bou/fc ; and his
account books are an epitome of its history. He
equipped Lcs Cloches dc Conieville for a matter of
three or four hundred pounds. It probably earned
three or four hundred thousand. The manager of
to-day who began such an adventure with less than
ten thousand pounds at his back would be a madman.
At the time of the Franco-Prussian War young
Charles Alias, the son of a village surgeon in
Normandy, turned out of the paternal home because
he rrfusc'l to follow his father's profession, arrived in
London, a forlorn stranger. He formed a friendship
34 "LES CLOCHES DE CORNEVILLE"
with Clodoche, the inventor of the can-can, then
dancing at the Philharmonic Theatre, Islington, and
was in due course attached to the wardrobe there.
A ramshackle place, the old Philharmonic was,
none the less, a favourite resort of the Prince of
Wales and his friends. There was a picnic scene in
Genevieve and it was the custom of the aristocratic
patrons of the house to supply champagne liberally.
As a recognition of their generosity they were allowed
to go on the stage and take a glass or two with the
pretty ladies before the curtain went up. Morton,
whom we know in later life as a sedate, stage-banker-
looking person, with set opinions and no ideas, was
quite willing to bow obsequiously to the idiosyncrasies
of any aristocratic patron. But if the conviviality long
continued he would rush backwards and forwards,
exhorting the revellers to get their business over and
let him "ring up"- the disposition of the audience
being to resent the premature and occasionally pro-
longed sounds of revelry that reached them.
Soldene became more famous as Carmen, but her
smart Drogan will always linger in the memory.
Another member of the Philharmonic company was
"Mons." Marius, the handsome young Frenchman
who married Florence St John. His stage career in
London was cut short by the call to arms. When he
returned he was in sore straits, and a part was benevo-
lently written into Genevieve for his accommodation.
When Morton and Head quarrelled, the book-
maker ran the Philharmonic Theatre on his own
account. In the course of time it became the Grand,
the prototype of the suburban theatres.
FARNIE THE LIBRETTIST 35
M. Alias struck up a remarkable friendship with
H. B. Farnie, who for many years was the autocrat of
comic opera. "We must have looked a strange couple,"
says M. Alias, " I so small, he a monstrous creature.
He always wore the smallest * billy-cock ' his head
would carry, and an exceedingly short reefer-coat.
An eccentric collar and tie completed his grotesque
appearance people used to turn round and stare at
him as he walked along ; and he always politely de-
clared they were guying me! He believed himself
a tremendous success with women, but that side of
liis character it is not edifying to discuss.
" Farnie's libretti were the butt of the critics, who
were never weary of chaffing his inane rhymes and
banal sentiment. But he was impervious. The fact
is that Farnie did not depend for success on any
literary skill, but on business acumen. He could in
an instant judge of the possibilities of a French pro-
duction here. We would go to Paris together, and
at once close a deal. Madame Favart was at the
outset a failure there, but coined money here. It
blished Florence St John in popular favour, and
Herbert Tree made one of his first successes as the
Marquis de Pontsable on tour. Once, I recall, Farnie
scribbled a complete translation of a 'book' on our way
home from Paris. It was of Belle Lurcttc, I think."
Tlint' is something to be said for him \\hoadapts a
Continental book. Basil Hood certainly had literary
tasU and skill. Not long before his death in such
ical circumstances he declared that he would
never a^-ain undertake adaptation, though a fortune
made out of The J/r/ /// //VWoif should have alleviated
36 "LES CLOCHES DE CORNEVILLE "
the agony. He claimed that the music should be
written to the book, not the book to the music ; and
cited Sullivan, who roundly declared that " only a
d d fool" could think otherwise with accom-
modations, of course. Further, Hood declared that
French, but especially German, libretti were mostly
decent, and devoid of humour. So the story had
to be emasculated to idiocy, and the comic character
developed, or indeed bodily introduced.
"Les Cloches de Corneville" M. Alias proceeded,
"was our most memorable experience. Planquette
was a writer of music-hall songs ; and Les Cloches was
not well received at the outset. But it was patiently
worked into a success by its manager and ran hun-
dreds of nights. In London, Farnie and his partner
Henderson had quarrelled they were always quarrel-
ling. They wanted to get through with the production
and with their responsibility as quickly as they could,
at the smallest possible cost, and declared, when they
saw my bills for something in the neighbourhood of
four hundred pounds, that I should never work for
them again. They cast the play in the most casual
fashion ; and were agreed that Shiel Barry selected for
Gaspard could only help to ruin the show. He was
a fairly well-known actor, too, of Irish 'character'
parts, in Boucicault's dramas. He caught cold on the
eve of the production and, trying a dozen remedies,
got his throat into a shocking state. His hoarse-
ness accounted for half his success ! The original
Germaine was Violet Cameron, who died lately
and so, all the principals are gone. She was re-
placed, after a time, by Florence St John, already
"THE MUMMER'S WIFE" 37
familiar with the part in the provinces. Kate Munro
was the Serpolette, John Howson the Marquis he
afterwards elected to play Gaspard on tour W. J.
Hill the Bailie, Charles Ashford the Gobo, and
M. Loredan the Grenicheux.
" Henderson and Farnie had left the theatre when
the last roar of applause went up, and assured each
other that the noise they heard was the audience
' guying ' the production. Shiel Barry awoke next
morning to find himself famous the opera ran for
years somewhere it is running still. But the
strange thing is that owing to some copyright
bungle my life-long friend Planquette never drew
a penny fee. He used to reckon his loss on that
account at 20,000."
Sometimes the reminiscent will count Gaspards.
For myself, I recall Shiel Barry, John Howson, E. J.
Odell, who used to do Ophelia business with straw
in his hair, T. D. York, Younge, Joe Eldred, James
1-Vrnandc/, and the Gaiety veteran, E. W. Royce.
No story of Les Cloches de Cornevillc would be
complete that did not recall The Mummer's Wife.
George Moore has an amazing capacity for " swotting "
a subject he does not understand, and from " Jimmie "
Glover cleverly extracted the episodes and characters
for his once shocking story of theatrical life on tour.
Most of us can identify the caricatures. But a city
newspaper went too far when it penetrated to Glover
himself as the conductor who stole sandwiches from
a railway bar. (Mover began a libel action won it,
indeed but still whistles for the damages, when he
is disposed for music.
CHAPTER IV
THE REAL FLORENCE ST JOHN
An Ideal Nell Gwynn Early Music-hall Experiences Madame Favart's
Salary Maggie Greig with the Four Husbands
AT times Florence St John was possessed by the
spirit of mischief, and an ingenuous reporter was
to her the " worstest devil of all " in the way of
temptation. She would draw upon an active and
inexhaustible imagination for the wildest stories, and
if one struck her as particularly good she would
repeat it until she almost believed it herself.
There is, I suppose, no more vivid, fascinating,
probably faithful picture of Nell Gwynn than that
drawn by Anthony Hope in Simon Dale. There
she is, the genius of the stage, of a great heart and
folly immeasurable, frail, beautiful, benevolent in
all her aspects adorable. When Simon Dale was
adapted to the stage as English Nell Florence St
John, become a jolly comedienne in later life, played
Nell ; and Anthony Hope penned her an enthusiastic
letter of assurance that she had fulfilled his ideal.
No doubt he spoke the truth. It seemed as though
the stormy seasons of the actress had spent in a
St Martin's summer of peacefulness and new
celebrity, and then she died.
That Florence St John ever sang in the streets of
38
fOHN
ABOUT l8oo
EARLY MUSIC-HALL EXPERIENCES :w
London is untrue. But she did, as Florence Leslie,
sing operatic songs at the Oxford Music Hall, her
reward being four pounds a week. A companion in the
company, as Hubert Maurice singing, for instance,
a ballad called Never again thy Face to see, which
a manager unkindly whistled as he paid the artist
was the omnipotent agent of later days, Hugh Jay
Didcott, too poor to complete his evening dress with
white kid gloves, so Florence, as she left the stage,
would lend him hers to carry. Such impulsive tricks
of kindness filled her life. Once a pitiful corre-
spondent, casually selected from the large contingent
that addressed her daily, was invited to her flat, and
told a moving story of an indifferent husband.
"Jack" listened to her tale, and then broke in:
"You're a pretty thing; but too dowdy to engage
any man's affections. I'm going to fix your hair-
so, and so." A careful toilet was completed by the
gilt of a new hat snatched from a wardrobe. And
the rest of the tale shall not be told, for it reacted
badly on the impulsive actress - - to the infinite
amusement of her friends.
" Jack " was the pet name of Bohemian London,
but Margaret Greig Maggie for short was the ival
girl, the idol and despair of her Devonshire family,
of Scotch extraction. She offended her music-
master; and so her father, an accomplished amateur,
gave IKT himself such tuition as she had. Hut it is
recalled that whenever he summoned her to serious
work Maggie professed a passion for house-cleaning.
Indeed she never repressed this love of domesticity.
Once when si ic had devoted much time and trouble
40 THE REAL FLORENCE ST JOHN
to the composition of a Lancashire hot-pot, Phil May
being the guest of honour at this luncheon-party, she
was reduced to naught by a round-robin next day :
" The hot-pot was rotten ! " One of the participants
reminded me the other day that this verdict was
unanimous and just.
One day, driving through Oxford Street in her
carriage and pair, St John saw two urchins toiling
beneath a basket of laundry. She picked them up,
delivered their washing and took them home to
tea committed them to the care of her cook and,
forgetting their existence, set off some hours later
for the theatre. Finally the carriage was again
summoned to take the happy little rascals home ; and
the coachman rounded off the day by giving notice.
At fifteen Maggie Greig ran away from home to
marry a youngster in the navy, and became Mrs
Harford St John. The young people were both
discarded by their families, and played hide-and-seek
with starvation. The boy sickened of consumption
and died. His young wife had supported him by
singing, in the most humble circumstances, till
friends took pity and forgave. But the light-hearted
girl was soon herself again. At a concert got up to
supply a poor Catholic priest with an organ she met
an opera singer, Lithgow James, married him, and
took to the profession of the stage. The Greigs
were Scottish Presbyterians, but had Catholic con-
nections, and the Exeter clergy were constant
visitors at their cottage home. Many years later
Florence St John, espying Bishop Brindle, ran across
Oxford Street and, with a curtsy, cried : " Sure, youVe
MADAME FAVART'S SALARY 41
forgotten me, Father ! " With a mischievous gleam
in his eye the old man said : " Well, it might be
Maggie Greig with the four husbands." Such had
meantime been her liberal allowance.
During several seasons Florence St John toured
the provinces with one itinerant opera company and
another those directed by Durand, Blanche Cole
and Rose Hersee. She acquired a repertory of ample
proportions she sang, as one well-known maestro
called upon to pronounce upon her talent said, " as a
bird sings, needing nothing from me." St John was
not the first Germaine in Les Cloches de Cornerillc.
But I believe she was the first provincial Germaine,
and I think the company was under the direction of
my old friend, Charles Bernard. At any rate she was
so successful that she was brought to town to the
Folly Theatre at Easter, 1878.
St John's first original part was that of Madame
Favart just a year after her debut at the Strand.
Her salary was then seven pounds a week, and her
frugal husband insisted that one shilling and sixpence
was a sufficient daily expenditure on lunch. The
revolt of the high-spirited girl, eager to enjoy to the
full the new London life of Bohemia she drank its
cup to the dregs her meeting with Marius, and all
that followed can but be suggested here.
I n spite of her disastrous quarrel with Marius, he
was her obsession to the end ; and friends looked
forward confidently to their remarriage. Probably
George Edwardes, who hated all unpleasant things,
was never confronted with a task so unpleasant as
that of breaking the news of Marius's death.
42 THE REAL FLORENCE ST JOHN
A near relative of St John, talking of her the other
day, burst into sudden laughter as a picture came
before her eyes. Entering the drawing-room unan-
nounced, she found " Jack " in one arm-chair, a stage
notability, looking terribly self-conscious, in another,
both with their pedal extremities, as the reporters
say, immersed in foot-baths. St John, proud of a
recently discovered cure for troubled feet, had insisted
on its instant application, and took a bath herself, so
that her perplexed visitor should not feel singular.
She was the greatest singer and actress of my time
in opera bouffe, so sweet in her own personality
that her keenest rival would not seriously contest
her supremacy, daring in her mischievousness and
humour, yet so spontaneous and so natural that the
complete prude was completely paralysed ; prodigal
in her generosity and so ingenuous in her inquiry
as to the meaning of " R.D." on a cheque that a West
End bank manager's belief in guilelessness was
suddenly restored.
CHAPTER V
HIE AVENUE THEATRE AND ARTHUR ROBERTS
Statistics of London Theatres St John revives La Mascotte Lord
Alfred Paget, Fish Merchant The Coming of Arthur Roberts
Sri TON PARRY, a considerable speculator in the
theatre as real estate in the seventies and eighties,
built the Avenue. He was suspected of a shrewd
belief that it would immediately be absorbed in an
abortive improvement scheme. So there was a grim
humour in the situation when Charing Cross Station
flung itself upon the renamed Playhouse and nearly
crushed it. The mountain came to Mahomet with
a vengeance ! Parry published an apology for build-
inr the Avenue which is curious reading to-day.
He contrasted a list of the London theatres in 1852,
and a very slightly increased list of the London
tits in 1882 many of the names in each list
would be unknown to the modern reader in proof
that there was room for the Avenue. To-day no
man could do better with a million than build ten
theatres !
Florence St John and Marius were Parry's first
t< limits; Morton their manager. They opened with
art ; and in their company was Fred Leslie, not
long before Fred Hobson, plying a quill in the
city ; Henry Ashley too, who had suddenly changed
43
44 THE AVENUE THEATRE
from a heavy man into an unctuous comedian ; and
the much-photographed Maud Branscombe. Les
Manteaux Noirs, La Belle Lurette and a revival
of Barbe Bleue ensued. Then in the autumn of
1883 appeared on the scene Henderson and Farnie,
with that dyed old demi-rep, Lord Alfred Paget, for
their persistent patron. Lord Alfred Paget was an
enthusiastic yachtsman, with a passion for deep-
sea fishing, and from time to time, when he was
away on such expeditions, a reminder of him would
arrive at the theatre in the shape of a few hundred-
weight of fish, which it was Charles Alias's invidious
task to divide among the company, quality according
to importance.
But the most important event in the history of the
Avenue as a home of opera bouffe was the arrival
of Arthur Roberts, in the August of 1883, as Joe
Tarradiddle, in Offenbach's La Vie. Someone
challenged Arthur Roberts the other day with the
remark : " You can't be nearly seventy." Roberts
agreed heartily : " No ! I can't \ '* For he is an eager
competitor for public favour still after upwards of
half-a-century. His career touches what we call
" the lighter side " of the stage at every point of its
development as to morals and as to manners. For
himself, he is probably the most characteristic artist
of his time.
My first encounter with him was at Manchester
thirty years ago. He appeared at one of Garcia's
two music halls, the Gaiety arid the Folly, or at
both. Garcia was the typical manager of the day,
a Spanish Jew of curious antecedents, who frankly
ARTHUR ROBERTS ARRIVES 45
regarded a music hall as a place where people of a
certain kind expected to find entertainment of a
certain kind. The decoration of his ramshackle
houses was tawdry, their atmosphere laden with
drink and smoke and vile scent. Women marched
the promenade incessantly. Arthur Roberts sang :
" Oh, stand me a cab fare, duckie,
Oh, call me a hansom, dear.
Pray buy me a hot potato,
I feel so awfully queer !
Your eyes are so dreadfully wicked
No ! Kissing I couldn't allow ;
I might have done so three months ago,
But I'm living with mother now."
With bated breath they told you that the singer got
eighty pounds a week a tremendous salary in those
days. He would in equal circumstances command
five times that figure now.
Roberts had previously become famous as the
singer, at the Oxford Music Hall, of a song with the
refrain, "If I were only long enough a soldier I
would be," innocent enough. But the manager of
the eighties demanded what he called "spice" in his
ditties. Roberts gave way, with results which shall
be explained. I have seen it variously stated that
the artist was in early life clerk to a lawyer, a
money-lender and a banker. The explanation is
tli.it three such single gentlemen were often rolled
into one. Alternatively he sang at " penny readings,"
and was a candidate for the chairmanship of an old
London music hall, Deacons', long swept away by
Hosebery Avenue. Another comedian, destined to
46 THE AVENUE THEATRE
become famous too, got the job, and Roberts went
on comic singing, with such joyous irresponsibility
that the licensing authorities, with a premature
inflation of moral sentiment, suggested a term of
sequestration from the variety stage, and the artist
betook himself to the " regular " stage. The remon-
strance of the licensing authorities seemed to have
set free a genius. Roberts applied himself to opera
boujf'e, which was showing signs of decay. But the
actor made it the vogue again. His first conspicuous
success was in The Old Guard. It was followed by
many, during a term of years.
He had a rare knack of comic " make-up," a clear
staccato style of singing, a most expressive eye and
an incomparable eloquence of pantomime without
a word of introduction or explanation he would
suggest, for instance, that a woman looking in her
mirror noticed a little untidiness of coiffure.
Minutely he would dissect and elaborately recon-
struct the panoply of fashion. With such antics the
actor would engage his audience for the space of
minutes a marvel of observation, of mischievous-
ness, of supersimian mimicry. But greatest gift of
all was that of verbal improvisation. Farnie would
refrain from writing at intervals, merely enjoining
Roberts to keep the show going for thirty minutes
or so. Easily he did so I Such resource of humour,
such readiness of repartee, such charming insolence.
On to the Gaiety, where Mr George Edwardes found
him invaluable. And then to fresh woods. Musical
comedy owes more to Arthur Roberts even than
variety, or opera bouffe, or burlesque did. His
ARTHUR ROBERTS 47
Captain Coddington, in /;/ Town, turned the head
of London youth, which copied his coats, his cravats,
his hats. You can, I believe, still buy the Coddington
hat.
Also, it loved to read of his escapades, and emulate
them too ; for no appreciation of Arthur Roberts
would be complete that did not touch upon the
smart man about town, the dapper and skilful coach-
man, the inveterate practical joker. A club was
dedicated to the antics of the incorrigible farceur.
Again Roberts assisted in the development of
musical comedy, with Gentleman Joe, which differed
from all its predecessors and established, as a writer
of infinite charm and technical care, Basil Hood, a
young army captain. A divagation to the variety
stage, to gratify George Edwardes, is memorable.
Coloured reproductions of Jan Van Beers were the
vogue, as in the later instance of Kirchner. Roberts
made up as the viveur of the scarlet dress-coat,
came to the Empire in its old brave days and sang
Hl'ectively enough. To me the interest of the event
was its glorious apotheosis of my Manchester
comique.
CHAPTER VI
"JACK SHEPPARD"
Nellie Farren in Drama and Burlesque The Real Jack Sheppard
Predatory Playwrights Jonathan Wild takes the Receipts Mrs
Keeley's Jack John Hollingshead's Legacy
WHEN Weedon Grossmith died few of his biog-
raphers remarked that he was the last of a long line
of Jack Sheppards. He appeared in a new version
of the play, by Joseph Hatton, produced with a
careful regard for historical detail, in costume and
environment, and professing to have gone back to
original authorities, at the Pavilion Theatre, Mile
End, on 9th April 1898, sixty years almost exactly
after the first performance there of the first of many
plays filched from Ainsworth's novel. Hatton be-
lieved that he could claim superiority to catch-penny
criminology. Grossmith, who was a bit of a virtuoso,
believed he was the ideal representative of the
" immortal " house-breaker. But there reclame was
in vain. The scant notice of the play and its short
run were a bitter disappointment.
Not long ago I took tea with one of the earlier
Jack Sheppards a dear, white-haired old lady, in
black silk and rare lace, who told me how she had
begun her stage career ere she was ten, as Hamlet
and as Richard who narrowly escaped sailing with
G. V. Brooke on the ill-fated London, and who
48
1 I KM\1 ' I A' i.
Ahi i rill Ti;
KDFOKD
NELLIE FARREN 49
succeeded to the role of Jack Sheppard when she
succeeded Nellie Farren as the soubrette at the
Victoria, alternatively in affectionate description
" Queen Victoria's own Theayter " and " The Bleed-
ing Vic." Dear Mrs Frederick Wright! Mother
of the stage she loved, and adorned by her virtues as
greatly as by her art, throughout a long life, so soon
to come to a tragical and still mysterious end.
Nellie Farren, you see, played Jack an serieux many
years before her success as the dapper little rascal of
a Gaiety burlesque.
When Harrison Ainsworth, the young lawyer from
Manchester, came to town to rival Dickens in popu-
larity as a novelist, and in society as a curled and
gilded dandy, he wrote Jack Sheppard frankly for
the money it seemed likely according to the pre-
cedent of Roohvood, his Dick Turpin story to
bring in. When the storm of reprobation thundered
the novel, in fact, excluded him from the Athena?um
he faced it with the protest that in fact he had
meant to point a moral, and had adorned his tale
for the public good. It remains one of the best
sellers. And I own I am a grateful lover of Ains-
worth. How many a youth has he beckoned, with
fas< -mating finger, to the serious study of history I
Ainsworth," said one of his friends, " was certainly
a handsome man but it was very much the barber's
block kind of beauty; with wavy, scented hair,
smiling lips, and pink and white complexion. As a
yomi^ man lie was gorgeous in the uutrt dress of
the dandy of thirty-six, and in common with those
other famous dandies, d'Orsay, young Henjamin
50 "JACK SHEPPARD"
Disraeli and Tom Buncombe, wore multitudinous
waistcoats, over which dangled a long chain, number-
less rings, and a black satin stock. In old age he
was very patriarchal-looking. Up to the day of his
death he was always a well-dressed man, but in a
far more sober fashion than in his youth."
I am afraid the real Jack was a sordid little
scoundrel, ungrateful to a kind employer, drunken,
dissolute, incorrigibly dishonest ; but the incarnate
mockery of locks, bolts and bars ; in death an abject
coward. He was executed at Tyburn on 16th
November 1724. A month later he was the central
figure in a harlequinade at Drury Lane.
Ainsworth's novel began serial publication in
Bentleys Miscellany in January, 1839. But a few
issues had appeared when the first Pavilion play was
produced. In those days every outlying theatre
had its house author, a poor devil who, for a few
pounds a week, was called upon to dodge up perhaps
an equal number of plays, some of which, still handed
down from barnstormer to barnstormer, rtever got
beyond manuscript. When old Bennett, the wealthy
booth-theatre proprietor, died, he left thousands of
such plays.
Dickens, who fretted and fumed under the raids
of the predatory playwrights, shared the first place
with Ainsworth in their regard. Of course not a
penny was payable in royalties. But Ainsworth,
more philosophical than his friend there was a rift
in their friendship, by the way, when Jack ran ahead
of Oliver awhile in the bookselling business got a
fee out of Jack Sheppard. When he heard that
AM I lAKKI-oN AlNSWOR I II
1805-1882
JONATHAN WILD 51
poor, blind MoncriefF, who dramatised Tom and
J err if, and who nowadays would probably be
making thousands a year, was dramatising Jack
Sheppard, he called on the old man and good-
naturedly communicated the plan of the last few
still unpublished chapters. This play, one of eight
done during the year not forgetting Richardson's
show, with the inevitable ghost of Mrs Sheppard
appearing to her offspring in his cell was done at
the Surrey Theatre, with " Handsome John " Neville,
father of Henry Neville, as Jonathan Wild. Whether
spontaneously or by arrangement, Ainsworth ap-
proved this version of his novel in a letter of the
best soap, hair-dye, or tooth-paste testimonial style,
and the manager sent him a cheque for twenty
pounds !
I came across the curious case of a Jack Sheppard,
a Miss Vyvian, who had to tearfully apologise to
her audience that she was in such a state of nerves
she could not proceed with the play. The Jonathan
Wild, who was also the treasurer, had decamped
with the night's receipts a proceeding worthy of
the real Jonathan, who was probably the most crafty
and cruel wretch in the history of crime. He trained
thieves and skilfully directed their work. He kept
a huge warehouse, with a staff of clerks, a counting-
house and an intelligence department. He would
e fees from persons who had been robbed to
iiKjiiire into their enses, and sometimes, for a further
IK iii. restore property he pretended to have re-
nd. The residue he dealt with in the way of
eoinmeree. The authorities allowed him to assume
52 "JACK SHEPPARD"
official rank, by virtue of which he was able to de-
nounce any wretch who revolted against his rule-
he hanged them by the hundred. He swaggered
about town, and was a tremendous success with
women. When he was hanged himself, his shrieks
were o'ercrowed by the execrations of the mob.
Buckstone's version of Jack Sheppard, done at the
Adelphi in October, 1839, was the most remarkable
of all. In this Mrs Keeley, queening it so recently
as the supreme veteran of the stage she was ninety-
three when she died in 1899 played Jack for fifteen
pounds a week. She loved to talk of it to the end
of her days, declaring that it was the most exacting
part she ever played. Dickens loved her as Smike,
and Sergeant Ballantyne, an ardent lover of the
theatre, thought her wonderful in both characters.
She went to Newgate for atmosphere ; and got the
Adelphi stage carpenter to teach her how to plane
real chips from real wood. It was their delight to
keep sharpening her chisel, for the carving of her
name on the beam, as she sang :
" When Claude Duval was in Newgate thrown,
He carved his name on the dungeon stone.
Quoth a dubsman who gazed on the shattered wall,
' You've carved your epitaph, Claude Duval,
With your chisel so fine, tra la.' "
From Ainsworth's Rookwood was annexed Nix my
Dolly Pals, sung as a duet by Mrs Keeley and Paul
Bedford, the Blueskin. Mrs Nailer, the Moll
Maggott, and Miss Campbell, the Edgworth Bess,
joined in an ensuing dance.
" Nix my Dolly Pals" writes Sir Theodore Martin,
MRS KEELEY'S JACK 53
" travelled everywhere, and made the patter of thieves
and burglars familiar in our mouths as household
words. It deafened us in the streets, where it was
as popular with the organ-grinders and German
bands as Sullivan's brightest melodies ever were in
a later day. It clanged at midday from the steeple
of St Giles Cathedral in Edinburgh a fact; that
such a subject for cathedral chimes, and in Scotland
too, could ever have been chosen will scarcely be
believed. But my astonished ears often heard it.
It was whistled by every dirty guttersnipe and
chanted in drawing-rooms by fair lips, little knowing
the meaning of the words they sang."
Blueskin's song, Jolly Nose, was a free adaptation
of a French ballad Beau A T ez, to be found in Olivier
Basselin's Vaux de Vise.
Jack Slieppard was again and again revived at the
1 1 ay market in 1852, with Mrs Keeley as Jack and
O. Smith as Jonathan Wild. At Sadler's Wells in
1855 Mrs Honner played Jack in the first and
>nd acts, her husband did so in the third and
fourth. At the Surrey in 1858 Paul Bedford
resumed his old character of Blueskin, " supporting "
Mrs Billington.
Thru it suddenly occurred to the Lord Chamber-
lain that Jack Shcppard was a most immoral play.
Came in 1859 his belated ban though he permitted
an odd performance, drastically edited, as noted in an
apology on the programme, at the Adelphi in 1873.
For years .lack was a theatrical outlaw. But he
crept back. In the early days A ins worth's novel
hud been adapted by two French playwrights as
54 "JACK SHEPPARD"
Chevaliers du Brouillard. What more simple than
Mr Frederick Boyle to readapt this, as Old London,
in which Miss Henrietta Hodson, who became Mrs
Henry Labouchere, figured as Jack Wastrell !
And here my story jumps to the Gaiety in 1885.
Jack Sheppard, in the form of a burlesque, was
Hollingshead's last personal contribution to the
Gaiety. Before its production, on 26th December
of that year, after a then unusual trial trip to the
provinces, he had entered into partnership with
George Edwardes. They soon quarrelled, and in
1886 separated. Hollingshead's last identification
with the theatre was at a banquet of welcome to
Henry Dixey, who brought over a popular American
burlesque, Adonis, which did not prove so popular
here, and which moved Irving to mischievous anger
by an insolent caricature of him. He got it
suppressed by authority, and cut Dixey.
Meanwhile the Gaiety quartet had gone to pieces,
Nellie Farren being its notable remnant.
What a Jack she made none the worse for her
dramatic experience of the part. Little Jack SJieppard
registered one hundred and fifty-five performances.
It was written by two clever, hopeless Bohemians
who never did any particular good for themselves
" Cricketer Bill " Yardley, the first to score a hundred
in a university match, a failure at the Bar, a desultory
journalist, a dramatist of some skill, a great, lovable,
indolent fellow ; and " Pot " Stephens, who was
esteemed on The Telegraph because he could write
about social functions like a gentleman, and did not
get tangled among the titles. His claim to fame was
JOHN HOLLINGSHEAD'S LEGACY 55
that he wrote the book of an all-English comic opera,
for which the much-married " Teddie " Solomon
provided the music, liillce Taylor.
Little Jack Shcppard was finely cast. David James
returned to his old love to play Blueskin and sing
Sot (if i // li(iy. Odell, who left the stage so long ago to
become the Ancient Mariner of the Strand, was the
Sir Roland, dear old Harriett Coveney was the Mrs
Wood, handsome Marion Hood (ne Isaacs) was the
Winifred, Tillie Wadman, from the Avenue, the
Thames Darrell, Sylvia Grey the Polly Stanmore,
and the Jonathan Wild Fred Leslie, a young city
clerk, Hobson by name, who had already made a
hit as Hip Van Winkle, but who certainly found his
metier in Gaiety burlesque, and followed it success-
fully till his premature death in 1892. He was but
thirty-seven.
When, in 1894, Little Jack Sheppard was revived
at the Gaiety, Seymour Hicks made his first appear-
ance there as Jonathan Wild.
I suppose that Jack is dead and buried now.
Which reminds me that his sepulchre was not in the
church of St Martin's-in-the-Fields, as the guide-
books say, but in the graveyard of the neighbouring
workhouse, where his remains were found when
the coffins were removed for the extension of the
National Gallery in I860. Ainsworth for domestic
effect buried him in the village cemetery, where
a smug sexton used to sell chips purporting to be
taken from the cross on his grave.
CHAPTER VII
THE GAIETY QUARTET
" We are a merry family ! We are ! We are ! ! We are ! ! ! " The Sole
Survivor Edward Royce, eighty not out ! The Early Gaiety A
Story of H. J. Byron The Beginning of the Quartet and its End
BEFORE me stands a picture of the famous Gaiety
quartet. It is inscribed : " We are a merry family !
We are ! We are ! ! We are ! ! ! " and it is auto-
graphed : " Edward Terry, Edward Royce, Nellie
Farren, Kate Vaughan." Three of them are doing
their danse macabre in the shades. But the fourth,
" Teddie " Royce, not long since gave me a friendly
call on his return to town after three months' arduous
work in the provinces as Gaspard in Lcs Cloches de
Corneville, and professed the utmost eagerness to
get to work again. A few seasons ago he delighted
old friends and new with a " creation " in a Drury
Lane drama as fine in its cameo clearness as the most
distinguished in the play Old Alf the " fence " in
Flying Colours.
When Royce reminded me that it was upwards
of forty years since he joined the Gaiety company,
prqmoted from one of its touring organisations,
I rubbed my eyes and gazed upon the cheery, inde-
fatigable old man in wonder. Moreover, he was
already an experienced actor when he attracted the
56
I ii i GAIKI
THE EARLY GAIETY 57
notice of the alert John Hollingshead. He had
toured the provinces with John Coleman, maker
of sonorous sentences ; and with Captain Disney
Roebuck, the military amateur actor who opened
up South Africa as a field, eventually enormous, for
theatrical enterprise. He was with that delightful
creature Marie Litton at the St James's.
But Royce was not the doyen of the quartet.
That distinction belonged to Nellie Farren, who had
been trained in the rough school of the Victoria
not under Cave, as one constantly reads, but under his
predecessors, Frampton and Fenton. She made her
first appearance, on 28th March 1864, as Ninetta in
a drama entitled The Woman hi Red. But in a few
months she moved on to the Olympic, under Horace
\Vigan. That is her true Alma Mater; and thence
Hollingshead persuaded her. Kate Vaughan, too,
was already at the Gaiety, but in quite an unim-
portant position. Terry was the last-comer of the
four, seduced from the Swanboroughs at the Strand.
The fact is that Hollingshead had at the outset no
idea of lighting a sacred lamp to burlesque, or to
anything else, at the Gaiety, which he regarded
simply as a theatrical shop where he was prepared to
offer any ware for which there should be a demand.
He composed triple bills of farce, comedy, little
dramas and burlesques that played barely an hour.
The famous quartet was first exploited as such in
tlu- autumn of 1S7<J in Byron's Little Don C(f\ar dc
in. a burlesque in the main of Muntaiid. The
quartet endured some seven years, and was probably
at its best in Byron's burlesque of The /'"//// '/'///,
58 THE GAIETY QUARTET
Mr Royce saw much of that charming, casual, imper-
turbable author, who detested the labour of rehearsal
and was always absent when he was wanted. The
indefatigable autocrat of the Gaiety was its musical
director, Meyer Lutz. While rehearsals of Don
Ccesar were in progress an important situation baffled
everybody. Royce sought Byron in the Wellington
bar and found him. AVriting as he talked, the
dramatist said : " End your dance by disappearing
through a ' vampire,' return through a ' star' trap
don't tell me you can't do it for I saw you in a
Dublin pantomime and say these lines :
" I've cut sly passages and secret doors,
Panels that slide, and traps let in the floors,
So that my movements are eccentric very :
One moment deep below myself I bury,
But ere you say I'm there with words emphatic
I'm that erratic
I'm in that there attic."
Hollingshead was the first manager of his importance
who appreciated the music hall as a recruiting ground
for talent, and in time found that his visits to the
variety theatres were unwelcome to their proprietors.
He stole any artist that he fancied Constance
Loseby, who had been a popular turn as a factor of
Constance and Losebini (mother and daughter) ;
Little Jack Dallas, who ran the gamut in his time
from the " waxies " or street minstrels through the
circus to Shakespeare ; Rose Fox, a wonderful dancer
whom he found in a Shoreditch gaff and who became
the mother of the meteoric Maudie Darrell ; Phyllis
Broughton, an elev e of the Canterbury ballet ; Connie
BEGINNING OF THE QUARTET 59
Gilchrist, a present peeress but of the most humble
birth ; the notorious " Lardie " Wilson, D'Auban
and \Varde ; Kate Vaughan, a Grecian Saloon and
Cremorne Gardens favourite, in a black dance, and
Jennie Hill, who failed egregiously when he tried to
transplant her from her native heath.
Also, he seized any useful material the comic
songs of the day decorated many a Gaiety burlesque,
and Zazel's aerial flight was cleverly caricatured.
In old age Hollingshead became the chairman of
a series of music halls, but his admiration for the
genius of variety was tempered by a clear sight of
its vulgarity and his criticisms of its manners and
methods were enjoyably characteristic.
Almost certainly the quartet was not a creature
of Hollingshead's imagination. It accumulated
accidentally, just as the first three-decker burlesque
was a concession to what he conceived to be the
popular demand of the moment. In fact this form
of entertainment was short-lived and eventually
"scrapped" by George Edwardes in favour of
musical comedy. Half the people who babble about
the old burlesques would be bored stiff if they were
invited to sit one through. Much of their old-time
success was due to the fact that they were seriously
interpreted by trained actors. That is how Gilbert
got the complete effect of his old humour.
I do not suppose that Hollingshead ever contem-
plated the establishment of a school of burlesque.
The Gaiety was a commercial enterprise undertaken
h\ ;i man with rather more taste and catholicity than
other managers of his day had. He was opinionated.
60 THE GAIETY QUARTET
wrong-headed, ruggedly honest. Royce agreed with
many whom I have met that you were only liable
to regret a contract with Hollingshead when you
accepted his scornful offer of "a bit of paper if
you like." His word was best, and on that Royce
travelled steadily from fourteen pounds a week to
forty.
Burlesque forms numerically a very small portion
of the Gaiety record, swollen by intercalary seasons
of Shakespeare, by many French productions, by
innumerable eccentric matinees. Probably no stock
season or repertory season could compare with
Hollingshead's quarter of a century here.
Terry, frugal and cautious, saw the crumbling of
Hollingshead's power : the old man cherished this
as a grievance to the end of his day not very
bitterly, for that was not his disposition. Terry
had always had the privilege of leaving the Gaiety
at certain seasons and touring its attractions for his
own benefit. He strengthened his association with
a promising young dramatist of that day, Arthur
Pinero, and went his way through the Olympic with
TJie Rocket and In Chancery, to Terry's Theatre
with Sweet Lavender and The Times.
Royce broke down badly in health. He owns
that the social life of the Gaiety was strenuous, too.
During twelve months half his salary was regularly
remitted to him the fact that he was able eventually
to repay the money does not diminish his appreciation
of the generous character of his old chief. Years of
Australian life were needed to restore the invalid-
sped on his way by a benefit of proud dimensions,
END OF THE QUARTET 61
for your true client of the Gaiety is of an unequalled
loyalty. Kate Vaughan had aspirations to high
comedy and indeed they were fulfilled. So the
quartet dissolved, leaving to the Gaiety but the
priceless remnant of Nellie Farren.
CHAPTER VIII
" DOROTHY "
A Failure at first Its Curious Origin Saved by a Song A Bargain
Sale, and a Fortune Arthur Williams The Downfall of Jack
Leslie
FULFILLING a concert engagement lately, Mr Charles
Hayden Coffin was insistently called upon to sing
Queen of my Heart. This is a constant experience.
It seems the song will never die, although it came
into existence almost by accident. During the
phenomenally successful career of Dorothy Mr Coffin
sang Queen of my Heart very few short of a thousand
times indeed to the best of his recollection he was
never absent from a single performance.
Dorothy was produced at the Gaiety on 25th Sep-
tember 1886. It was apparently a failure ! Queen
of my Heart does not figure in the original score,
but the outstanding success was the performance of
the then little-known baritone, and the critics
clamoured for more work to be allotted to him.
Alfred Cellier, the composer of the opera, was in
Australia. His brother and legal representative,
Frank Cellier, strenuously refused to allow the work
of any other composer to be introduced. In these
circumstances an expeditionary party set off to
Chappell's, the music publishing house, and ransacked
62
ITS CURIOUS ORIGIN 63
the shelves for some earlier suitable work of Cellier's.
Queen of my Heart was found hidden away as
Dreams, a long- forgotten favourite in the enter-
tainments of the "Mohawk Minstrels." B. C.
Stephenson, the author of Dorothy, laid the printed
copy on the top of the piano and quickly, in red ink,
rewrote the ballad which we all know so well. It
was not introduced until a fortnight after the pro-
duction, but it was an instant success, and probably
achieved the largest sale ever known of a drawing-
room ballad.
In the meantime George Edwardes, thoroughly
disgusted with Dorothy, made, what he thought, a
fine deal with H. J. Leslie, a city accountant; he
sold the production, lock, stock and barrel, for 1000.
Leslie moved on to the Prince of Wales's Theatre,
and is understood to have made a fortune approxi-
mating 100,000. The opera had already had a
strange eventful history. Cellier, a fine musician,
was for a long time located in Manchester, where
many of his earlier compositions were produced.
The score of Dorothy is mainly that of a play called
Old London, for which H. B. Farnie provided the
book. It was not a success. Farnie took his book
elsewhere, and with the collaboration of IMaiujuette
produced Nell Gwynn, which proved just as popular
as its predecessor had proved unpopular. Cellier
met B. C. Stephenson, who had a libretto drawn
from other sources, but owing a very great deal to
a very old Kn^lish comedy, The Stjuircs Dtiu^/itcr.
So Dorothy came into existence. Stephenson was
a brilliant and e i ratic creature, one of the best-known
64 " DOROTHY '
men about town in his day, tall, handsome, well
groomed, of a whimsical character and many
adventures. He had been in the Diplomatic service,
the manager of a Continental railway and of a bank ;
but he was an incorrigible Bohemian and London
life attracted him most. I think one of his last
dramatic works was a reconstruction of an old Vokes
farce, as On the March, for Cissie Graham. I re-
member a cheery party of us travelled to Sheffield
for its production. Stephenson, whose attendance
was quite indispensable, mischievously proposed to
me that we should leave the theatre and catch the
mail train back to London, leaving everybody
wondering as to what had become of us ! He was,
with Clement Scott, one of the adapters of Sardou's
Dora as Diplomcuy. I suppose that during his career
he turned out not fewer than a hundred dramatic works
of all kinds operas, melodramas, farces, comedies.
He had a curious facility for transforming flats and
chambers into artistic and characteristic abodes of
which he usually disposed with ease.
In the original cast of Dorothy were Marion
Hood, who played the part of the heroine ; Florence
Dysart the Lydia Hawthorne ; Florence Lambert
the Phyllis Tuppett; Mrs Harriet Coveney, a
wonderful old comedy actress from the East End, the
Mrs Privett ; Miss Florence Beare the Lady Betty ;
Mr Redfern Hollins the Geoffrey Wilder ; Mr Coffin
the Harry Sherwood ; Mr Furneau Cook the Squire
Bantam ; Mr Ernest Griffen the John Tuppett ;
Arthur Williams the Lurcher ; and Mr John le Hay
the Tom Strut.
ARTHUR WILLIAMS 65
There are absent several names that will at once
occur to the casually reminiscent, for in the course of
time Redfern Hollins was succeeded by Ben Davies,
now a most distinguished tenor in oratorio but
Mr Davies played his part in Dorotftif hundreds and
hundreds of times. And then there was Marie
Tempest only a few years previously she was, as
Marie Ethrington, a prize pupil at the Royal
Academy, hoping for a career on the concert plat-
form. Probably she became the most famous prima
donna of the operatic stage, in succession to St John.
With rare tact and perennial youth she quietly re-
tired, to become one of our most fascinating comedy
actresses. Indeed with the notable exception of
Mr Coffin the cast was changed and changed and
changed !
There was, for instance, beautiful Grace Huntley,
one of the most shapely and attractive principal boys,
who for some reason accepted a very small part in
Dttrothij* but during its run played every female
character. And again there was a promising young
actress, Miss Carr Shaw, who is a sister of the humorist
and playwright of to-day ; and there was Jennie
McNully, a beautiful American girl, of no remark-
able talent, who had a brief meteoric career on the
London stage.
Arthur Williams, that rich and rare comedian, had
known every vicissitude of the life of the actor. He
was a pupil of the curious little theatre at King's
Cross, now, I believe, a Methodist conventicle. Here
the ambitious youth of the day paid, with as few
shillings as he could, for the privilege of acting on
66 "DOROTHY 5
Saturday nights. It was 2s. 6d. for Rosencrantz,
5s. for Horatio, 1 for Hamlet, and so on. Williams
strutted and starved for many years, until he became
one of the most popular comedians in London. He
was deeply versed in dramatic literature, and could
recite long speeches from our finest comedies, but
Fate decreed, to his deep resentment, that he should
play in pantomime and burlesque, although play-
goers who remember his Tramp in the Message from
Mars know what charm and pathos he really had.
Withal he was an impudent improvisatore. The part
of Lurcher in Dorothy originally contained but few
lines, but night after night Williams mischievously
added a little, until it grew to quite an extraordinary
length. But he fought for his end, and neither author
nor high-souled musician could stop him when he
got well going. Stephenson especially resented the
modern touch which Williams gave to his lines.
" Instalment, instalment ! " said the actor one day.
"Do you take me for a sewing machine?" Then
seeing the author glaring from the wings he quickly
added " forsooth ! "
The saddest memory in regard to Dorothy is that
of Henry J. Leslie. He was a city accountant whose
business fell in the way of theatrical and music-
publishing enterprises ; he was an exceptionally fine
organist, and composed some admirable music. He
snatched at the chance of buying Dorothy and became
extraordinarily rich. The secret of his downfall
cannot here be told, although it will come back to
many old stagers. With part of the money he made
he built the Lyric Theatre, at the time looked upon
DOWNFALL OF JACK LESLIE 67
as the most beautiful house in London. It is a curious
fact that many of the business details of this con-
cern are to this very day involved. Leslie produced
several more operas there, but without particular
success. He lost his fortune, disappeared to New
York, and, it is even said, had to beg his bread in
the streets. By some means he got home to
London, penniless, stricken by blindness, and soon
he died.
CHAPTER IX
" THE BELLE OF NEW YORK *
A Failure in New York How Edna May was found An Old-time
- Manager The Invasion of the American Chorus Record of the
Belle Her Huge Fortune
NOT so long since across the luncheon-table at the
Savoy one saw a sombrely draped girlish figure a
Dresden shepherdess in widow's weeds. It was The
Belle of New York of twenty years ago, become the
heiress of a millionaire. I suppose that if one could
add sentiment to statistics it would be hard to judge
the winner, in popularity, between the The Belle of
New York and Les Cloches de Corneville. Years, of
course, give the latter the advantage. Both, in the first
instance, failed to be worked up to success by in-
domitable management. Neither has been inactive
since its introduction to London. Each owed to
accident a notable feature of its triumph in the case
of Les Cloches the tensely tragical Gaspard of Shiel
Barry ; in the case of The Belle of New York the
virginal purity in voice, in style, in changeless bearing,
of Edna May.
Charles McLellan, the writer, as Hugh Morton, of
The Belle of New York, is dead. His musical partner,
Gus Kerker, still flourishes. McLellan developed
a passion for writing problem plays, of which one,
68
NEW YORK CASINO 69
Leah Kleschna, probably made him a fortune too.
Another, Ttie Strong Men, was a desperate disappoint-
ment to him.
He was a sickly lad, and the brilliant college career
that seemed the threshold of professional life led him,
instead, an invalid to the mountains. He took to
writing for a pastime, and became a contributor of social
satires and short stories to a well-known New York
journal of the smart style, Town Topics ; eventually
its editor. He developed a facility, too, as a writer of
bright books for music.
There is a second McLellan, George, now an
important London manager, then in partnership with
George Lederer as director of the New York Casino
nearly corresponding in style and conduct to our
earlier Gaiety. The Casino had had a succession of
failures and in the autumn of 1897 seemed to be in
a bad way. Desperate for an attraction, George
McLellan turned to his brother, who diffidently pro-
duced The Belle of New York. To this there were
two objections. It had been "turned down" here
and there and everywhere on account of the Salvation
Army scenes, in regard to which the author was
obstinate. In spite of this, another firm of manage-
ment enforced a dog-in-the-manger-like priority of
ownership.
Tliis was overcome, and The Belle of New York
was put into rehearsal. The casting of the play was
managed easily, from the resources of the Casino,
with a single exception. It seemed hopeless to find a
suitable representative of the Salvation girl, and the
rehearsals proceeded from day to day with a page- hoy
70 "THE BELLE OF NEW YORK"
reading the part from the manuscript, till he got
terribly on the nerves of the anxious author.
To McLellan at this juncture entered a chorus
girl. She had a friend, another chorus girl, with
Hammerstein, for whom she wanted to procure an
engagement. Her plea was heard, and a Miss Edna
Pettie presented herself, so demure, so plainly clad,
not to say so shabby, that she seemed quite unsym-
pathetic to the atmosphere of the theatre. But she
was engaged. More, as an alternative to the irritating
page-boy, she was handed the manuscript to read, and
the rehearsals proceeded to the eve of production.
Then someone had a brain-wave. She was definitely
engaged, and her ugly name was changed to Edna
May.
Remains to be told that the first night was a
sensational triumph? Not so. The audience was
not deeply impressed. Worse still ; the critic of Tlie
New York Herald had chosen to imagine himself
deeply affronted at the Casino, and lay in waiting.
His notice next day was in a few ill-chosen words,
and the headlines ran :
LEGS, LINGERIE & VULGARITY
ANOTHER CASINO PRODUCTION
Business languished. McLellan found a little
encouragement from Charles Frohman, who dropped
into the theatre quite casually and liked the play
so much that he promised to recommend it to his
friend George Edwardes, who might transport it to
London. Edwardes' responding cable was prompt :
GEORGE HODSON 71
" I will have nothing to do with an American
musical play." The end seemed in sight.
McLellan and Lederer had had communications
with another London manager, George Musgrove, in
regard to the exploitation of a theatre site and now
to him resorted. Musgrove, since dead, was a queer
creature, self-opinionated and rough-spoken. Prob-
ably he made a quarter of a million of money out of
The Belle of New York. He died poor. But, as
the old novelists said, I anticipate. Musgrove was
a London man, meant for a solicitor ; but he married
into a theatrical family, the Hodsons. Its founder
was that George Hodson famous as an Irish comedian
when the phrase had an exac f meaning in the theatre.
Mostly the costume adopted was a swallow-tailed coat
of green, a red waistcoat, cord breeches, worsted
stockings, brogues and a caubeen. The artist
carried a bundle and a shillelagh ; he danced and
sang between the acts ! Hodson managed that
curious little theatre over Westminster Bridge,
nursery of celebrities, including the "Great Little
Robson," actually the Bower Saloon, familiarly the
"Sower Baloon." Miss Henrietta Hodson and Miss
Kate Hodson were his daughters. Another branch
of the family made for Australia, with it George
Musgrove, who became a theatrical manager and
returned to England confident that he could reform
its stage according to Australian methods. Poor
chap ! It was " the Belle, et prctcrin ///////."
At the time of McLcllnifs cable to Musgrove he
had control of the Shaftesbury Theatre', generally
regarded as an unfortunate house. It had been
cheaply run up for C'J(),()()() by a Lancashire
72 "THE BELLE OF NEW YORK"
merchant, John Lancaster, for the exploitation of his
wife, Miss Ellen Wallis, as a Shakespearean actress.
Old playgoers will remember that on the first night
the iron curtain refused to go up on As You Like It,
and the audience sadly dispersed through the dank
passages. McLellan and Lederer feared the theatre,
but accepted it. Musgrove suspiciously declined the
play till he had seen it, and crossed to New York.
In his surly way he agreed to it, but laughed at the
American salaries of the artists.
Let him talk to them ! He did, and Dan Daly,
the Mr Bronson, the actual star, in receipt of the
American equivalent of one hundred pounds a week,
was first approached. He was a hot-tempered, foul-
mouthed man.
"Call it fifty pounds a week, Mr Daly," said
Musgrove.
" Go to hell, Mr Musgrove," said Daly, and walked
out of the room.
Negotiations conducted in this spirit proved diffi-
cile ; but in the course of time the original company
was contracted for London, with one exception.
The part of the polite lunatic was " created " by
Mr Dave Warfield, a Jewish actor whom George
Edwardes once described as "the greatest artist he
had ever seen." America shares this view. London
has lacked opportunity. Warfield in the meanwhile
acquired a piece called The Music Master, with a
part so fitting him that he has done little else. In
London the polite lunatic was "Jimmie" Sullivan.
Constant repetitions of the character tended to hurt
him ; but he is here again, effectively playing in
HER HUGE FORTUNE 73
Uncle Sam. Two clever young people in the
company, Harry Davenport and Phyllis Rankin,
returned to America to marry, and became popular
" duologue " performers on the variety stage. Frank
Lawton, the whistling "tough," stayed here to
cultivate the variety stage, and whistled himself into
fatal consumption.
To the eve of sailing trouble pursued The Belle of
\ ( a York. The cash guaranteed from the English
side for the fares of the vast company was not forth-
coming till the last minute. But at length "the
goods " were delivered on the Shaftesbury stage.
\Vhat a first night ! Every song, every dance, every
joke got home. Nothing proved so popular as the
American chorus, with its wonderful vivacity, its
individual interest never slackening. It sounded the
death knell of the lympathic show lady.
There were placed to the credit of The Belle of
New York at the Shaftesbury Theatre six hundred
and ninety-seven performances. The run might
easily have been doubled, but Musgrove in a fit of
temper took advantage of a technical flaw and
put up the notice. The American parties accepted
it without discussion and silently sailed away. In
tin lli, they knew that a richer harvest still awaited
them in America, where the once despised and
rejected Belle has meanwhile become an institution
too. The gross profits on the Shaftesbury season
were upwards of 100,000. Incidentally, JM iss M
salary was at the outset eight pounds a week, and
lit so have continued according to contract, but
of course it did not.
74 "THE BELLE OF NEW YORK"
But the strangest story of all attaches to the
provincial rights. A scratch production at Margate,
an uncomfortable hotel, a bad dinner and an un-
appreciative audience, impressed McLellan and
Lederer with an intense desire to be delivered, as
you may say, from " Hull, Hell and Halifax." They
snapped at an offer of 2000 for their interest.
At an eventual stocktaking it proved that the
provincial rights had yielded the Musgrove estate
87,000. And The Belle of New York is still a
valuable property on each side of the Atlantic.
CHAPTER X
DELIRIOUS DANCERS
The Can-can Clodoche in London An Incident of Genevime de
Brabant Legmania The Majiltons and the Girards The Yokes
Family Pantomime Amenities
WHEN in 1871 Morton gave up his mosaic pro-
gramme of excerpts from operas, farces and " singing
between " at the Philharmonic, and did somewhat to
redeem it from the affectionate description of its
patrons, the " Dustbin," he felt that even the charm
of Genevieve de Brabant needed a spice, so he inter-
polated dances by "Mdlle." Sara, an ingrained Cockney,
the toast of the young fellows as " Wiry Sal." And
on Boxing Night he superadded the genuine Clodoche.
Clodoche had indeed visited London some five
years previously. He and his partners were intro-
duced to a melodrama by Watts Phillips called The
Huguenot Captain, at the Princess's Theatre, in the
sunimer of 1866. It ran some months, and soon the
can-can was the rage of London. Its most remark-
able exponents were Finette, Colonna (Colonnabein^,
I believe, an English girl, from whose troupe, in fact,
evolved Wiry Sal ") and "the celebrated" Esther
Austin. The Payne family, one of whom became
the la i nous clown, also danced the can-can* which was
destined to lose the Alhambra its licence, and to
involve F. ('. Phillips, then, as Francis Fairlie, a
75
76 DELIRIOUS DANCERS
theatrical manager, and his colleagues at the St James's
Theatre in a most unpleasant lawsuit though it
was allowed its fling elsewhere, and patronised by
the Royal Family.
At Christmas, 1867, E. T. Smith produced a
pantomime at the Lyceum, Cock Robin, by W. S.
Gilbert. Its outstanding success was the can-can,
danced by Finette. Said The Mask : " Everybody
has heard of the can-can if they have not seen it.
All the crowned heads of Europe went to see it at
the Varie'tie's last year, when danced by Schneider in
La Grrande Duchesse. The management of Covent
Garden were frightened to produce it in the English
version, and thereby destroyed the effect of one of
the principal scenes. E. T. Smith has engaged
Finette, who dances the can-can with a spirit and
vigour we have never seen equalled. The restraint
imposed by her upon herself does not deteriorate
from the wonderful excitement of the dance, but
rather adds a charm to its execution, and shows that
it is performed by one of the most able of its professors.
Finette is undoubtedly the greatest draw of the
Lyceum pantomime." Finette proceeded to the
Alhambra, where, in April, 1868, she appeared in a
ballet called Mabille in London. It was not until
1871, on Colonna, that the wrath of authority out-
burst. And Colonna quite complacently proceeded
on a provincial tour, with many competitors.
Hollingshead must needs plunge into the fray. To
a Gaiety burlesque, Recce's Ali Baba, I think, he
introduced the music-hall artists, Mr Ryley and Miss
Barnum, known as the " Dancing Quakers," whom
CLODOCHE IN LONDON 77
outraged propriety quickly commended to the Lord
Chamberlain. Hollingshead was induced to modify
the offence to the Society of Friends, but the dance,
the can-can pure and simple, was allowed to remain.
Clodoche was a wood-carver, and when eventually
he settled in London for a term he furnished his
Chelsea home with the substantial kitchen furniture
of the time, which he transformed, with his carving
tools, into "rare and curious specimens/' Dancing
was, at the outset, his recreation. With companions
he used to frequent the opera balls in Paris, where
they disported "such a way" that others stood by
and admired, till a troupe was formed and became
professional.
Clodoche probably exaggerated the dance, in the
first instance, from the revolutionary Carmagnole.
His original troupe was made up of men only ; in its
last years there were two women members. In the
meanwhile there had sprung up " legmaniacs " enough
to fill an asylum. A troupe of legmaniacs was an
indispensable factor of every music-hall programme,
and a familiar interpolation to burlesque, farce and
pantomime, until so recently that you can link it
with still current entertainment. Tom \\ r ootwell,
the Bert of Ttic Better 'Ofe, is one of the ori-
ginal (.inirds, or nearly. Mr A. J. Majilton,
the Cochran nniitre de dansc, is a member of that
famous family. One of the Phoites is now a well-
known poster artist; another is devoted to the
commercial aspect of the stage. The Vokes family
has disappeared from the face of the earth pro-
fessionally. Premature death is not the uncommon
78 DELIRIOUS DANCERS
lot of the infant prodigy, though there are some
remarkable instances to the contrary. What has
become of the Wises, deponent sayeth not. The
Kiralfys, who first appeared here Imre, Bolossy
and Sister Anita as eccentric dancers at the Oxford
Music Hall, were quite recently prominent persons
in the world of pleasure- making. Fred Vokes, who
had been Phelps's call-boy, took his few lessons in
dancing from Flexmore the clown, an immediate
successor of Grimaldi. Flexmore in turn handed
over his suit of motley to Harry Payne. The Vokes
family, consisting of Fred, Victoria, Jessie and
Rosina, with the eventual addition of an employee
not related, were for years the mainstay of Drury
Lane pantomime in Chatterton's day.
The Vokeses were the children of a theatrical
costumier, and each took to the stage in turn to play
the parts traditionally allotted to children. Their
play at home inspired their combination as a " family,"
and their little comedies never lost that charm of
spontaneity and childish improvisation. The Belles
of the Kitchen was probably their best play.
Chatterton's smash at Drury Lane came in the
early days of 1879. Harris made his serious
beginning with a Bluebeard, 1879-1880. Harris
declared to me that he " dreaded the tyranny of the
Vokeses," and his first season was their last. One
day his stage manager came to him with " a young
fellow who declared that he could do with both legs
what Fred Vokes could only do with one," for Vokes,
like other dancers, cleverly concealed the less efficient
of his legs. The youngster was Fred Storey, a
THE YOKES FAMILY 79
brilliant, erratic mime, who lately saw his daughter
marry into the peerage and then died.
Chatterton took the Vokeses less Rosina, the
smartest of them all, who long " starred " in America
on her own account to Covent Garden. Twice in
history it proved that a rather vicious attempt to
compete with Harris came to grief the second was
the memorable fiasco at Her Majesty's, when Charles
Harris set out to become a great leviathan, with the
costliest and least charming Cinderella ever known.
A glance at the programmes of 1880 is interesting.
The Vokeses, with the Lauris superadded, were
Chatterton's mainstay in Valentine and Orson, written
by Burnand. Harris's principal boy in Mother Goose
was Kate Santley ; his principal comedian, as Dr
Syntax, Arthur Roberts. Blanches, D'Aubans.
Cootes are scattered through the cast, as it might be
to-day, and a Girard Julien to wit.
I suppose the one man who gave Harris furiously
to think was Oscar Barrett, whose Blue Ballet at the
vanished Olympic contained more shades than in
the sky there are; and whose Lyceum Cinder did
established Ellaline Terriss unforgettable for me,
for it seemed but a few Sundays since Terriss had
said : * Finish your cigar and come into the drawing-
room. I want you to see my baby dance." And she
has changed so little 1
CHAPTER XI
" MARIA MARTEN " AND " SWEENEY TODD "
The Demon Barber of Fleet Street No sich Person ! A Mediaeval
Sweeney The Murder in the Red Barn Forestalling the Cinema
Record Sale of a " Dying " Speech.
"MARIA MARTEN" has lately resumed her ghostly
walk round the provinces, and two managers promise
the revival of Sweeney Todd. If the Codlins should
desire to enter into competition with the Shorts,
they will find material to select from in a plenty ;
for a huge library of dramatic literature founded on
sordid crime accumulated in the early part of the
last century, not to mention those earlier classics,
Arden of Faversham, which still adorns the repertory
of Clunn Lewis's puppet show, and George Barnwcll.
When I was a young Londoner I was shown in
Fleet Street the very shop of the demon barber
and shuddered to think that meat pies were still on
sale there. And I read that an enterprising trades-
man has again, by way of advertisement, labelled
the new building erected on its site as the authenti-
cated abode of the wretch. But in truth I believe
there was no such person as Sweeney Todd, for
fascinating research has brought me so far back as,
and to a full stop with, a French ballad of the Middle
Ages, just as George Barn well, whom some folk
80
"SWEENEY TODD 81
identify with a rascal summarily evicted from Cam-
ber well and from this world in 1750, is celebrated
in verse vide Percy's Reliques of Ant i cut Knglixh
Puctrtf many years earlier. It is conceivable that
there was a scoundrel, deep-dyed as the ghastly
Todd, in the dark, Georgian days of London. But,
in fact, he had no more definite original than the
hero of a French novel, TJie String of Pearls,
translated for the Penny Miscellany, they say by
George Augustus Sala, and promptly seized by a
dozen dramatists. For years Sweeney Todd was
a stock favourite at the Coburg, the Britannia, the
Pavilion and the Effingham Saloon. Bancroft
played Sweeney during his Birmingham novitiate.
And the character was in the repertory of every
stroller.
In a tiny volume of strange cases I find the record,
professing authenticity, of a " Horrible Affair in the
Rue de la Harpe, Paris," where travellers were said
to have been murdered by a barber, robbed, then
passed through a subterranean passage to a pie shop
next door. The bodies were found by a dog some-
times * starred " in the plays who missed his master.
Here is the earlier ballad, with a translation by
that most erudite authority on French dramatic
literature, Mr Arthur Shirley :
" Ca remonte au moyenage,
C'etait en Tan douze cents.
Un nu-rlan vrai sauvage
Coupait le cou de ses clients.
Rue des Marmousets vingt-quatre
82 "MARIA MARTEN" &" SWEENEY TODD"
II faisait son noir trafic,
Inutile de se debattre,
Dans son caus on faisait conic
II avait ce perruquier,
Pour complice in patissier,
Pour complice un pa
Un ti un sier
Un patissier.
Ah ! Ah !
Cette legende atroce,
Ajoute que le patissier,
Etait une femme feroce,
Plus feroce qu'en huissier !
Avec tous les pauvres diables
Qu'ils egorgeaient nom d'em nom
Ces monstres abominables,
Faisaient des pates de jambon !
Et dans tout ca voila ce que c'est
C'est le client qui patissait
C'est le client qui pa
Qui ti qui sait
Qui patissait.
Ah ! Ah ! "
(Am. Le Jeune Homme Empoisonne.)
This is Mr Shirley's version :
" About the year eleven hundred or so
There lived a sort of demon barber,
Who slit his client's wizzens.
At 24 Rue des Marmouzets
He carried on this horrid trade
And nobody could resist him,
In his cellar he polished 'em off,
Having for his accomplice
A villainous pie merchant next door.
With a pie with a mer with a chant,
With a pie mer chant ! Ah ! Ah !
MARIA MARTEN 83
This horrible tale also tells us
That he worked with a ferocious female
Fiercer than the fiercest bailiff,
For all the poor devils he killed
His partner converted into pork pies !
And he said of his customers when defunct,
They are gone ' pork creatures,'
With a pork with a ere with a ture.
Pork creature ! Ah ! Ah ! "
(To be sung to the tune of The Young Man who Was Poisoned.)
Few trials for murder have so stirred the country
as did that of William Corder, who shot and stabbed
liis paramour, Maria Marten. The Times reported
the proceedings verbatim. And yet it was a squalid
business impossible to give it a glamour of romance,
or the quality of mystery. Maria was nearly twenty-
six, good-looking, we are told, the daughter of a farm
labourer living at Polstead in Kent. She had three
illegitimate children, by various fathers, and when
with the support of her stepmother she began to
exert pressure on the father of the third, William
Corder, he murdered her and concealed his crime
with so much skill that it was not revealed till
Marias mother spoke of dreams, which led to the
discovery of the body, and to the arrest and con-
viction of William. The dreams gave a super-
natural interest to the story but village scandal said
that Mrs Marten did not recall her dream till Corder
OK \\ lax in remittances!
Marias first lover was Thomas Corder, an elder
brother of William. He was drowned, and their
child died. Her second lover was an " independent
84 "MARIA MARTEN" &" SWEENEY TODD"
gentleman of Woking" whose name was sedulously
guarded by the reporters of the trial. He made
penitent payments to Maria, which William Corder
intercepted. The offspring of this second union lived
many years, in Colchester, and would threaten to
invoke the magistrates to prevent performances of
Maria Marten by strollers unless he were molli-
fied surely the most curious collection of a royalty
ever known ! William Corder's child died ; but there
is not the least evidence in support of the allegation
that he did away with it.
William Corder was a short, weak-legged, weak-
eyed creature, who came into a thousand or so as the
older members of his family, well-to-do farmers, died.
He was living in London when Maria and her people,
her second lover, the Woking gentleman, acting in
concert, became importunate. He agreed to marry
Maria, making the stipulation that she should leave
home secretly, disguised in a man's clothes which he
provided, to join him. Maria was never seen again
alive. Corder wrote regularly, saying that she was
well and happy, acting as companion to a lady, having
deferred their marriage. Months passed, till Mrs
Marten's disturbed slumbers induced a search-party
to the Red Barn on the Corders' farm. Here the
body was found, lightly covered with earth, over
which the fruits of the corn harvest had been piled.
Corder proved to have been long married, at Baling,
to an amiable schoolmistress, who had answered an
advertisement in The Sunday Times, and who was
loyal and tender till his last breath. After his execu-
tion an accumulation of letters addressed to an agency
FORESTALLING THE CINEMA 85
in response to a matrimonial advertisement was ear-
marked to Corder, and published.
Corder defended himself obstinately. His last story
was that after a bitter quarrel Maria shot herself
and that in terror of suspicion he hid the body. But
his ease was hopeless, and ere his execution he con-
fessed, though he persisted that he never used a
knife. Justice was carried out with almost Scriptural
savagery. The body, half naked and half dissected,
was exposed to public view, and the skeleton of the
wretched creature was made a permanent exhibit. In
the Free Library at Bury was deposited a verbatim
report of the trial, bound in Corder 's skin.
Many thousand people witnessed the execution, and
it is said that a man who returned to Bury from the
ghastly entertainment was so wearied by inquiries as
to whether or no Corder was really dead that he took
refuge in the local theatre, where a performance of
Macbeth was in progress. "Is justice done on
Cawdor ? " were the first words he heard. " Yes," he
cried, " I saw him hanged at Norwich this morning ;
and I'll answer no more questions."
Maria's murder was depicted on the stage with the
alert enterprise of the modern cinema. Polstead
Cherry Fair took place between the arrest and the
execution of Corder, and complaint was made to the
judge of Assize that "peep shows" of the tragedy
abounded. One of them founded the fortune of
"Lord" George Sanger. At Bartholomew Fair dur-
ing the same year a hundred pounds was taken in a
booth exhibiting "Corder's" head a plaster cast, no
doubt. A novel based upon the crime was published,
86 "MARIA MARTEN" & "SWEENEY TODD"
its anonymous author being, they say, Dr Maginn
"bright, broken Maginn," Thackeray's Captain
Shandon and on this novel innumerable plays were
based. The first I have been able to trace was done
at the Pavilion Theatre, Mile End, the work of one
West Digges, produced within a few weeks of the
trial. Of course there is a vision, Maria appearing
to William on the eve of his execution, with the
assurance : " William, William, thy poor Maria pities
pities and forgives thee." The ballad and "last
dying speech and confession" is said to have reached
a sale of 1,166,000 copies. Here is an extract :
" I promised I would marry her upon a certain day,
Instead of which I was resolved to take her life away.
I went into her father's house the eighteenth day of May,
Saying : f My dear Maria, we will fix the wedding day.' "
An elaborate " set " of the scaffold and the actual
enactment of the execution was reserved for gala
nights. There is record of an ugly disturbance when
once, at Cambridge, the performance stopped short
of this delectable scene. The manager apologised
that the actor was suffering from overwork and
even declined to accept the suggestion that he should
" take the curtain " duly haltered by way of a com-
promise ! After a little controversy " the audience
slowly, and with manifest reluctance, left the house."
CHAPTER XII
"SWEET LAVENDER"
History of Terry's Theatre The Coal Hole Terry's Early Struggles
Sweet Lavender The Tragedy of Rose Norreys Theatrical Rents
" LAST time, Clemmy my boy, last time." So Dick
Phenyl used to protest his reformation. Will there
ever be a last time of Sweet Lavender'! Pinero's
play ran from its production on 21st March 1888
six hundred and seventy nights. It was again and
again revived. It was toured year in and year out,
and still it has valuable vitality.
Of few dramatists has it been the fate to mark
three epochs in the history of the English stage.
The Profligate was not the first " problem " play, but
it was the first to which the description was arbitrarily
applied. A series of characteristic farces at the Court
Theatre swept French filth away for years. With
A'nrr/ Lavender Sir Arthur Pinero filled the air
again with a fragrance like that of the Robertson
comedies. In each case new impulses were stirred in
every playwright. The material results were probably
most remarkable in the instance of Sweet Lavender.
They are my business, not the discussion of
evolutions !
If it be true that Terry's Theatre, which for a long
time has been a "picture house." is to be absorbed in
87
88 "SWEET LAVENDER"
the structure of a vast hotel, it returns to its earliest
employment. Here stood the Coal Hole, from
which Thackeray elaborated his pictures of old-time
song and supper rooms though, be it noted, the
Cave of Harmony cannot be exactly identified with
the Coal Hole, nor the Back Kitchen with the Cave
of Harmony. It is easier to recognise the characters.
The Coal Hole was the property of men named
Rhodes, father and son. Here, till a very late hour
of the night, homely suppers were served from side-
boards laden with silver tankards that were the pride
of the house. The younger Rhodes is said to have
been the original of Hoskins ; Charles Sloman, the
" only English improvisatore," was certainly " little
Nadab."
In the course of time the musical entertainments
at the Coal Hole ceased. It was one of the many
homes of " Baron " Nicholson with his salacious
Judge and Jury show. The house was acquired by
Charles Wilmot, an Australian actor, and his wife, a
buxom, hospitable dame known as " Coo-ee." It
became, as the Occidental Tavern, a great resort of
actors, who were generously allowed credit. Could
the " slate " of the Occidental be reproduced it were
an interesting document indeed ! Wilmot found his
way back to the stage. At the Duke's Theatre,
Holborn, he produced, in partnership with that weird
creature, Clarence Holt, the prototype of Drury Lane
drama, New Babylon. He was, at the Grand
Theatre, Islington, a pioneer of the suburban theatre.
In conjunction with a Dr Webb the three men
formed a friendship in Australia Wilmot built
TERRY'S THEATRE 89
Terry's Theatre for the comedian at a cost of some-
thing like 30,000. It was eventually sold to him
for 40,000. That fortune was made out of Sweet
Lavender.
Terry was a London youth, related to neither the
famous Scotch actor nor to the great family of the
Terrys. When he took to the stage he knew all
the hardships of the stroller. He served a rough but
invaluable apprenticeship with Calvert, the Man-
chester manager. And when he eventually came to
London to the Strand Theatre, with a far greater
claim than the Gaiety to be described as the home of
burlesque it is probable that his unexampled success
in that form of entertainment was due to his satura-
tion with the traditions of the Shakespearean clown,
and to his complete technical education. Terry was
one of Hollingshead's first selections for the Gaiety,
where he became the linch - pin of the historic
quartet. His salary there was eventually 100
a week, with certain privileges as to provincial
touring ; and when the fortunes of the house began
to sway he was the first to leave. He first adven-
tured at the Olympic, then became the lessee and
manager of Terry's Theatre. This he opened in
October, 1887, with a play called The Churchicardcn.
The part was congenial, for Terry had an obsession
I oi parochial work as a Poor Law Guardian, a
magistrate, a churchwarden. His spare time he
gave up to Freemasonry. He was " snowed over "
with regalia.
Terry's Theatre was not at the start a remarkable
success, and the actor manager resorted to Pinero,
90 "SWEET LAVENDER"
who had already supplied him with a clever farce
called In Cliancery. Now let Sir Arthur Pinero tell
the story of Sweet Lavender. He once gave a recipe
for play- writing to an aspirant : " You take a good
old stock story about a will found under a sofa
cushion or something of that sort. You fit in a set
of conventional characters. You spend three months
in developing them. Then you fling away your
story in disgust or despair. Then you spend three
more months developing a new story to your
characters and there's your play."
In the original Sweet Lavender there was no Dick
Phenyl just a conventional old-man part on Terry's
lines. Dick Phenyl was reincarnated from a first act
cast aside by the author not a definite portrait,
though his double was afterwards indicated in
the Law Courts as the "original." Terry heard the
reading of the play in silence ; never discussed it
with the author ; never expressed an opinion on it.
With pardonable curiosity Pinero said at rehearsal to
Brickwell, the manager: " Brickwell, do you happen
to know what Terry thinks of this piece ? " " No,"
said Brickwell; "the only remark the gov'nor has
ever made to me about it was, ' This is a nice drunkard
Pinero has given me to play ! ' :
Sir Arthur Pinero owns to an immense interest in
the rehearsals of Sweet Lavender. From his boy-
hood an ardent playgoer, one of his idols at the
Grecian Theatre was M. A. Victor, another, Carlotta
Addison, respectively the Mrs Gilfillian and the
Ruth Rolt. It was fascinating to have them brought
from the clouds, so as to speak, to become his incar-
ROSE NORREYS 01
nate creatures. Both have left this earthly stage now.
Death, indeed, has levied a heavy toll on the original
cast Edward Terry, Sant Matthews, Brandon
Thomas, who could write such a wild farce as
ChdHcii* Aunt, compose quaint negro ditties as /
lab a Luhlthi Gal, I do f and sing them incomparably
to his own banjo or pianoforte accompaniment, and
play such parts as Geoffrey Wedderburn with a rare
and rather ponderous dignity.
Saddest case of all is that of little Rose Norreys,
with her mass of burnished-copper hair, her great
uncanny eyes, her genius. She was a girl of
mysterious origin. She played in the first Pinero
farces ; she was Tree's leading lady for some time,
being notably charming as the little lame girl in
The Dancing Girl She ranged to Nora in A Dolts
House. And there were connoisseurs in acting who
declared that she was on the eve of a great career.
( )ne night, by an extraordinary accident, I heard
that a Rose Norreys had been found in Hyde Park
and remitted to Marylebone Workhouse as a
wandering lunatic. I consulted with Edward
Ledger of TJie JEra, and at his request went to
Marylebone. There sat the poor little soul, in
pauper clothes, gazing into space with those wondrous,
wondering eyes, talking without intelligence. A
fund was raised which provided a few additional
comforts. And all the meantime of twenty years
lias passed in mental obscurity and hopelessness.
Then Maud Millett made almost her first sue-
that type of the " creamy English girl " to
whom, as Quex said, " we all must come at last."
92 "SWEET LAVENDER"
Mr Fred Kerr, the first Horace Bream, was shortly
followed by Mr Henry Dana, fresh home from his
American ranch, and speaking the language like a
native. A year or two later he left the stage, to
become for twenty years the faithful friend and
invaluable adviser of Herbert Tree.
Terry's Theatre had been allowed to fall into a
somewhat slovenly method a large free list had, for
instance, been allowed to grow up, in order to en-
courage The Churchwarden. Pinero was accorded
a free hand in manipulating the first night, and
his drastic compression of the " complimentary "
seats overlooked a well-known critic whose im-
portance was not in fact equal to his celebrity.
He arrived uninvited, and being interrupted on
his course to the stalls, solemnly cursed the play,
the playwright, the players and the playhouse,
raising his hands to heaven and expressing the
hope that the theatre might speedily be burned
down. But these wishes were not fulfilled. The
critics hailed a new Tom Robertson and the play
quickly settled down to a career of success. It cost
sixty-six pounds to produce, its largest salary, of
course excepting Terry, being eighteen pounds
a week.
Terry's ingrained parsimony soon had an oppor-
tunity. Memories of a boyhood spent in the Inns of
Court had inspired the author's design of the simple
scene the lay-out of a modest set of chambers, the
furniture somewhat of the shred-and-patch quality.
It was supplied by a well-known theatrical firm at
a weekly rate. When Terry saw he was in for a run
THEATRICAL RENTS 93
he bundled off this carefully chosen material, subtly
and delicately shaded, and replaced it by a short and
sharp purchase from Tottenham Court Road. It
filled the stage, it was permanent stock, what did
it matter that all the subtlety and delicate shading
had gone ? In the same spirit he could see no great
value in the play as a provincial attraction and so
let a second fortune slip through his fingers.
None the less he quickly made money enough to
make a bid to Wilmot for the purchase outright of
the theatre. Wilmot, not wishing to sell, named
what he thought was a prohibitive price of 40,000
and was amazed when Terry promptly produced the
cash. The house in those days had a letting value
of 100 a week, including the bars. I believe in the
recent boom Terry's had a letting value of 400 a
week, excluding the bars, and that the capital value
last affixed was double Terry's purchase price.
CHAPTER XIII
"CHARLEY'S AUNT"
"Still Running" Penley and Brandon Thomas Their Characteristics
and their Quarrel How Charley's Aunt came to Town Henry
Dana Fortunes made and lost
AN incident in Charley s Aunt proved the rare in-
spiration of a poster artist. " Charley's Aunt : still
running," was the inscription on a picture of a quaint
old lady running for her life, her tucked-up skirts
revealing most masculine underwear in the shape of
trousers. That was twenty-seven years ago. The
poster is actual to-day, and every Christmas, with
a certainty, decorates the London hoardings. Yet
at the outset Charley s Aunt showed no such promise.
Tentatively produced at a small provincial theatre,
it ambled from town to town, and in one instance
the audience was so small that it was thought better
to dismiss !
Brandon Thomas, its author, was a man of rare
charm and sweet nature. Tall, handsome, with
the fine carriage of a somewhile soldier, he wore a
monocle habitually with ease; he played the banjo
as it might have inspired Kipling, likewise the piano,
and the most joyous nights at the Savage were
those when " Tommy " had been dragged to his feet
94
BRANDON THOMAS 95
to give an impromptu entertainment. Eugene
Stratton never sang / lub a Lubbly Gal, I do!
with half the fascination that its author conveyed
to it.
Thomas tried engineering and shipbuilding. He
wrote a pamphlet critical of Moody and Sankey,
the American evangelists, that nearly made him a
journalist ; he became an Institute entertainer, and
then a letter of introduction to the Kendals made
him an actor. To the end of his career he gave to
certain parts a deliberate dignity quite incompar-
able.
He wrote a dozen plays, of which I think Charley'*
Aunt was the last to be produced. Penley incited
him to the task. To Thomas occurred the idea of
exploiting the little man in woman's clothing. It
was received by the actor with delight ; and so grew
Char Icy* 9 Aunt. I have heard that the farce was an
adaptation. Not so; it was dictated, as it came
from Thomas's brain, to his wife. Penley, it is true,
elaborated his own part, till the belief obsessed him
that lie was the inspiration, if not the author of the
play. Thomas's desire was to emphasise the senti-
ni< ntal side. The relations of the men in time
strained to breaking-point. For Penley was an easy
man to quarrel with. He was capable of the most
generous actions, and, in sudden interludes, of the
most spiteful.
He was at the time of commissioning Clmrlcifs
Aunt already a well-known actor. He had been a
Savoy chorister ; later, bass singer at the proprietorial
chapel of that clerical demi-rep the Rev. J. C. M.
96 "CHARLEY'S AUNT'
Bellew (or Higgins). His first character of any
importance was that of the foreman in Trial by Jury.
He made a notable hit as lay Brother Pelican in
Falka, and he was the third Private Secretary, in
succession to Tree, who was not, as one so frequently
hears, the first, but Arthur Helmore, the popular
entertainer of to-day.
Penley's no doubt effective and profitable exaggera-
tion of his part reminds one that when Robert
Buchanan wrote When Knights were Bold, which he
probably got from Mark Twain's A Yankee at the
Court of King Arthur, he meant it for a romantic
drama, which James Welch toured at a loss of nearly
a thousand pounds. His was the inspiration to
turn the play into a rough-and-tumble farce, out of
which thousands were made. But Welch quarrelled
furiously with the Buchanan party, to whom the
bard's words were sacrosanct.
Charley's Aunt came at last to the Royalty in
Dean Street, a then discredited house, whence the
proprietress, Miss Kate Santley, had retired, some-
what weary of personal adventure there although
she had recorded at least one remarkable success
The Merry Duchess, a comic opera by an English
composer, Frederick Clay, and an English author,
Mr George R. Sims. This had for its central
figure a kindly caricature of the sporting Duchess
of Montrose, one of King Edward's intimate en-
tourage. Her representative was a bright, beloved
actress in comic opera, Kitty Munro, whose pre-
mature death caused poignant grief to hosts of
friends. Frederick Clay, too, the writer of the
COMES TO TOWN 97
unforgettable She Wandered down tlie Monntahi-
.s/V/r, died in the fullness of promise.
So dilapidated was the Royalty that at the third
performance of Charleys Aunt the old Duke of
Cambridge fell to the floor as he sat heavily in his
stall. Characteristically, he swore like a trooper, then
burst into hearty laughter.
Penley was financed in respect of Ckarlcifx ^tn-nt
i well-known city man, Hartmont by name, who
was rolling in money one day and eagerly in search
of it the next. He agreed to put up 1000 the
sum would be a wholly inadequate, indeed a
ridiculous, provision nowadays. As a matter of fact,
he was never called upon to find more than 650, so
quickly did the old lady from the Brazils appeal to
the popular imagination, and, let it be added, so
carefully restrained was the expenditure.
This was just as well, for Hartmont was bluffing.
He had been hard hit in the city, and, to the dismay
and apprehension of his colleagues, only produced the
650 actually employed, in driblets obtained from a
money-lender. Moreover, he lost his faith in the play
during the course of rehearsal at the Royalty, and
roundly declared one day that he wished he was out
of it. The quick retort of his companion, one of our
shrewdest managers, that his release could probably
be arranged in a few hours, suggested to him that
there might be more in the play than he saw, so he
obstinately stuck to it. Probably he made upwards
of 60,000, but he died poor. Indeed, in no
instance did (he money stiek. Both Thomas and
Penley made comfortable fortunes say 100,000
98 "CHARLEY'S AUNT'
and upwards. In the course of time the copy-
right reverted to Thomas's family, and, under the
direction of his widow, an astute business woman
as well as a gracious and charming lady, it is
understood to yield a yearly income still of 2000
and upwards.
Penley's business manager then, and for two and
a half years thereafter, was Henry Dana. The son
of a distinguished public man, Mr Dana toyed with
the Bar and coquetted with the City, acquiring
as intimate a knowledge of London life in the
seventies as here and there one. He unblushingly
admits that he was one of the vast crowd turned
back from the Argyll Rooms on the occasion of the
last night of the Argyll Rooms for the police
wisely determined there should be no last night, and
arbitrarily formed a cordon round the approaching
streets. Ardent and expert in every kind of sport,
young Dana seized an opportunity of going to
Western America, and for several happy years was
a rancher. The defection of a partner turned him
towards the stage, and for further years he acted.
But from Charley's Aunt onward to the Globe
Theatre and Marie Lohr of to-day business manage-
ment has been his engrossment. At one time, from
his office in long-demolished Wych Street, Charleys
Aunt having proceeded to the old Globe, more
spacious than the Royalty, he had the supervision
of no fewer than forty companies playing Charley's
Aunt, not only in every English-speaking country,
but in France and Germany, and all over the
Continent.
FORTUNES MADE AND LOST 99
Meanwhile, at the Globe, Penley was able to in-
dulge his pleasant propensity for hospitality by
giving huge parties on the stage on the hundredth,
the five-hundredth, the one-thousandth, and on any
intervening nights that afforded an excuse.
It is safe now to reveal the fact that he appeared
himself fewer times by many than the public was
aware of. He collected a group of young actors
physically like him, and apt to copy his mannerisms,
partly for the supply of the touring companies, but
also to understudy him. He would whimsically
appear in one act, and send on an understudy for
the second, the deceit being undiscovered. Penley
was at one time a very rich man, worth probably
150,000, but he was amazingly obstinate and
unfortunate in his speculations. He bought the
Novelty Theatre as, after many changes of name,
and more to come, it was then known convinced
that it would be repurchased from him at a huge
profit when Kingsway came along, sweeping through
Clare Market. But the Novelty Theatre was passed
by. Of course it commands a preposterous rent
to-day, something, I believe, in the neighbourhood
of 300 a weekl Once it went begging at 20
a week ! I have seen a Parsee opera company
there, a mesmeric entertainment, heard a " not
proven " suspect lecture on an alleged murder that
was a world's wonder, remember a young actor shot
on its stage with a carelessly managed pistol in a
melodrama, and seen an angry crowd throw the seats
at unsatisfactory pri/e-fighters ! It is now a respect-
able house and a valuable property, but Penley lost
100 "CHARLEY'S AUNT'
a good deal of money there, as he did in real
estate depreciated by a sewage farm near his
Woking home. I am afraid that even the ten
thousand and odd pounds disclosed in probate was
illusory.
CHAPTER XIV
"A PANTOMIME REHEARSAL"
An Amateur Impromptu The Beginnings of the Yokes Family Rosina
runs away The Discovery of Weedon Grossmith Early Enter-
tainers Touring America A London Run
A TRIPLE bill is usually a case of Ma Femme et
qnelque Poupees. Emphatically so it was with A
Pantomime Retiearsal, which managed a record of
four hundred and thirty-nine performances, but with
a constant change of the other factors. Lacking
such a staple as Cecil Clay's sketch, I have never
known a triple bill succeed. Mr Cochran tried one
a year or two ago, at the Ambassadors. An ex-
quisite production of Le Malade Imaginairc proved
caviare to the general. The other plays bored. The
manager told me his hair whitened in the process of
reading hundreds of ineffectual one-act plays.
Cecil Clay's A Pantomime Kchcarsal is, in fact,
just what, in ignorance of its origin, you would
suspect it to be an impromptu exercise in high
spirits. The late Sir Percy Shelley had a passion
for the stage. At his town house, in Tite Street,
Chelsea, and at his country place, Boscombe, he liad
a perfectly equipped theatre, where frequent perform-
ances were given by amateurs, with often distinguished
professional assistance. At Boscombe, in 1884, he
IUI
102 "A PANTOMIME REHEARSAL"
had a house-party, invited to witness, in particular,
a performance of The Parvenu. It seemed that the
second day might hang heavily on their hands, and
someone suggested a kind of charade. Cecil Clay
was among the guests, his wife too, the beautiful
and accomplished Rosina Vokes, and her sister
Victoria. Cecil Clay set to work on A Pantomime
Rehearsal, which was in some shape in a few hours
the actors and actresses did the rest. The orchestra
was supplied by the original German Reed, already
an old man, to whom the Vokes girls hummed some
of the songs of their entertainment, from which
inspiration he vamped at the piano. So came into
existence probably the most popular one-act play of
modern times. Amateurs love it still but they
have to borrow a manuscript, for it has never been
printed. During its eventually long career in
America it was a constant anxiety to spot predatory
shorthand writers and eject them from the theatre.
In the original cast were the Vokes sisters, the Hon.
Mary Boyle, a fine amateur actress, the brothers
Claud and Eustace (or " Scrobbie ") Ponsonby, and
Sir Percy Shelley, an accomplished artist, who
actually worked on the scenery as the play
progressed.
Among many clever " families " the Vokeses were
distinguished and unique. Their father was a
theatrical costumier, and the youngsters one by one
took to the stage, to play, with actors such as
Creswick, Phelps and Barry Sullivan, the Little
Princes in Richard, Mamillius in A Winter s Tale,
Henri in Belphegor, and so forth, Fred Vokes
THE YOKES FAMILY 103
spent part of his time as an assistant to Professor
Anderson, the " Wizard of the North," and would
be " vanished" beneath tin cones, discovered in port-
folios, and so forth, to his great discomfort. Papa
Vokes, who did not think so much of the stage as a
vocation, made a skilful tailor of his son, in intervals.
The antics of the youngsters at play suggested to
an aunt the association of the Vokes children, whom
she trained to interpret, according to their imagina-
tion, playlets of her devising. And the Vokes family
became world-famous. The first break in their unity
came when Cecil Clay stole Rosina, the brightest
and best. Then Jessie died ; but, with other associ-
ates, Fred and Victoria continued to work well into
the eighties. All died in the near neighbourhood
of forty, which seems to prove that the tendency of
the infant prodigy is toward exhaustion. I could
cite of instances a score though there are notable
exceptions.
On her marriage Rosina retired from the stage.
But On y reviens ton jours. Shortly after the
Hoscombe production of A Pantomime Rehearsal
she formed a company, and crossed to America,
where she was idolised for several seasons. The
Pantomime Rehearsal, The Circus Rider, plagiarised
as The Fair 7v///r.s7/vV////r, and Mi/ Milliners Hill
were probably her most successful media. Hut
she ad\entured to such ambitious work as Sydney
(irundy's clever play, The Siker Shield. Caste
and Pi nrm's Sclioalinist ress. When A Pantomime
Rehearsul was in rehearsal itself on the stage of the
Hrooklyn Theatre there was an amusing incident.
104 "A PANTOMIME REHEARSAL"
Mr " Willie " Elliott, in his character of the harassed
author, vigorously reproached Lily and Lord Arthur
for apparently insulting him by the persistent per-
formance of an idiotic duet. Two members of the
theatre staff, thinking the scene serious, begged
Miss Vokes and Lord Arthur to retire to the
capacious and comfortable green-room, where they
could proceed with their work in immunity from
annoyance !
Theatrical life in America, especially on tour, is
strenuous and has its hardships, but it has also its
plentiful humours. Once in the early morning, in
a small city, Mr Cecil Clay awaited the band, to try
over the music, in respect of which he was fastidious.
Arrived a sturdy fellow with a trombone. "And
the other gentlemen ? " said the suave Cecil. " Oh ! "
was the reply, " they're engaged for a garden-party."
" So you're to run over the music on the trombone ? "
" That's so," said the artist. " On which, I am sure,
you are an excellent performer ! " " Yes," said the
trombonist ; " that's why I'm not at the garden-party."
In the event the trombone orchestra was courteously
transformed into a member of the audience at the
first performance, and the musical accompaniments
were supplied, on the piano, by the versatile members
of the company, including Felix Gottschalk, who
became, under the Frohman management, one of the
most popular character actors in America.
In the spring of 1890 Mr "Willie" Elliott,
meanwhile returned to England, cabled for per-
mission for the old stagers to do A Pantomime
Rehear ml at Canterbury. And then, in 1891, came
MR WEEDON GROSSMITH 105
its serious introduction to the London public, at
Terry's Theatre. Mr Weedon Grossmith was again
the Lord Arthur Pomeroy it is certain he has never
been equalled in the part. It is doubtful if he ever
had a better. Mr Charlie Little was already dabbling
in that kind of journalism at which, as the society
editor of The Daily Mail, he lived to see himself
exquisitely caricatured by a well-known dramatist.
His death was due, I suspect, in a measure to his
social popularity.
George Edwardes found the capital for the venture
at Terry's, but it was not a remarkable success, and
he tired. But the courage of the adventurers was
indomitable. They moved on to the Shaftesbury,
to Toole's, to the Court, and when at length their
triumph was completed they had a record of four
hundred and thirty-nine performances. They might
have gone further, but other engagements prudently
entered into, in the belief that the triple bill could
not endure for ever, at length disbanded the com-
pany. There had been many mutations of the bill,
except that A Pant om hue Rekearttil stood firm
and there were many mutations of its cast, which
at various times included Edith Chester, Beatrice
Lamb, Rose Norreys, Ellaline Terriss, Brandon
Thomas and May Palfrey. With amateurs A
I'atttomhne Refiearsal is an enduring favourite.
Circumstances never permitted Rosina Yokes to
play the part of Lily, in England, after the Boscombe
experiment. This everybody regretted and especi-
ally those who, in Ameriea. knew how her brilliancy,
her perfect knowledge of the stage, her exquisite
106 "A PANTOMIME REHEARSAL"
dancing and her ebullient humour vitalised the play
and all her adoring companions.
To Cecil Clay Weedon Grossmith owed, not his
inspiration to the stage, but his first effective engage-
ment. He was the son, and I think the grandson,
of a popular entertainer. In the sixties and seventies
there were dotted about the country Mechanics
Institutes, Literary and Philosophical Societies, and
Athenaeums that gave, during the winter, a series
of entertainments and mildly educational lectures.
The cinema and the travelogue had a forerunner in
one B. J. Maldon, whose discourses on world wars
were profusely illustrated with magic lantern slides.
A whimsical-looking old gentleman named Walter
Rowton gave incomparable readings from Dickens ;
another, whose name I forget, discoursed of " Sea
Songs," and sang them in a tenth-rate tenor.
They would arrive with a shabby dress suit in a
shabby bag. They were mostly supped, bedded and
breakfasted by the Mayor, and they departed with
an eagerly appreciated fiver to their clerkly desks.
Such a one was George Grossmith, senior, in the
intervals the officially recognised reporter at Bow
Street Police Court.
Weedon Grossmith first practised the pictorial art.
As a painter he was not a failure by no means.
But he did not earn a comfortable income. At an
Eton and Harrow match at Lord's he met Cecil Clay,
who, knowing of his desire to become an actor,
offered him an engagement with the American
company, then in process of formation it included
Brandon Thomas, Willie Elliott, Edith Chester
TOURING AMERICA 107
and Courtenay Thorpe at the generous salary of
fifteen pounds a week. It was accepted without
hesitation, and Grossmith made his first nervous
appearance at Liverpool, on the eve of sailing.
Rosina Yokes had the technique of the stage at
her finger-tips, and the genius of kindly, tactful,
discerning tuition, as Grossmith always gratefully
acknowledged.
In America the beginning of the travellers was
uncertain, thanks mainly to the unstable manage-
ment with which the early contracts were made.
Then the triple bill proved their salvation; and
especially A Pantomime Rehearsal, in which
Grossmith, making a bold departure from the con-
ventional Dundreary English swell, made up as
a composite reproduction of three well-known men
about town and, as the theatrical phrase is, " created
a furore." In the course of time he was succeeded
by Felix Morris, a wonderful American actor of
" character" parts, whom we saw here at the Strand,
as the old Scots professor in On Change, and by
- Mons. Marius, whose troubled career in England
had made America a refuge, and who played it to
admiration as an irascible Frenchman I
CHAPTER XV
"THE PRIVATE SECRETARY"
His Original Exponent Not Beerbohm Tree Humours of his Perform-
ance A Disastrous Season Touch and Go at the Globe Imper-
turbable Hawtrey Nearly a Thousand, not out
IT is one of the stubborn fictions of reminiscence that
Tree was the first Private Secretary. Not so ; the
first Private Secretary was Arthur Helmore, nowa-
days popular as a society entertainer. But it is the fact
that much of the " business " that has become conven-
tional to the interpretation of the part was mischiev-
ously invented by Tree. Moreover, the character
corresponding to that of the Rev. Robert Spalding
is quite different in the original German farce by Von
Moser. It is indicated by the title, Der Bibliotcker
or " The Librarian." When Charles Hawtrey, a
son of the famous Eton master, being somewhat short
of twenty-five, translated Von Moser's farce, he
changed the character into that of a clergyman, and
mischievously caricatured a family friend, longtime
the chaplain of Strangeways Prison. Parson Truss
took the joke in such good part that he never missed
a performance of the farce when it came his way, and
was the most delighted member of the audience.
Mr Hawtrey had already been on the stage two or
three years. He made his first appearance as Edward
108
A DISASTROUS SEASON 109
Langton, in The Colonel, at the Prince of Wales
Theatre, and often repeated this performance. The
Private Secretary was tentatively produced at the
Theatre Royal, Cambridge, on 14th November 1883.
Capital to the extent of a few thousand pounds was
provided, and in the spring of the following year
Edward Bruce was good enough to place the Prince's
Theatre at the disposal of the young adventurer.
He had built it with part of the fortune he made out of
The Colonel ; and he was nearly ready for the produc-
tion of Called Back, dramatised from the phenomenally
popular novel of Hugh Conway, which first brought
the phrase " shilling shocker " into use. For the part
of Paolo Macari he had engaged Beerbohm Tree,
then in the first flush of fame as a representative of
uncanny foreigners ; and for the part of Pauline
March, Miss Lingard, who had but recently returned
from America, where she had developed from one of
the music-hall Sisters Dunning, great favourites at
the old-time Canterbury. Bruce demanded the then
heavy rental of 150 a week for the theatre, which
was free for eight weeks only, and further imposed
the condition that certain members of the company
on his hands should be used up in casting The
Private Secretary, although they were quite unsuit-
able, and could never have occurred to an experienced
metteur en scene, as Hawtrey now is, casting a play
with a free hand. Tree, on his part, was furious to
think that he had to play the part of the Private
Secretary, and deliberately, even outrageously, ex-
aggerated it. The season was an utk-r failure, and
ended coincidcntly with Mr Hawtrey 's capital.
110 "THE PRIVATE SECRETARY'
In a desperate state of mind he met Mr J. L. Shine,
who, with Hollingshead, had the Globe Theatre in
Wych Street on his hands. They had just ended a
disastrous season of comic opera and were prepared
to hand over the theatre for a song 125 a week,
the first month's rent to be paid in advance. Hawtrey
had in sight 500 offered for the provincial rights
of The Private Secretary, and, in the true spirit of
speculation, took the Globe, drawing for the rent
against the country rights cheque which, he was
soon advised, would not be met. It is part of the
story that the country rights, withheld from the de-
faulter, and eventually worked by Mr Hawtrey and
his confreres, produced them upwards of 40,000.
The Private Secretary was in possession, but certain of
eviction as soon as it transpired that the rent would
not be forthcoming. Then it occurred to the trem-
bling tenants that Shine and Hollingshead might
not have power to sublet the theatre, which proved
upon investigation to be the case. So the rent
payment was " withheld " till this point should be
settled, and for the time the course of the gentleman
who didn't like London was clear.
It seems as though The Private Secretary had at
once settled into a success at the Globe. " Billy "
Hill, always enamoured of the play, and of his part,
was at his best. Penley frankly adopted Tree's
antics, and they seemed to become him as they had
not become the other. He was troublesome, for he
felt he had made a bad bargain and a success at the
same time, and periodical increases of salary were
found to be the only cure for oft-recurring illnesses.
IMPERTURBABLE HAWTREY 111
But the end of the first week was marked by a
potentially disastrous crisis. Hawtrey supposed that
the good business would have made ample provision
for the salaries of the company. When his treasurer
asked him for the cash necessary to pay them, he
learned that most of the business had been done with
the libraries, in respect of the higher-priced seats ;
and the libraries would pay at their convenience ! In
a word, there was no ready money. To one versed
in theatrical matters the matter would have been
easy of adjustment. But in this respect Hawtrey
was a novice. He resorted here, and there, to meet
with repeated rebuffs. Saturday morning came, and,
out betimes in search of money, the unhappy manager
met with more rebuffs. At last he ran down his
prey in a remote suburb, and having got the desired
cheque was kept talking until he could only reach the
bank and cash it with the aid of a racing hansom.
Nerveless and perspiring, he had at any rate the pre-
sence of mind to halt at Romano's, fortify himself
with a pint of champagne and stroll into the theatre
the imperturbable Hawtrey that we have known and
loved in a century of comedies. There was the
company, scowling and despondent. " Hello," said
the manager cheerily, " what's this ? There's no
Matinee." "No," was the bitter retort, "it looks as if
there were not ! What about our salaries ? " " Why,
surely the arrangement was for to-night." More re-
proaches till Hawtrey conceded that afternoon was
just as convenient to him as evening might be,
smilingly produced a bundle of notes and was voted
a line fellow, with no dissentients. The play ran seven
112 "THE PRIVATE SECRETARY'
hundred and fifty-eight performances ; subsequent
revivals ran to one hundred and thirty-nine perform-
ances and one hundred and sixty-one performances.
There was a gentleman who played Hill's part,
Cattermole, in the provinces for twenty-one years.
The play is now the still productive property of
French.
CHAPTER XVI
CRITERION COMKDV
French Farce via New York The Germ of Obscenity Wyndham's
Origin A Business Comedian Pink Dominoes and Betsy
F. C. Burnand Lottie Venne t
Or late years it has been the habit of French farce
with an obscene story to proceed from Paris to New
York, thence to recross to London as though the
ozonic breezes of the Atlantic had re-covered its rouged
face with a healthy bronze that might make it present-
able to decent English folk. This is in the way of
a reversion to type, for the first " Criterion Comedy "
came from America, forty years ago not, in the
first instance, to the Criterion, though it began a
series of which Criterion Comedy was the accepted
and distinctly understood description. Brighton was
Hronson Howard's Saratoga adapted to English
circumstance.
I often wonder if the schoolboys still secretly sing
the shot king songs of one's youth then hoary with
tradition. I gathered lately from a youngster that
the priapismic rites of the dormitory are much the
same to day as they were yesterday, and the day
before-, and discreetly refrained from further ques-
tioning. I recall an awful ballad recording the life and
H 113
114 CRITERION COMEDY
death of an intrusive crayfish, who was chased as he
might be a cinema comedian :
"They hit him on the head, and
They hit him on the side, and
They hit him on the back
Till the little beggar died."
So, it seemed to me, the recipe for a Criterion Comedy
was to seize upon a nasty notion and beat it through
many doors until it died.
Of course there was a later Criterion Comedy
as fragrant Rosemary, and a still later Criterion
Comedy the deft intrigue and delicately pungent
dialogue of Henry Arthur Jones. But in old days,
when every theatre sold its particular wares, and none
other, as surely as bootmakers sell boots, Criterion
Comedy meant that of which the wives of provincial
clergymen spoke with bated breath when they came
home from the May Meetings, admitting that they
had succumbed to the debauchery of Pink Dominoes,
but, as they qualified the confession, wearing thick
veils ! Now they devour Home and Beauty as
shamelessly as they would gobble a bun at a counter.
Charles Wyndham is often described as the son of
a " well-known doctor." I suspect there should have
been inverted commas to old Culverwell's prefix. You
may find his advertisements in the " popular " papers
of the day ; and I think he was interested in the
delectable dirtiness of Dr Kahn's museum. It's a detail
of his curative " system." He owned baths near Regent
Circus which flourished quite lately, the particles of
their equipment being still branded with his name.
A BUSINESS COMEDIAN 115
Eventually he became business manager for his
distinguished son, and went to America. His
ambition was to make a reputable practitioner of the
lad, whose picture is before me heavily bearded,
a cocked sombrero, a surgeon-major in the American
army.
Wyndham went abroad to escape the temptations
of the stage in England. But it got him, thank good-
ness ; and for fifty years he adorned it graceful and
fascinating even in Criterion Comedy, which he shook
from his feet at last, and entered his kingdom, the
captain of comedians.
You hear him spoken of as a keen man of business
too. Asa matter of fact, he was rather heedless and
informal, but whatever he did came out right. If he
refused an apparently promising proposition, a better
came along five minutes later. He was a large
buyer of plays, in which he often dealt profitably.
After his death no fewer than four thousand manu-
scripts were found carefully stored in the private
apartments he reserved at Wyndham's Theatre. He
extraordinarily lucky in respect of his specula-
tions in theatres. He left nearly a quarter of a
million roughly in thirds to his widow, his son and
his daughter, who married a well-known banker.
He had been on the stage upwards of ten years,
and had accumulated such a repertory as an ambitious
and painstaking young actor would, in those days,
when he acquired Hamilton from Hronson Howard
and had it rewritten as liritfhlon. It was done 1 at
the Court Theatre : and the critics saw new graces in
the debonair, fascinating comedian as Bob Sackett,
116 CRITERION COMEDY
whom they described as a "catholic lover." It was
their witty way of saying promiscuous profligate !
Wyndham eventually took Brighton on tour ; and
then he was invited by Alexander Henderson to join
him, with the play, at the Criterion.
To-day this theatre commands, I suppose, a rental
of 400 a week. Then it was a labyrinthine cellar,
and the proprietors of the adjacent restaurant, Spiers
& Pond, were willing to hand it over rent free as
you may say, to keep it aired. This was really done
by an elaborate system of fans, the need for which
got so well known that an old lady once asked
anxiously at the box office what would happen to
the audience if the machinery stopped. Ensued
to Brighton, The Divorce Case, Hot Water, Pink
Dominoes, Truth, Fourteen Days, The Headless
Man.
It was during the performance of The Headless
Man, in 1889, that the incident of "the man in the
white hat " occurred. A gentleman rose in the upper
circle and, declaring that he was the spokesman of
a party, protested against the price of the pro-
grammes. Wyndham, from the stage, took up the
quarrel angrily, addressing himself to " the man in
the white hat," who, at the end of the entertainment,
deposited a white tall hat on the centre of the
balcony, and left it there. It was preserved in the
theatre for years it may be still.
But Betsy is in many respects the most remarkable
of the Criterion Comedies. Wyndham did not appear
in it, put it up, in fact, as a stopgap, and was shut
out of his own theatre for upwards of a year, during
F. C. BURNAND 117
part of which time he resorted to a revival of Brighton
at the Olympic. Pink Dominoes had the longer
run five hundred and fifty nights, as against Betsy's
four hundred and eight performances. Forty years
after, Pink Dominoes as To-nighfs the Xight proved
more popular than Betsy as Oh ! Don't, Dolly, in her
old home, the Criterion. But I imagine that in the
meanwhile revivals of Betsy have been the more
numerous and the more interesting. There was one
at the Garrick so recently as 1902, and a very
respectable one at the Coronet Theatre some fifteen
years ago.
Bebe, the French original, was held to be
impossibly indecent, and Burnand's skill in mak-
ing it acceptable here was, in fact, prodigious.
Burnand came of a Church and State family, and
was intended for the Bar was duly called, in fact.
Meanwhile his father had turned him out of the
house for becoming a Catholic ; and Cardinal
Manning had unbent his face to a smile when his
protege discovered that he had no vocation for the
priesthood, but thought he had a "vocation" for the
stage. " You might as well say that to be a cobbler
has a 'vocation,'" said his Eminence; whereupon
the eventual mangier of much English retorted that
;i cobbler had a great deal to do with the sole."
A little acting sufficed. Burnand became a well-
accustomed hack for the theatres. He conferred an
inestimable blessing on dramatists by enforcing the
rule, originating with Boucicault, of sharing in the
profits of a play, instead of selling it outright for
a song. But Burnand did nothing in his life so
118 CRITERION COMEDY
remarkable in its way as Betsy. Betsys original
exponent is at this very day acting, as popular a
favourite as ever Miss Lottie Venne. "Do you
know, my dear, I feel so bucked," she said, as she
stepped off the stage as the curtain fell on a recent
premiere. " One of the stage hands slapped me on
the shoulder and call me a little wonder."
Simple, no doubt sincere, and so true ! It has, of
course, to be remembered that when Miss Venne
came to town, already an actress of experience, she
was still in her teens. One of her first engage-
ments was in Happy Land, the suppressed for one
night only burlesque, by Gilbert, of his own Wicked
World, at the Court Theatre. Miss Venne came
in for special remark as the medium of an offending
line. As a candidate for ministerial honours she was
questioned about ships and shipping. " Please, sir,
what is a ship ? " she asked. The famous trio, repre-
senting Gladstone, Lowe and Ayrton, instantly
bowed, and presented her with a folio, endorsed
" First Lord of the Admiralty." Happy La?id had
a long run, when the Censor was mollified.
Alfred Maltby, the Rev. Samuel Dawson of Betsy,
was a creature of a curious temperament and fatal
versatility. He had been an assistant to his father,
a country draper, and the old man was wont to
describe him as a genius lost to window-dressing !
Probably this accounted for his taste and skill in
theatrical " production " ; for he was held to be good
enough to stage-manage Gilbert and Sullivan. He
wrote and drew for the comic papers; composed
songs that sold ; effectively adapted farces from the
FRENCH FARCE 119
French ; acted with rare unction and had a habit of
leaving home to play a game of billiards at the club,
but sailing for Australia instead. He is dead. So is
comfortable old " Billy " Hill ; so (in the flower of
his youth) is Lytton Sothern. Dead too is Granny
Stephens, the Mrs Birkett ; but, living to the ripe old
age of ninety-three, she provided one more instance
of the extraordinary longevity of the stage. George
Giddens and Herbert Standing, two of the stalwarts
of the Criterion, are, I believe, in America.
Miss Mary Rorke, in the flower of youth, was one
of many Criterion ingenues who became serious
actresses. She too is acting admirably, at this
moment, in The Choice, gracefully accommodating
her art to the years.
With David Gar rick mercifully I do not tell, for
the hundredth time, the story of the chair at the
club the Criterion became sedate. Wyndham came
out at his best in the theatre as met! cur en- scene.
His ideas were good, he was patient and gentle in
imparting them never domineered or swore ; and
never jealously guarded his own position as a star.
Twenty years elapsed ere French farce re-established
itself, with added impudence, on the London stage,
in the instance of A Night Out. And the difficulties
that beset Buniand were overcome by simply ignoring
them.
CHAPTER XVII
LONDON PLAYS
Tom and Jerry A Picture of Pierce Egan A Complacent Censor
Charterhouse Characters Barry Sullivan New Babylon
FIFTY years ago Thackeray made a journey to the
British Museum to renew his acquaintance with a
book that had deeply engaged his imagination in his
youth Tom and Jerry. He was disappointed to
the tune of a " Roundabout Paper," which in turn
would probably be described in curt terms of con-
tempt by a " magazine page man " of to-day.
For myself, gratefully I admit I do not have to
resort to the British Museum for my Pierce Egan.
He knocked at my door one birthday morning with
the inscription of my brother Arcadian, Charles
Cochran. I love to touch the soft green skin, to run
m y e y e along the tracery of gold, to follow the
grotesque outline, and warm myself at the gay colour
of the Cruikshank drawings. But Thackeray was
right : one does not invite Tom and Jerry to the
fireside he feels quite sure the bowl would not be
strong enough for those heroic roysterers.
There is, in Sala's Life, a picture of Pierce Egan
in old age for the reapers were tough-gutted who
ate the wild oats of the early nineteenth century ;
and Pierce Egan was nearing eighty when he
I2O
PIERCE EGAN 121
tendered service of a column of sporting notes to the
young and, I am sure, important editor.
Once the autocrat of the prize ring; the most
erudite student of slang ; the admired and accepted
viveur; the author of Tom and Jerry, of Life in
London and Bocciana, now " had a rather quavering
voice, and a shrinking, shuffling manner, as though
the poor old gentleman had found the burden of his
life a great misery to him, and was yearning to shake
it off. After a few glasses of rum punch the cockles
of Pierce's heart were warmer ; the old man became
eloquent, he began to talk of Tom Spring, and Tom
Belcher, Bob Grigson and other famous gladiators of
the bygone ; he told us of Jack Mitton and of Gully
the pugilist, who retired from the prize ring to
become, eventually, a Member of Parliament. He
descanted on the cock-fighting, the bull-baiting, the
badger-drawing, the ratting and dog and duck fight-
ing he had seen in the brave days of old. He had
known Shaw the Lifeguardsman, he had played
billiards with Jack Thurtell." Egan's son, Pierce
Egan, junior, was a prolific and prosperous writer of
penny dreadfuls. The Poor Girl had a tremendous
vogue.
Egan would be in the middle forties when he
wrote Tom and Jerry the adventures in London of
the Regency of a country squire, with an experi-
enced man about town as his mentor. They ranged
from Tom Cribb's parlour to Tattersalls ; from
Almack's, the once aristocratic dancing club, of
which we but recently lost trace as the air-raided
Willis's Kooms. to a Venetian carnival. The sequence
122 LONDON PLAYS
of the scenes in the quickly ensuing plays might still
serve for the structure of a Drury Lane drama.
Plays by the score were in hand ere Egan's pages
were dry from the press. MoncriefFs was the
standard version. He still endures in print, and
ranks with Don Giovanni in London as his best play.
But the first Tom and Jerry play was produced at
Astley's, in September, 1821. By the spring of the
following year versions were current at the Adelphi,
the Olympic, the West London, the Surrey and
Astley's. At the Coburg was opposed Life in Paris,
with the same characters. MoncriefFs version ran
two seasons, at the Adelphi. The Olympic version
managed nine months. Egan was furious to think
that the fruit of his brain should be impudently
stolen. He tried his hand at a play himself, and
tempted Robert Keeley, who had made a remarkable
success as Jemmy Green at the Adelphi, northward,
to Sadler's Wells ; but that was not a successful
adventure.
A protest to the authorities was made in respect
of the Adelphi production, and the Lord Chamber-
lain presented himself, to confessedly enjoy the play,
to bring his lady to a subsequent performance,
and to come again and again during the run. It
is said to have made upwards of 20,000 for the
management, of which one would remark that, as a
theatrical earning of those days, it was a large sum.
One poor devil was ruined. A lame negro fiddler
was a London character of the time, and he was
persuaded to add to the realism of Tom and Jerry
at the Adelphi. When he returned to the streets he
CHARTERHOUSE CHARACTERS 123
found his popularity was gone. As he fiddled he
sadly intoned : " No lemon to him weal, no hoyster
to him rump steak, de turkey widout de sausages."
The sorrowful tale is completed by Blanchard with
the declaration that poor Billy Waters was induced
by starvation to St Giles's Workhouse, and died
cursing Tom and Jerry.
There was a faint resemblance to MoncriefFs play
in a recent Alhambra revue ; but its last serious
revival was by Joe Cave, at the Victoria for the
construction of which George Cruikshank lent his
original drawings.
Moncrieff was the son of a Newcastle street
tradesman. He died in the Charterhouse, as two
later dramatists did John Maddison Morton, author
of Box and Cox and innumerable other farces ; and
Joe Cave, who last revived Tom and Jerri/.
Of the theatrical brethren to-day the most notable
is Odell, whose casual treatment of the rules caused
the Master most politely to ask his guest to read
them through. Adjusting a huge pair of horn
glasses, Odell did so, and, handing them back with a
smile, drawled : " I think I've broken them //."
It is a far cry from Tom and Jeriy in 1821 to
New Babylon and the Duke's Theatre in the
seventies. The romance of London, and its realities,
had appealed to dramatists in the meanwhile to
Andrew Halliday in The Great f/V//, in which Mrs
Krndal made an early appearance at Drury Lane,
fortified by a real cab and a live horse ; to Watts
Hiillips with /,o.x/ in London. Boucicault introduced
a fire to The Streets of London, which he got from
124 LONDON PLAYS
Les Pauvre de Pans, and localised to any city of
importance; a locomotive to After Dark, and a
sentimental strumpet to Formosa. But it was
reserved for New Babylon to pile the Ossa on
Pelion of sensation ; to set a formula which has stood
in all the meanwhile in a word, it was the prototype
of that Drury Lane drama which has such subtle
but such certain differences from the melodrama of
the old Adelphi or the old Princess's.
Sefton Parry was the builder of the Holborn,
which he opened on 6th October 1866, with
Boucicault's Flying Scud. It ran two hundred and
seven nights, thanks greatly to the performance of
George Belmore, who married into the circus family
Cookes, and was succeeded by a generation of actors
and actresses. At the Holborn, in 1868, Barry
Sullivan played, not his last season in London, but
one so disastrous that he should have been assured
that his day as a London actor of importance was
over. And yet I avow a debt of deepest gratitude
to the noisy and monumentally vain old actor. In
his tours of the provinces, during many years, he
kept alive a score of plays that have never come
within the view, I suppose, of half-a-dozen of the
critics enclosed in London The Gamester, The
Wonder, The Wife and Love's Sacrifice among them.
He was an excellent Richard of his school, an
excellent Richelieu and a Claude Melnotte as bad
as that of a greater actor.
There was an interesting season here, I recall, of
Sardanapalus, which might very well interest some
modern metteur en scene with spacious ideas. It was
TOM CHARLES 125
directed by Tom Charles, who preferred provincial
to London management, though he did take in hand
a notable burlesque for George Edwardes. Charles's
pantomimes, in which George Dance was schooled,
were known through the theatrical world. He got
his wonderful sense of colour as a silk mercer in St
Paul's Churchyard. He was a fine pianist, and began
his career in the theatrical world as manager for
another Blind Tom, a slave, whose generous master
cultivated his talent for music, and himself grew rich
on the musician's earnings. It was often pointed out
to Tom that, in free countries, he might seize his
freedom, but he was content with the provision made
for him, and his last years were spent happily on the
old plantation.
Tom Charles was killed in early middle age in
a carriage accident. His leading lady in Sardana-
pu/itx was a beautiful lady, Monta Gainsborough, a
pupil of rough-spoken, capable old "Jack" Ryder.
Miss Gainsborough is now, I believe, a Bloomsbury
matron. She inspired, in Sardcmapahu times, such
a passion in a now white-haired critic of the drama
that he used to spend the small hours gazing upon
her lattice.
In 1H78 Clarence Holt and Charles Wilmot took
the theatre. Holt was a rough-and-ready kind of
actor, who acquired a considerable reputation at home
and abroad. In his time he must have made a good
deal of money, but in old age he was grateful for the
prescience <>!' liis father, a Bond Street tailor, who
had no belief in the stage, and securely settled a
small income on his son. Holt's last engagements
126 LONDON PLAYS
were with Harris, whose curiously mixed nature
included a tenderness for decrepit actors. He always
had a few in his company, and stuck to them stub-
bornly though they were frightfully troublesome. In
other aspects he was a martinet, as I was reminded
at his funeral. The line of the procession broke
badly. "Gawd," said a stage carpenter near me,
" wouldn't the governor be cross if he was 'ere."
Holt was the foulest-mouthed man, and in his
first production, Black- Eyd Susan, would exhort the
Susan in his arms to more pathos, in sotto voce oaths
and horrible epithets. He once undertook to appeal
to the imagination of a child actress who did not
pick up her words. Kneeling by her side, he gave
her the sentences with proper emphasis, alternating
the words with mumbled obsenities and blasphemy.
The child's memory was quickened by terror and
what she said on the stage at night shall not be set
down, even with discreet stars.
New Babylon was set out as the unaided work of
Paul Meritt, a person of awful obesity and a treble
voice. The first time I met him he was sitting on
the press -copy letter-book, containing the day's
correspondence, written in his small, neat hand. He
was a voluminous writer, in a small, round hand, of
most quarrelsome letters, had been a clerk or a
salesman at Tapling's carpet warehouse Metzger by
name. But he developed a facility for writing
melodrama. There was a furious controversy as to
the origin of New Babylon, which was claimed by an
American author, by name George Fawcett Reeve.
Anyway, it was a huge success. Produced on 13th
"NEW BABYLON" 127
February 1879, it ran till June, 1880, when the
theatre was burned down, but for many years it
profitably toured the provinces. Wilmot, the domi-
nant partner, had three theatres burned down ere it
occurred to him that insurance is a wise provision.
He insured heavily, and never a spark of fire again.
Let the official advertisement of New Babylon
describe it : " Neiv Babylon, by Paul Meritt, is the
talk of London ! Stalls filled nightly by the elite
of London ; and the theatre crowded in every part.
The most attractive drama ever written. Suits all
ie& The Collision on the Atlantic. Tattersalls,
with its sales of horses. Cremorne, with its dancing
platform and Ten Thousand Lights. Goodwood, on
the Grand Race Day. The Thames Embankment,
with its electric Witness ; and Seven Dials by night
are pictures that must attract.
In Xew Babylon appeared a beautiful woman,
whose mass of fair hair was a town's talk, Caroline
Hill. She was the original Mir/a in Gilbert's Palace
of Truth, and the original Cynesca in Ptf;in(t\ion
an el Crfi/dfcii. She is still an eager and sympathetic
playgoer.
New Bnbiflon undoubtedly suggested The World
to Augustus Harris. This was the first of autumn
dramas. It was announced as the work of Paul
Meritt, Henry Pettitt and Augustus Harris, who
also acted in it. It has often been alleged against him
that lie posed as an author in greed to fees, and acted
to qualify for the- Drury L;me Fund. 'V rue, he reaped
both advantages ; but of my knowledge I declarethat
his rare knowledge of stagecraft, his quick eye for a
128 LONDON PLAYS
topical situation, his teeming ideas were invaluable
to his collaborators ; and, on my honour, that I have
seen worse actors.
I think realism reached its height at Drury Lane
when " Pompadour Jim " Corbett, the prize-fighter,
enacted, in the intervals of receiving duchesses in
his dressing-room, a play entitled Gentleman Jack.
There was a tremendous scene at the Orleans Club,
a fight in progress. It was whispered around Drury
Lane that the back door would be open, and that
the noble sportsmen of the neighbourhood would be
allowed to form an actual, vital audience of the fight.
Not in my memory of the stage have I seen such a
crowd ! The experiment was not adventured twice.
Next night the " boys "arrived again in their thousands,
only to be beaten back by the police.
CHAPTER XVIII
" THE LIGHTS OF LONDON "
A First Meeting with Sims Henry Pettitt Genesis of The Lights of
London Wilson Barrett's Early Struggles in London A General
Rejection Zola diluted at Aldgate Pump Barrett's Downfall and
Uprising
NEARLY thirty years ago I dined with Henry Pettitt.
We sat till a late hour; and then he jumped up,
crying impulsively : " Let's go over to George Sims."
I had not met Dagonet in the flesh. " All the more
reason you should call," said Pettitt. We got a
hansom, and drove to Regent's Park. Pettitt flung
pebbles at the study window till Sims appeared at
the front door, comfortably slippered, a short clay
pipe in his mouth. We sat by the fire, drinking gin
and water, and talking of crime, until daylight. Sims
had just secured a treasure a carte de visite, as the
little photographs of those days were called, of a
woman murdered by the Ripper in Whitechapel, the
quarters stitched together, the stitches picked out in
red ink !
Pettitt is long dead. An illness wrongly diagnosed,
a nervous system reduced by the delusion that his
earning power had left him, though he left upwards
of 40,000, brought him to an early grave. We
talked of it the other day, Sims and I, but nion
I I2Q
130 "THE LIGHTS OF LONDON"
of Tlie Lights of London, for the mail had just
brought in a tempting offer from America in respect
of the cinema rights. The dramatic rights are
valuable still.
Yet the play was nearly sold outright for a song.
We fetched out the original manuscript, all in the
author's then quite legible writing, with hardly an
erasure or a correction. The play was produced
almost literally as it was written, with the notable
exception that the last scene was developed into the
famous spectacle of the Borough on Saturday night
a realisation of a well-known picture by Fred Barnard.
It is often said that The Lights of London was
adapted from an earlier novel. Not so. Despairing
of its production, Sims turned his play into a novel,
which appeared in a weekly paper he edited, called
One and AIL Well do I remember the sandwich-
men marching through the streets advertising its
advent, one letter of the title on the breast of each
man, so that you had to stand at the salute, so to
speak, while they marched past, to spell the legend.
A feature of One and All was a novel, of which each
chapter recorded an event of the week. Perhaps the
strain on the writer was too great, for the paper had
but a short life.
But when Sims's story Rogues and Vagabonds came
to be reconsidered for the stage it was found that
it had accumulated material for a second play, and
that was The Romany Rye. If The Lights of
London was adapted from anything, it was adapted
from Sims's well-known song, suggested from the
overheard talk of a tramp and his wife :
"CRUTCH AND TOOTHPICK" 131
11 The way was long and dreary,
But gallantly they strode,
A country lad and lassie,
Along the heavy road ;
The night was dark and stormy,
But blithe of heart were they,
For shining in the distance
The Lights of London lay.
O gleaming Lights of London,
That gf m the city's crown,
What fortunes lie within you,
O lights of London town."
While Tfie Lights of Lo?ido?i waited its fate Sims's
other plays were fortunate. Not, perhaps, A
Hundred Years Old, written for a well-known actor,
produced at a " benefit," and never paid for. But
certainly Crutch a?td Toothpick, a satire on the
jcunesse doree of the day, translated from the French
to the order of Charles Wyndham. Sims interviewed
the then young actor-manager in his bedroom, at
a little hotel off the Strand, run by the first Mrs,
eventually Lady, Wyndham. The room was full of
portmanteaux, and the portmanteaux were burst-
ing with manuscripts. But Crutch and Toothpick
did not join them, though Wyndham drove a
hard bargain twenty pounds down and one pound
per performance till 150 should have paid full
satisfaction for all rights!
Business in connection with Crutch and Tool li pick
took Mr Sims to Leeds. There he met Wilson
Barrett, then a provincial actor-manager in a word,
the Imshand in fact and in status of Miss Heath, a
favourite actress of the day. Barrett confided his
132 "THE LIGHTS OF LONDON"
designs on London management to the young
dramatist, who in turn insinuated his manuscript, not
remarking that it had been refused by the Gattis for
the Adelphi ; by Gooch for the Princess's ; by Harris
for Drury Lane in fact, by every manager in town.
Dear old George Spencer Edwards, the original
" Carados," advised Sims as a last resort to take it to
Morris Abrahams of the Pavilion Theatre, "who
would always go to fifty for a good thing." Fortun-
ately for Sims this good thing never got that way.
From the supper at Leeds to the first night of
The Lights of London at the Princess's on 10th
September 1881 "the way was long and dreary."
Barrett's first season in London was at the Court
Theatre, where Forbes Robertson played Romeo to
the Juliet of Modjeska but the talk of the town
was the young lessee's Mercutio.
With a fortune made out of Drink, Gooch rebuilt
the Princess's Theatre, after a disastrous fire. He
proceeded from failure to failure. Barrett, with the
poet Wills's Juana, with Fcrnande, and a revival of
The Old Love and the New had not done much
better ; and was at the end of his tether. But he had
secured a lease of the Princess's and he remembered
Sims's enthusiastic description of The Lights of
London. They met ; they were in agreement about
the play. " And the terms ? " said Sims. " I was
frightfully hard up," he confessed to me. " A clerk-
ship in the city, casual journalism, a few commissions
to polish up old burlesques for the theatres, and
expensive habits made my case such that a few
hundreds ready would have induced me to part with
ZOLA DILUTED 133
all my rights in the play gladly. But it was not
convenient to Barrett to find the few hundreds. He
offered instead to pay liberally by results and the
results of the first fortnight exceeded my wildest
hopes in the way of a lump sum. The results to
date? Ah!"
Mr Sims retains this much of his early training
in the city : he is a punctilious account-keeper.
Seventy-five little black books contain each the
financial history of a play, from week to week, at
home and abroad. Of The Lights of London he
reveals no more than this: "The year before the
production my income was 1400 ; the year after,
it was 14,000."
Critical opinion of The Lights of London was
mixed. One well-known critic said it was Zola
diluted at Aldgate Pump. Edmund Yates, of The
U'orlcL sent Sims a particularly vicious notice, anony-
mous, with the endorsement : " The writer of this
is - . I give you the name because I have always
found it useful to know my enemies." But the
majority of the critics saw a new force in melodrama
the stuff then popular was very rank, and mostly
in the fonn of crude, often acknowledged, adaptation
from the 1-Yriich. They saw the Dickens touch in
Sims's vivid character studies, and in his homely
humour, his sympathy with the poor, his gripping
story. At the Princess's two hundred and twenty-
( ri^lit performances were placed to the record of
The Lights of London. It travelled the world over,
and lias never ceased. When the war broke out it
was a current attraction in Swedish, at Stockholm.
134 "THE LIGHTS OF LONDON"
Chiefly, in scanning the cast of The Lights of
London, one sees the suggestion of sadness. E. S.
Willard, an actor already of reputation and
experience, made his first really remarkable success
as Clifford Armytage, and seemed destined for a
career of stage villainy, till his Cyrus Blenkarn, in The
Middleman, sped him on another path, and to world
fame. A reserved and friendless man always, his en-
grossing recreation was racing. But the melancholy
of his disposition led to madness and death. Dead
too is the Shakespeare Jarvis, Barrett's brother
George, a rich and rare comedian whose qualities
we see somewhat in his son to-day. Miss Eastlake,
who graduated in Criterion Comedy to become a
heroine of melodrama, quarrelled with her long-time
manager, lost the figure of romance and disappeared
from public view. When in 1911 her death, at the
age of fifty-five, was announced, she was almost
forgotten. She had, I believe, been running a
suburban boarding-house in the meantime.
Barrett's career at the Princess's was meteoric.
He made vast sums of money ; nor did he dissipate
them wholly, as some would have you believe, on his
ambitious failures. At any rate, he lost his lease.
For years he was a wanderer on the face of the earth,
with huge debts in London, which he vainly sought
to reduce by remittances from his surplus receipts.
In 1896 he returned with that egregious play, The
Sign of the Cross. Nonconformity and neuroticism
made it so popular that, in the shortest space of time,
he paid his debts, and when, at fifty-seven, he died,
he left 30,000.
CHAPTER XIX
" THE SILVER KING "
The Most Famous Melodrama of Modern Times A Run of i Year
The last Silver King H. B. Irving " Daddy" Herman Willard's
Spider A Remarkable Death Roll Matthew Arnold as a Critic
PurnEXT managers of theatres reckon on the
probability of one failure in three productions and
"make their book" accordingly. The gambling
simile is not improper to the subject. In Sims's
novel, Rogues and Vagabonds, there was such a
wealth of material that the surplus of Tlie Lights
of London was used for a second play, The Romany
Ki/e, which did not please as its predecessor had
done, though it was played one hundred and thirty-
eight times at the Princess's, and became a good
provincial property. And then a wonderful thing
happened. The critics, who had exhausted eulogy
on The Lights of London, needed to lay in new
stores for The Silver King, which was produced on
16th November 1882, and ran the better part of a
year two hundred and eighty-nine performances.
I think that in his heart Barrett loved the character
of Wilfred Denver more than any other. Certainly
he had an immense affection for the play. When
hard times came, he mortgaged his share in it, as he
needed to mortgage everything: hut he never lost
'35
136 "THE SILVER KING"
the string, and I recall the note of satisfaction in his
voice when he told me he had just recovered The
Silver King.
Not a day has passed in all the meanwhile without
a performance of the play ; which has, during the
past few months, been reconstructed for the cinema,
and which I lately encountered on the twice-nightly
programme of a popular music hall. This mutilation
was, however, shortly agreed to be ineffectual. Its
last revival at the West End was in 1914, when
Harry Irving was induced by his successful appear-
ance in a command performance, at His Majesty's
Theatre, for the benefit of King George's Pension
Fund, of what was officially selected as " the most
famous melodrama of modern times," to repeat it at
the Strand Theatre.
A melancholy interest attaches to this note ; for
as I write comes news of Irving's death, within a few
hours of the anniversary of his father's death. The
famous actor meant that his two sons should follow
professions remote from the theatre. H. B. Irving
was called to the Bar, and occasionally got a brief.
Laurence Irving spent a few years in the diplomatic
service, and got an intimate knowledge of Russia,
which he eventually employed on the stage. Irving
was angry when both boys allied themselves with
the theatre, and described their earlier efforts with
sardonic humour. He displayed quite a little feeling
toward Alexander, who gave H. B. Irving his first
important employment. But he was reconciled in
time, and proudly indicated Laurence Irving to a
Lyceum audience as the actor-author of Peter the
H. B. IRVING 137
Great. Both sons followed him to the grave with
tragical rapidity.
H. B. Irving was uncannily like his father ; and
played many of his parts, though to the parrot cry
of imitation he was able to confront the statement
that his opportunities of seeing his father in his more
famous characters were few. Some characters he
played in which he had never seen his father. A
man of distinguished ability and character, he might
have succeeded greatly elsewhere than on the stage,
where he was certainly made to suffer for his
parentage. " His father's mantle fell beside him,"
said an unkind wit.
But to my story of The Silver King. It differed
from most masterpieces in that it was written to
commission. No sapient manager declined it, be-
cause none had the opportunity of doing so. It is
strange that Mr Henry Arthur Jones, the main con-
tributor to the construction of the play, admits no
Jltiir for melodrama. If he were asked to indicate
his best play, he would probably select Michael <UH/
///.v Lost A ngel. If he were asked of which he were
most proud, he would probably point to The Tempter.
But the sublety of comedy has the greatest fascina-
tion for him. The Silver King is unique among his
seventy plays.
When this son of a Buckinghamshire yeoman first
tm IK (1 to literature as an escape from rather sordid
commerce, he toiled three years on a novel, which
was rejected. He wrote a few one-act plays, and so
impressed Harrett with one that the actor suggested
lie should try his hand at a melodrama, but prudently
138 "THE SILVER KING"
stipulated for the association of his stage manager,
Henry Herman, with the novice. This led to an
eventual quarrel as to the exact contributions of the
collaborators, which supplied the public with a nine
days' wonder, and a particularly acrimonious cor-
respondence. Looking backward from his pinnacle
of success, across the years, Mr Jones very greatly
regrets the incident ; but avers that the dialogue
and characterisation of the play were wholly his,
while some of the most striking incidents were
Herman's. The two men met and talked, but got
no further than a conventional murder. Then to
Mr Jones came the memory of a story in Good
Words of a man who believed that he had com-
mitted a murder but, in fact, was not guilty of worse
than the immoral intent. Herman brought in the
data of a murder, then the topic of newspaper discus-
sion. Herman also suggested the burglary in evening
dress. After such talks in town, Jones would retire
to his Hampton Hill cottage, and return with sheets
of manuscript, in a neat clerical handwriting, for
submission to Barrett, whose immense, acute and
technical knowledge of stagecraft was, of course,
invaluable. During the bitter controversy as to
the shares of the parties in the composition of the
play, this manuscript mysteriously disappeared. But
the business training of Mr Jones had suggested
a press copy and, securely bound, it still exists,
irrefutable testimony.
Herman was a strange, extravagant, large-hearted
creature, who teemed with ideas, but certainly could
not write. He sold his share in The Silver King to
WILLARD'S SPIDER 139
a publishing firm, for a few hundreds. Before
he became Herman, he was Darco ; but few
even of his intimate friends knew his real name.
Tradition said that he had lost an eye fighting for
the Confederates in the American War. He certainly
fought; and as certainly he wore an artificial eye,
with which he would play gruesome tricks for the
entertainment of the circle. But it was the lancet
of a tremulous surgeon that blinded him.
Willard's success as the Spider made him a public
character. Bookmakers he was quite the racing
man would warn each other in a jocular way to be
careful of their customer ; and a busman with extra
sincerity apologised for giving him short change.
In time Willard broke eagerly from the tradition of
the heavy man it is mostly the " heavy men " who
develop into great actors. Phelps, old men tell me,
was at his best as Sir Peter Teazle. Irving's early
successes were in stage villainy of the deepest dye.
By the way, it is not generally known, and the
occasion is omitted from some biographies, slurred
in others, that Irving made his first appearance at
the Princess's Theatre on 24th September 1859.
He was engaged for a term of years by the elder
Augustus Harris, but entrusted first with so insig-
nificant a part in 7r// 1 1 (ill, one of the seventy odd
plays of the otherwise blameless, erudite, judicial
and sympathetic critic of The 7V///r.v, John Oxcnf'onl.
that lie retired from the contract, angry and
desperately disappointed.
What a completely lovable comedian has become
a once apparently inveterate Adelphi villain J. D.
140 "THE SILVER KING"
Beveridge ! Another, William Abingdon, could be
quite debonair and engaging. The shackles clung
more heavily to Charles Cartwright one of the finest
of actors, but, in later life, gloomy and saturnine in
his art as in his life.
If the Spider made Willard's fortune, as an artist,
Cyrus Blenkarn, another creature of Henry Arthur
Jones's imagination, made his fame. Willard ranged
the potteries, and " swotted " the literature of ceramic
art. All admirable, all useful ; great art may owe
much to such industry ; but the spark that made
the furnace glow was in the actor, the last chapter
of whose life is one of the saddest in the history of
the modern stage.
In the cast of the " command " performance, at His
Majesty's Theatre, were four members of the original
cast Willard, John Beauchamp, H. de Solla and
Murray Carson. Regretful reference was made to
the fact that the three most important contributors
to the success of The Silver King, at the onset,
were dead Barrett, his brother George, and Mary
Eastlake. After an interval of five and twenty
years it was not remarkable that death should have
taken a tithe of the cast ; but it is remarkable that
within so few years of this command performance,
Tree, Alexander, H. B. Irving, Murray Carson,
Harry Paulton, Weedon Grossmith, Florence
Haydon, William Abingdon, Harold Chapin, and
Edward Sass should have passed away !
A sequel to the success of The Silver King was
the appearance of Matthew Arnold as a dramatic
critic. Shall we say the reappearance ; for to The
MATTHEW ARNOLD AS A CRITIC 141
Xineteenth Century for August, 1879, he contributed
an article on " The French Play in London," apropos
the visit of the Comeclie Francaise to the Gaiety.
It was included in Irish Essays, and Others.
An ingenious letter from Mr Jones brought Arnold
to the Princess's admittedly after a long interval.
He remembered Macready there, " a powerful actor
in great pieces," but ill supported by his company:
his circumstances dingy, his audience poor and un-
interesting. Arnold was surprised to find the theatre
gay, well filled, the audience lively, intelligent and
interested. He was surprised to find that while
Barrett's ability naturally distinguished him, his
support was excellent.
Of The Silver King he wrote: "It is not
Shakespeare; it is melodrama. . . . The essential
difference between melodrama and poetic drama is,
that the one relies for its main effect upon an inner
drama of thought and passion, the other upon an
outer drama of (as the phrase is) sensational incidents.
Tlic Silver King relies for its main effect upon an
outer drama of sensational incidents, and so far is
clearly melodrama. ... In general, in drama of this
kind, the diction and sentiments, like the incidents.
an extravagant, impossible, transpontine; here they
are not. This is a very great merit ; a very great
advantage. ... In general, throughout the piece,
the diction and sentiments are natural ; they have
sobriety and propriety. They are literature. It is
an excellent and hopeful sign."
Again, " An old Playgoer " contributed to The I'd 1 1
MattGktttettt his impressions of/mpulj, adapted from
142 "THE SILVER KING"
La Maison du Mart, by B. C. Stephenson. Only the
singularly attractive, sympathetic and popular per-
sonalities of the Kendals made it tolerable to him.
"French pieces," he said, "have their reason for
existing in the state of society which they reflect and
interpret. . . . But, Impulse, what life does it render ?
That fraction of our society for which the French
play and novel are a rendering of its own life is
so small as to be quite unimportant. This is proved,
indeed, by the transformation which the French play
undergoes before the English playwright can present
it to the charming faces, figures and toilettes of our
boxes and stalls. Virtue has to triumph ; the amant
frivole has to come to grief. Ingenious playwright !
Ingenious society ! Know this, as to your amant, as
to your Victor de Kiel. Where he exists, where he
is an institution, matters may well enough pass as
they pass in the genuine French play. . . . Where
he is an exotic, nothing can make him tolerable ;
defeated or triumphant, he equally makes the
piece of which he is the centre unpleasant, makes it
ridiculous."
Of Much Ado about Nothing, at the Lyceum,
Arnold wrote that " Miss Terry is sometimes restless
and over-excited, but she has a spiritual vivacity
which is charming. Mr Irving has faults which have
often been pointed out, but he has, as an actor, a
merit which redeems them all, and which is the secret
of his success : the merit of delicacy and distinction.
In some of his parts he shows himself capable also
of intense and powerful passion. But twenty other
actors are to be found who have a passion as intense
MR HENRY ELLIOTT 143
and powerful as his, for one other actor who has his
merit of delicacy and distinction."
Mr Henry Elliott, who collated Arnold's criticisms
for The Theatre, thinks this is all ; but I seem to
remember "Hamlet Once More" apropos Barrett's
revival.
CHAPTER XX
NEW LAMPS FOR OLD
Belphcgor the Mountebank Variations on Faust Oscar Wilde on the
Stage Peg o' My Hearts History The Forty Thieves Chu Chin
Chow's Record Run.
I LOVE that story of the exuberant Parisian students
who, in the small hours of one morning, beat up
Galland, the distinguished Orientalist, to whom we
owe the discovery of The Arabian Nights, and when
his night-capped head came through an upper window
cried : " Oh, sir, will you not give us one more
of the thousand-androne tales you tell so well ? " It
is the eternal appeal to the dramatist 1 Who cares
whence come his stories ; who cares what their
antiquity if he tell them well ? Your ultra-modern
playwright but rings the thousand-and-first change
on the story of Adam and Eve and the serpent.
" Old wine to drink, old wood to burn, old books
to read, and old friends to converse with " has an
expansive and infinite application to the stage.
Gilbert once wrote an article remarking on the fact
that, outside a dozen classics, including some plays
of Shakespeare, not a dozen of the seventeenth and
eighteenth century plays retained an acting value,
or were within the knowledge of the average reader.
He might shorten his list now, for The Good-Natur'd
Man, The Road to Ruin, The Country Girl, Wild
144
"BELPHEGOR' 145
Oats and The Clandestine Marriage have all been
consigned to limbo, too. Of course, in the mean-
while, half-a-dozen societies have come into existence
to repair our ignorance. We confront their efforts
with a moderate gratitude.
But the old stuff beneath the style the old
stories how we love them still. They are so few !
The greater wisdom of the dramatist seems to be
to address himself doggedly to ingenious mutations,
and let the critics discover and cynically remark
upon their spring. Avowed revisions of old fav-
ourites are apt to be damned ere they are half done.
Mr. Robert Loraine's obsession is a revival of
Kfll)ht'i>or: or, not a revival, but a complete metra-
gobolisation of the old play into a modern drama.
Belphcgor has a curious fascination for the old actor
I doubt not that Mr Loraine's father played it;
the son is bon chien de chasse. To the modern
generation the play is unknown. Barrett, to be sure,
had Mr Loraine's notion, but his Acrobat had a
short life at the Olympic in 1891, and is quite
forgotten.
Helphegor ! Turn to your reference books, and
you will come up against a Moabitish god, of a bad
character so quaint are the resorts of circus folk
in search of striking nomenclature. Our Belphegor
was a pathetic acrobat, with a faithless wife and
a forlorn child. He was brought into being tor
Lemaitre in a 1'Yench play called Paillasse', and first
imported to the Adelphi by Ben Webster. The
part was favoured in English, or such Knu-lish as he
spoke, by Fedhter. Henry Neville, too, appeared as
146 NEW LAMPS FOR OLD
Belphegor with success. But the association still
vivid in the memory of the old playgoer is with
Charles Dillon, an immense favourite in the sixties,
and a little later. He played Richard with a flam-
boyant moustache, of natural growth, and a goatee,
as Wilford Morgan played Sir Harry Bumper (with
song). In his brave days Dillon was " supported "
by Henry Irving, whom he is said to have insolently
accosted in the Strand, during the first run of Hamlet,
with : " And are you doing anything now, young
fellow ? " Dillon is probably described with perfect
justice by Westland Marston as " an actor of great
emotional gifts, but very deficient in intellectual
ones." Such actors are not unknown now.
George Alexander had a great desire to play an-
other Fechter- Neville part, Henri de Lagardere, in
The Duke's Motto ; and I believe Huntly McCarthy
prepared him the version eventually used by Lewis
Waller.
Faust has enjoyed an extraordinary popularity
with the translator the word, you know, has a
technical meaning with the cobbler and polisher of
old boots. I prefer it to the finer phrase of Mr
Thomas Shadwell, or of Nahum Tate, the psalmist
who "re-strung the rough gems" of the barbarian
Shakespeare into eighteenth-century revues. Gilbert
fashioned a prize-poem kind of play from Goethe, as
Gretchen, in which, on tour, Miss Fortescue, blushing
with the reclame of a 10,000 breach of promise
case against young Lord Garmoyle, played Mar-
guerite, and Edmund Leathes was a suave, well-
covered fiend. Unfortunate Herman Merivale made
OSCAR WILDE ON THE STAGE 147
a drawing-room drama of Faust, which he called The
Ct/nif. with Herman Vezin as the devil in a dress
coat. It had a trial at Manchester, and a short run
at the Globe in 1882. To Harry Paulton, Pygmalion
and Galatea suggested Niobe: all Tears which
managed five hundred and fifty performances at
the Strand, with the statuesque Beatrice Lamb
as the modern model of a modern sculptor and to
Frederick Anstey, The Tinted Venus.
To Sir Squire Bancroft we owe The Colonel, just
as we owed the remarkably successful revival of
Diplomacy. He has a large store of old manuscripts
and copyrights, and an immense belief in their vitality.
To Burnand he repaired with Morris Barnett's
Serious Family, and its original Le Mari a la
Campagn-e. The idea was to substitute some new
weakness of society for the religious mania satirised
in the earlier plays. London had just, as to one half,
lost its head over " sestheticism." As to the other
half, it was disgusted. Du Maurier was making
great capital in Punch out of Maudle and Postle-
thwaite. Oscar Wilde was in the flower the lily,
not yet the green carnation of his youth. Gilbert
was excogitating Patience. Bancroft was in im-
in diate agreement with Burnand that here was the
scheme. But the play, read to the Haymarket
company, was received with something like con-
tempt : and in the event, Burnand was told that he
mitfht do what he pleased with it. He took it to
Edgar llnice, who had just secured the Prince of
Wales Theatre. Bruce liked the play ; and in a
Hash oi inspiration saw Coghlan in the part hand-
148 NEW LAMPS FOR OLD
some, fascinating, selfish, spendthrift Charles Coghlan,
whose death was a mystery, and whose body was
washed up on the Pacific shore. Coghlan was, with
difficulty, persuaded to accept the part, and proved
troublesome at the rehearsals, during which the play
was improved a good deal. Tree made almost his
first popular success as Lambert Streyke, frankly,
Oscar Wilde, who was destined to be the prey of
many a dramatist ere he gave them a lesson in their
own craft. The Colonel was received with enthusiasm.
It ran a year. Its life was prolonged in the provinces
with Bruce himself, then Charles Collette as Colonel
Woottweell W. Woodd spell out the name, and
you will catch a fine Victorian stage trick of humour.
Bruce made a fortune, out of which he built the
Prince's Theatre. Its name was changed to the
Prince of Wales's when the end of the Tottenham
Court Road house permitted. It was not very
fortunate at the outset, and Bruce retired, to live
peacefully by the Thames side, on a profit rental of
1200 a year. This has increased to thousands for
his daughter.
I do not recall that Hartley Manners ever officially
acknowledged his indebtedness to Blackstone's Rough
Diamond for Peg o' my Heart, but it was there all
right.
To George Dance, I think, it occurred to turn the
familiar pantomime stories into modern drama, and
the partners in his successes branched out into
three of the most important managements of the day.
The Lady Slavey was sheer Cinderella. It founded
the fortunes of Greet and Engelbach, expanded by
"THE FORTY THIEVES" 149
The Sign of the Cross. At the old Strand Theatre
A Chinese Honeymoon just exceeded a thousand per-
formances. It was an ingenious attempt to get the
glamour of Aladdin in musical comedy. In this
case, Frank Curzon was established. At the Duke
of York's Theatre The Gay Parisian, brought
Edward Laurillard, of Grossmith and Laurillard,
into prominence. It was enlarged from a farcical
sketch which Dance had sold to the Majilton troupe
entitled The New Barmaid. They could do nothing
with it and he bought it back for a song. The Gay
Parisian owed much to an imported song, Sister Mary
Jane's Top Note, sung by that queer little genius,
Louie Freear. She had a voice that suggested grand
opera, and a body that indicated her to Tree as an ideal
Puck which she was not. In comic characters of the
"slavey" type she was wonderful, and commanded
a then huge salary. " Sit tight, hold tight, Mary's
iming to sing," immediately arrested the audience.
Hut Louie Freear's star set as suddenly as it rose.
It is strange that the story of The Forty Thieves
should never have occurred to a writer of melodrama.
A " musical romance," by George Coleman the
younger, produced at Drury Lane in 1806, proves
upon investigation to have been quite on the lighter
side. It had a long run for those days, thanks mainly
to the contribution of Michael Kelly Sheridan's
" composer of wines and importer of music." It was
sumptuously attired. Bannister played Ali Uaba.
Meanwhile there have been burlesques and panto-
mimes innumerable based on The Forty Thieves. A
burlesque written by the members of the Savage
150 NEW LAMPS FOR OLD
Club was performed at the Lyceum in 1860 for the
benefit of stricken members, with H. J. Byron as
Ali Baba, Lionel Brough as Ganem, Frank Talfourd
as Cogia, Robert Brough as Morgiana, Andrew
Halliday as Cassim, William Brough as Hassarac,
and John Hollingshead as Menza. The prologue by
Planche was " so brilliant, and so admirably delivered
by Leicester Buckingham that it nearly obtained the
extraordinary honour of an encore."
Most of the burlesque writers tried their hands on
The Forty Thieves. There was, at the Strand, in the
sixties, Byron's Ali Baba, or The Thirty-nine Thieves
(in accordance with the author's habit of taking one
off!). Herein, Miss Ada Swanborough, as Abdallah,
was a swell-mobsman :
"... vulgar violence is on the wane,
Therefore become more polished in your style,
And, like King Richard, murder while you smile.
I go into society, and none
Know I'm a thief, or could conceive me one.
I start new companies, obtain their pelf,
And, after starting them, I start myself;
Swindle the widow, the poor orphan do,
And then myself become an off-un too."
George Honey was Abdallah's vis-a-vis as Hassarac ;
the Morgiana Miss Charlotte Saunders, in her youth
a popular favourite in burlesque; during the last
years of her long life the incomparable " old woman "
of the Beatrice Company.
Reece wrote two burlesques of The Forty Thieves
for the Gaiety. The second, done in 1880, began
the new era of burlesque. It was in three acts, and
"CHU CHIN CHOW 151
employed the famous quartet at its best Terry
as Ali Baba, Nellie Farren as Ganem, Royce as
Hassarac, and Kate Vaughan as Morgiana.
Chu Chin Chow was begun as a pantomime it
has become an institution ! It was lucky indeed for
Oscar Asche that his scheme, propounded to Mr J. B.
Mulholland for a somewhat different " Christmas
A nnual," giving a dramatic significance to The Forty
Thieves, got no further than a sympathetic talk, and
a suggestion of schemes. Some time later, while
Mr Asche was on tour, he struck a dull week in
Manchester, and as an alternative to impossible golf
took up his pen and wrote. The earlier scenes of
Chu Chin Chow, in the form of a romantic drama,
came so naturally that he summoned a stenographer,
and worked day and night till his task was com-
pleted.
So far as the manuscript was concerned ! For the
managers to whom it was submitted saw nothing in
it. In fact, two of the most astute turned it down.
Chu Chin Chow owes its eventual production to Henry
Dana, who had been left in charge of His Majesty's
during Tree's absence in America long continued,
and destined to end in tragedy. Mr Dana was deeply
impressed by the piece, and willing that it should be
accorded a home at His Majesty's. More, he strongly
advised his absent chief to provide a moiety of the
capital necessary for the venture. Tree did not like
the idea at all, but a reluctant authority to Dana to
do what he thought best in the matter was at length
secured, and the play was produced.
Its cost sheet is of extreme interest. ;m<l compares
152 NEW LAMPS FOR OLD
remarkably with the figures to which many insane
speculators in scenic effect commit themselves.
There is a workmanlike injunction : " It is better to
measure twice than to cut once." The original out-
lay on the material of Chu Chin Chow, the figure put
to capital account ere the curtain rose on the first
performance, was little more than ,5000, and this,
it will be noted by experts, includes many items
that are apt to be shuffled to other accounts for the
bewilderment of befooled backers. Here they are :
Scenery Wages, material and paintings . ^1438 13 6
Properties Wages, materials and purchases . 334 13 5
Costumes Wages, materials and purchases . 1858 i 9
Electrics Wages, materials .... 50 6 4
Rehearsals Artists' salaries . . . . 116 9 6
Limelight and lighting . . 46 13 6
Orchestra 235 16 9
Chu Chin Chow thereafter represented an outlay
of 200 on each performance there have been
eight, nine and even ten in a week. Its income,
during the first three years of its run always ex-
ceeded 150,000 not to speak of such important
tributories as music publishing rights, gramophone
records, the eventual cinema, and provincial and
American rights.
There is no doubt " Freddie " Norton did much
to make the success of Chu Chin Chow ; and he is
very frank in his statement of what Chu Chin Chow
did for him. An insurance clerk at Manchester,
he came to London at twenty-four to study music.
Six months later he was disposed to throw up his
new career in despair though he had a friend no
less important than Paolo Tosti. He tried the opera
FREDDIE NORTON 153
chorus and the music halls. He became, with his
facility at the piano, and his aptitude at mimicry, one
of the most popular figures in Bohemia. When
Mr Courtice Pounds, who was in his youth the
ideal jeune premier of the Gilbert and Sullivan
operas, and in later life a Shakespearean clown that
Lamb might have loved, fell ill shortly after the pro-
duction of Chu Chin Chow, Mr Norton slipped into
the breach, and acquitted himself finely. He wrote
the music for Pinkie and the Fairies, which made a
little fortune but not for Freddie Norton. It took
twelve months of Chu Chin Chow to pay off the
debts accumulated during twenty of struggle but
now !
CHAPTER XXI
HORSE-PLAY
From Byron to Menken The Original Exponent
Gomersal's Napoleon Dickens and Astley's The Life of the
Circus Dick Turpin Claude Dtival
So completely is Mazeppa identified with Adah Isaacs
Menken in the popular imagination that the average
reader will probably be surprised to learn the play
was well known any time during thirty years before
her arrival in this country, in 1864. Byron's poem
was published in 1819. It was based upon a possibly
apocryphal story in Voltaire's History of Charles XII. ;
and it was adapted to the stage in 1831, for Ducrow,
by one of the accustomed hacks of the day, H. H.
Milner, in whose behalf an interesting apologia was
printed. Byron it admitted to be "a great and
original genius ; he has a depth of thought and a
force of expression that are truly admirable. In
aiming at too much conciseness he is often harsh
and obscure, while his artificial pauses, his rapid and
sometimes unnatural transitions give to his poetry
an air of pedantry and affectation. . . . The mass
of obscenity and profaneness which Lord Byron has
bequeathed to posterity is now become a question
between him and his Creator."
This impressive exercise in circus reclame ninety-
year-old, dear Charles B. Cochran of The Courier
CH AS MAZEPPAJONG orTARTARY '
ITCH : THK Okh. IN \; M \/i-:n A
"MAZEPPA" 155
proceeds, "Mazeppa has found his way to the stage
with the accompaniment of appropriate scenery,
alternately savage and splendid ; gorgeous proces-
sions, dresses and decorations ; gallant knights and
ladies fair; banquets, tournaments and real horses.
The story has been considerably varied and amplified
to bring these powerful auxiliaries into full play ; and
an imposing spectacle is the result." That one can
well believe. I have an ambition some day to tell
the story of the amazing Ducrow a century before
his time in the idea, the technique and the im-
agination of the metieur en scene. The original
Mazeppa, at the Royal Amphitheatre, Westminster,
was Cartlich, who was with the real Richardson show,
and to whom Richardson left a legacy, in recognition
of the zeal with which his " bould voice " had been
exercised in shouting outside the show. Gomersal
was the King of Tartary Gomersal who, pace
Coquelin, Irving, and " Teddy " Mosedale, must go
down in theatrical history as the Napoleon, par ex-
cellence, of the stage. You will find him immortal-
ised in the delicious Bon Gaultier Ballad x. Lord
tlereagh (in The Midnight Vision] is visited in
his dreams by Napoleon, suddenly returned from
St Helena, or from Elba. The Emperor, dis-
appearing as suddenly as he appeared, leaves behind
him a mysterious paper declaring, as lie says, his new
1 lid ing-place.
" With trembling hands Lord Castlereagh undid the mystic scroll,
With glassy eyes essayed to read for fear was in his soul ;
What's here? At Astley's every night the play of Moscow's fall.
Napoleon, for the thousandth night, by Mr Gomersal."
156 HORSE-PLAY
Mr Herring, the Drolinsko, was the famous clown,
Paul Herring.
It was Adah Isaacs Menken's distinction to be the
first female Mazeppa. She set a fashion, followed
by Amy Sheridan, a well-known burlesque actress
of the seventies ; and most recently, I think, by
Maud Forrester, who proceeded to the distinction of
riding as Godiva in the old style Coventry pageant.
There was a cry of horror from the newspapers
when Menken's appearance at Astley's, in 1864, was
announced. But I have my doubts as to its
sincerity, for E. T. Smith was a fine showman. One
critic broke out in verse :
" Lady Godiva's far outdone,
And Peeping Tom's an arrant duffer ;
Menken outstrips them both in one,
Astley's now the Opera Buffer."
Fashionable London soon swarmed down West-
minster Bridge Road.
Menken died wretchedly in Paris, in 1868, on the
fifth floor of a low lodging in the Rue de Bondy,
opposite the stage door of the Porte St Martin. She
had gone there, her career, as she was conscious,
making for its inevitable end ; the seeds of con-
sumption deeply rooted. Her life story, with its
mysteries, still possesses an extraordinary fascination
for connoisseurs in fantastic femininity. I find
nothing so mysterious. Her five or was it seven
husbands, ranging from the American humorist
to the Hebrew financier, whose name and faith she
adopted, and both retained, for she was not of Jewish
birth, to the prize-fighting " Benicia Boy," John C.
M
ADAH ISAACS MENKEN 157
Heenan, surely sum up one phase in her psychology
in a single word. She must have had extraordinary
fascination, for among her ardent admirers were
Dickens, Dumas, Swinburne, and pseudo-Parson
Bellew. She drank heavily of champagne and
brandy, and appeared at Astley's fewer times than
the public knew, being carefully understudied. Con-
troversy still breaks out from time to time as to
whether or no she wrote the little volume of passion-
ate poems that bears her name. Swinburne, almost
with his last breath, swore that he did not write
them, though some of them are nearly good enough
for him, and some are bad enough for anybody.
I have been assured, on authority, that Kate Santley,
whom I saw sunning herself on the front at Brighton
the other day, was in the cast with Menken. Her
name is not there ; and Miss Santley, when appealed
to, said her memory refused to carry her so far back.
James Fernandez, who subsequently joined the com-
pany, died lately ; and Ada Murray, often Menken's
understudy. Mr Victor Cook, an erect veteran who
spends hours in the saddle every day, well remembers
Menken, at Astley's, chiefly as an inveterate cigarette
smoker, an attendant following her everywhere with
a tray to capture the discarded ends. Fred Ginnett,
too, remembers Menken, whom his father took on
tour. She rode a fine white horse with a flowing
tail it is ,-i humorous fiction that the fiery, untamed
steed was a superannuated bus horse that would not
start until he heard two stamps on an imagined foot-
hoard. 1'Yed C.imu-tl has a more interesting memory.
He lias sat by the knee of his grandfather and heard
158 HORSEPLAY
the old man describe Waterloo, of which he always
maintained that an impartial referee would have
awarded the victory to the French! Anyhow, he
was taken prisoner and sent to England, where his
skill with horses led him to the circus, to settle in
England and found a famous family.
Next in popularity to Mazeppa came Dick Turpin,
founded, of course, on Ainsworth's novel. There
was an earlier Rookwood by George Dibdin Pitt,
at the Victoria. The circus " standard edition " was
by Milner, the author of Mazeppa, and was done at
Astley's in 1836. Turpin, of course, never rode to
York if the feat can be attributed to anyone, it is
to Charles II.'s protege, Nick Nevison. In fact, if
ever a brutal ruffian were idealised without a shadow
of excuse, it is the butcher who preferred to steal his
cattle, and became by turns a smuggler, house-breaker,
highwayman and horse-thief, being hanged in the
last-named capacity, and for no more romantic exploit.
On the stage we have had The King's Highway ; and
Mr R. A. Roberts's wonderful one man play.
An immense favourite as Dick Turpin was Jim
Holloway. A slender and refined-looking old gentle-
man, he lives in comfortable retirement in North
London, surrounded by memorials of the profession
that he loves, and trophies of world-wide travel, for
it is one of the charms of the circus artist's life that
each of the four corners of the earth is home to him.
The first Holloway was a Shakespearean actor, in the
days when the circus was of a disposition to invade
the London stage. Drury Lane, the Olympic, the
Lyceum, Covent Garden, the Alhambra have all in
THE LIFE OF THE CIRCUS 159
turn been circuses. Over the bridge, at Astley's,
they retaliated with big spectacular productions to
which the elder Holloway was introduced, having
meanwhile become an accomplished rider. It was
his ambition to adapt every play of Shakespeare to
the circus. He succeeded notably with Macbeth*
but most of all with Richard, in which he achieved
a run of a hundred and ten performances. Probably
Kean could not have made so proud a boast.
Astley's was founded by a military veteran, to
whom George 1 1 1. accorded the privilege of employing
his old charger in stage trickery. From this small
beginning Astley made fortune on fortune. He was
followed by Ducrow, a Belgian athlete ; in turn by
Hatty. They all became rich. The Cookes had just
appeared on the scene when James Holloway the first
was building up his reputation. One of the younger
Holloway 's first memories is of the reappearance of
Harry, the famous clown, who had long retired, and
become a prosperous publican in the neighbourhood.
He was tempted to put on his motley once more for
a benefit ; and the effort proved fatal. At any rate,
Harry fell ill, and died. Little did young Holloway
think that in the days to come he was himself to be-
come "England's most famous clown." Wallet was
Harry's great rival, and feeling ran very high between
tli< men. Wallet first called himself a ^Shake-
spearean" jester, abandoning the conventional clown
dress for one of gay satin, and wearing cap and bells.
1 1< . too, played Turpin, with a specially written poem
addressed to the dead Hlaek Bess. When Batty let
his (irctis to William Cooke he kept a jealous eye on
160 HORSE-PLAY
the performance, and especially on the rent, though
Cooke was a well-to-do man and a fastidious manager.
Batty came down in a great state, having heard that
a dyed Black Bess was in use. When the scandal
was disproved, he apologised with " I ought never to
have believed it of you, William."
Between his childhood at Astley's and his eventual
prosperity, James Holloway had some rough times.
At six he was apprenticed to a contortionist, who gave
him as an additional responsibility the charge of a
troupe of dogs, which occasionally had to be walked
from town to town. The active cruelty of this
wretch was not so distressing to the poor child as
habitual starvation was. Twice the little artist was
restored to his parents, and still they were constrained
to return him to a calling which, in spite of every
hardship, has been his life's love, and in which his
children and grandchildren have prospered too.
Astley's may be said to have instituted the matinee.
" I think, William," said old John Oxenford, of The
Times, to Mr Cooke, " that afternoon performances
will lower the place to the standard of a penny gaff',
and I'm going to attack them" which he did,
vigorously.
Dickens was a great patron of Astley's ; and often
tendered criticism and advice to the elder Cooke,
who reciprocated the friendship, and paid a visit to
Tavistock Place, to advise on a stage for private
theatricals. He arrived, as the Life tells us, "in
an open phaeton drawn by two white ponies, with
black dots all over them, evidently stencilled, who
came in at the gate with a little jolt and a rattle,
DICKENS'S CABMAN 161
exactly as they come into the ring, and went round
and round the centre bed of the front court, appar-
ently looking for the clown. A multitude of boys,
who felt them to be no common ponies, rushed up in
a breathless state twined themselves like ivy about
the railings, and were only deterred from storming
the enclosure by the glare of the Inimitable's eye.
Some of the boys had evidently followed from
Astley's."
Few experiences are more interesting to the lover
of London and of letters than the leaves of Dickens
memories that flutter unexpectedly to his feet. I was
conducting a distinguished American actor on a tour
of London, on one of the last of the horse buses, and in
Holborn indicated here and there a memorial. The
driver turned to confess that he was Dickens's regularly
accustomed cabman at Rochester. " A very generous
gentleman," was all that he recalled. A veteran who
but lately retired from the post of night porter at
the Temple was Dickens's office boy at All the Year
Round. The great man never spoke to him, " but
when he arrived on his regular visit to approve the
issue, my first order was ' Run for the ice, William/ It
was to cool the brandy and water he drank at lunch.
I remember seeing him in the Strand once, with
Mr Disraeli. They were both laughing at caricatures
of themselves in a shop window. I remember they
wore the first white ' billy-cock ' hats I had ever seen."
Widdicomb was the Sir Ranalpb Kookwood,
Carllirb the Luke Rookwood, a Mr W. Elliott the
l)i<-k Tin-pin, Mrs Tope, a great favourite at Asth \ s.
tin- Sybil, and Miss (toward (can this have been Mrs
162 HORSE-PLAY
Keeley ?) the Dolly Gudgeon, in the first Dick
Turpin. To this day Dick Turpin is a sure card for
any circus to play. Claude Duval comes in a bad
second. Mazeppa is forgotten.
Claude Duval provides the dramatist with much
interesting material though I doubt if there is
dependable authority for that pretty incident, de-
picted by Frith, of the coranto danced on the Heath.
Claude figures in Ainsworth's Talbot Harland, and
quickly found his way to the stages of the City
of London Theatre and the Marylebone, by the
hands of T. P. Taylor and Moncrieff. Burnand
made the " Highwayman for the Ladies " the subject
of a burlesque, done at the Royalty, with Miss Patty
Oliver, Miss Kate Bishop, Miss Charlotte Saunders,
Miss Nellie Bromley and Danvers in the cast.
Solomon and Stephens wrote a Duval opera ; and
not very long ago he had an ample representative
in Arthur Bourchier, at His Majesty's, in Mr Justin
Huntly McCarthy's Stand and Deliver. For years
Claude Duval was frequently played in Ginnett's
circus.
For at least a century the highwayman had
a definite, and not a despised, position in English
society. The three names which still appeal to the
imagination of the merely casual reader of criminal
record were not the fittest to survive those of
Turpin, of Jack Sheppard and of Claude Duval or
Du Vail who perhaps comes nearest the confines
of romance. There was a real gentleman highway-
man, Maclean, who is said but once to have fired
a shot in anger. His bullet went through the hat
HIGHWAYMEN 163
of Horace Walpole, to whom he indited a profuse
and polite apology. But the most interesting pursuers
of the high toby have left no more than a spur to
the imagination. It is certain that many a gallant
gentleman, his fortune broken, we are encouraged to
believe, in the service of King Charles, but just as
often, one suspects, by gaming and other passions,
took to the road and levied, without murderous
violence, a toll upon richer folk, maintaining the
while his place in the clubs, on the country-side and
even at Court.
To this class Claude Duval hardly belongs, though
Mr Justin Huntly McCarthy can cite authority for
making him a fascinating creature, with no con-
spicuously brutal act to his name. He came of
Norman peasantry. Domfort, the place of his birth,
had the name of breeding rascals. Its priest was
cited to the Archiepiscopal Court for refusing to
baptize any infant unless he should at the same time
receive a burial fee. He protested that otherwise he
could not live, for he was rarely called upon to bury
a parishioner, their habit being to get themselves
hanged at Rouen. Claude Duval pursued a vagabond
course to Paris, and in time got to England as the
valet or footman of the Duke of Richmond not, of
course, Madame Carwell's offspring, but the last
duke of the earlier creation, who returned to England
with Charles at the time of the Restoration, and
whose title was revived not long after his death,
according to that cynical King's deft fashion of
dukedoms. 1 1 is conceivable that Charles had some
knowledge of Duval. He certainly interested him-
164 HORSE-PLAY
self in the welfare of the knights of the road, to the
extent of warning them not to expect habitual escape
from the gallows.
Duval reached these shores in 1660, being then
but seventeen ; but his not unsympathetic biographer
said to be William Pope, whose quaint and extra-
moral story is preserved in the Harleian Miscellany
declares that " his natural inclination to vice soon
made him an extraordinary proficient in gaming and
drunkenness, by which ill-courses taking, he soon
fell into want of money to maintain his irregularities,
so addicting himself to padding (slang of the time
for highway robbery) he quickly became so famous
that in a proclamation for the taking several notorious
highwaymen, he had the honour to be named first.
" His robberies were many, among which we must
take notice how he with his squadron overtakes a
coach which they had set overnight, having intelli-
gence of a booty of 400 on it. In the coach was
a knight, his lady and a serving maid, who per-
ceiving five horsemen making up to them presently
imagined that they were beset, and they were
confirmed in this apprehension by seeing them
whisper to one another, and ride backwards. The
lady, to show she was not afraid, takes a flageolet
out of her pocket and plays. Duvall takes the hint,
plays also, and in this posture he rides up to the
coach side. ' Sir,' says he to the knight in the coach,
' your lady plays excellently, and I do not doubt but
that she dances as well. Will you please to walk
out of the coach and let me have the honour to dance
one courante with her, on the heath ? ' ' Sir,' said
CLAUDE DUVAL 165
the knight on the coach, ' I dare not deny anything
to one of your quality and good mien. You seem
a gentleman, and your request is very reasonable ' ;
which said, the footman opens the boot, out comes
the knight, Duvall leaps lightly from his horse and
hands the lady out of the coach.
" They danced ; and here it was that Duvall per-
formed marvels, the best masters in London except
those that are French not being able to show such
footing as he did in his great French riding boots.
The dancing being over, he waits on the lady to her
coach. As the knight was going in Duvall said to
him, * Sir, you have forgot to pay for the music.'
' No, I have not,' said the knight, and putting his
hand under the seat of the coach pulls out 100
in a bag and delivers it to him, which Duvall took
with a very good grace, and courteously answered,
' Sir, you are liberal and shall have no cause to repent
your being so. This liberality of yours shall excuse
you the other three hundred,' and giving him the
word that, if he met with any more of the crew he
might pass undisturbed, he civilly takes his leave
of him."
Some of Duval's exploits set forth by Pope seem
to have been prompted by a mad kind of humour.
But they were not destined to continue. Twenty-
seven saw him at Tyburn, in spite of the fact that
many noble dames sought to get him pardoned.
Stupid with drink, he was captured at an inn in
Chandos Street. "Well it was for the bailiff and
his men that he was drunk, otherwise they had
tasted of his prowess, for he had in his pocket three
166 HORSE-PLAY
pistols, one whereof would shoot twice, and by his
side an excellent sword, which managed by such a
hand and heart must, without doubt, have done
wonders. Nay, I have heard it attested by those
that knew how good a marksman he was, and his
excellent way of fencing, that, had he been sober, it
was impossible he could have killed less than ten.
" There was a great company of ladies and those
not of the meanest degree that visited him in prison,
interceded for his pardon and accompanied him to
the gallows ; a catalogue of whose names I have by
me, nay, even of those who, when they visited him,
durst not pull off their vizards, for fear of showing
their eyes swollen and their cheeks blubbered with
tears."
From Tyburn the body of the highwayman was
borne in a great procession to the Tangier Tavern
in Co vent Garden. Here it lay in state. Wax
tapers to the number of eight burned in the chamber,
which was hung with black. The bier, on which
scutcheons were displayed, was guarded by eight tall
gentlemen in long black cloaks. And the stream of
weeping women, from St James's to St Giles's, con-
tinued until a judge's order stopped the scandal. In
Covent Garden church you may read the epilogue :
" Here lyes Du Vail : Reader, if male thou art,
Look to thy purse; if female to thy heart.
Much havoc hath he made of both ; for all
Men he made stand, and women he made fall,
The second conqueror of the Norman race.
Knights to his arms did yield, and ladies to his face,
Old Tyburn's glory, England's illustrious thief,
Du Vail the ladies' joy, Du Vail the ladies' grief."
CLAUDE DUVAL 167
Probably these lines are more dependable than the
"last dying speech and confession " said to have been
found on Duval's body, which he did not deliver.
It professes penitence and the Catholic faith, and
ends with a coarse exultation in his gallantries.
CHAPTER XXII
"THE MIRACLE"
How the Great Spectacle was evolved Reinhardt Statistics of the
Production Its Costs, its Expenses and its Receipts Some Person-
alities A Failure, then a Harmsworth Boom And its Secret
STRANGE as it may seem, that most stupendous
spectacle of modern times, The Miracle, had its inspir-
ation from the circus. Mr Charles B. Cochran, born
in his sedate, middle-class home, one would think
with the scent of the sawdust in his nostrils, thought
he saw the secret of the circus in the intimacy with
its audience of the entertainment. There they sat on
terms such as the Elizabethan playgoer enjoyed with
Shakespeare and his inn-yard comrades an integral
part of the whole. Mr Cochran saw Kiralfy's
Constantinople at Olympia, and was at once
ambitious to outdo it, visualising a cathedral, whose
" long-drawn aisle and fretted vault " should hide
the common structure of the vast hall, the crowded
congregation watching a pageant of Medievalism.
He saw Reinhardt's production of (Edipus Rex at
the Circus Schumann. Then and there for the first
time he had actual experience of the audience in the
circumstances of his younger imagination. The
people seemed vital to the matter in hand not so
when the same thing was attempted at Covent
Garden. The intimacy of the circus method was
168
REINHARDT 169
changed into the detachment of the theatre. It
was as though the audience sat in accustomed rows,
and watched a performance on the stage! The
atmosphere desired was not created.
But Reinhardt, Mr Cochran felt, was the man
to change Olympia into a cathedral ; to fill it with
the mingled life of to-day and of old time. To
Reinhardt then, located with his company in
Budapest, Mr Cochran repaired, and unfolded his
scheme.
Consternation is the only word for the effect of
the plans of Olympia on the great metteur en scene.
He declared that the project was infinitely beyond
him. But Mr Cochran persisted, and, after an all-night
sitting in a cafe, Reinhardt was induced to interest
himself in the scheme. He gave the visitor from
England an introduction to Dr Carl Volmoeller, his
chief lieutenant, in Berlin, and after a long talk with
him the scenario of The Miracle was roughly sketched.
The Baruchs, theatrical costumiers and scenic artists,
offered to find the necessary capital, but eventually
their offer was declined.
On his return to London, Mr Cochran, holding an
option on Olympia for the Christmas season, talked
freely of his scheme with Mr Frederick Payne,
managing director of the company owning Olympia ;
and Mr Payne asked that he and his confreres should
have the opportunity of coming in, other than as
landlords. So a subsidiary company was formed to
find working expenses, in consideration of half the
profits: the other half of the profits being allotted
to Mr Payne and Mr Cochran. Roughly speaking,
170 "THE MIRACLE"
32,000 was spent on the production. It would cost
80,000 or more to-day, so very large has been the
increase in the cost of all scenic material and theatrical
labour.
Reinhardt was a Viennese, thirty-eight years of
age when he undertook The Miracle. He began his
theatrical career at the bottom of the ladder, as a
" super," in his teens. He became a regular actor,
and, at thirty, the director of the Kleines Theatre,
Berlin. He had the ideal of the Meiningen company,
which, at Drury Lane, in 1881, did so much to
stimulate the imagination of the English metteur en
scene. But, in fact, stage decoration in Germany
was primitive and conventional too.
With Oscar Wilde's Salome Reinhardt created his
first great impression. In time he proceeded to
Shakespeare, notably The Merry Wives of Windsor
and A Midsummer Night's Dream. He did Oscar
Wilde's Florentine, and Bernard Shaw's Ccesar and
Cleopatra. It was in Kammerspiel that he first
merged the auditorium with the stage. Goethe's
Faust stood as his masterpiece ere he was interested
in The Miracle.
The estimate for the production and for its expenses
during an eight weeks' run amounted to 70,000.
Some of the principal items were : costumes, 12,500 ;
scenery and properties, 8000 ; movable mountain,
800 ; iron framework for the cathedral doors, 1250 ;
electric installation apparatus, 3000 ; electric wiring
and fixing, 1500 ; use of the organ, 1000 ; artists
salaries per week, including principals, 800 ; chorus
of five hundred, 1200 ; one thousand minor players,
II. ( -. MlKl.l.l: I
"MIRACLE" STATISTICS 171
1725; orchestra of two hundred, 950; boys and
girls. CM. 5: girl dancers, 175; approximately,
10,000.
Mr Payne was put in control of all the financial
detail. Mr Cochran's responsibility was the pro-
duction and eventual management. He made all the
engagements organised singers, actors, musicians
and animals. From John Sanger's Circus came
twenty-five horses. In Hungerford Market thirty
dogs were picked up selected for their weird appear-
ance, to give a mediaeval touch. Constant journeys
to and from Berlin were necessary there all the
costumes and accessories were prepared by Baruchs,
under the direction of Ernst Stern (born in
Bukarest), Reinhardt's art director.
Cologne Cathedral was taken as the basis of the
decoration ; and plans were made for rich decorative
effects for Gothic arches in plaster along the sides
of the building, for Gothic pillars running up into
obscurity, for stained-glass windows at the back of
the people and over their heads, and for rose
windows at each end of the building, one over the
chancel, and the other over the great doors that
opened and disclosed a view of the Rhineland and
its mountains and crests.
Lighting played a most important part in Stern 's
scheme for producing effects. Ten miles of cable
were required for the special electric installation.
Across the whole length of the building a great
light ing bridge had to be constructed, with three
islands of lights, each containing forty searchlights,
and each light having its separate set of cables.
172 "THE MIRACLE"
Hundreds of lights were required also to illuminate
each of the cathedral windows ; and again separate
cables had to be carried to a great height for the
purpose. For lighting the horizon of the scenes,
and providing for all the necessary gradations of
light, so that night should differ from morning, and
summer from winter, there was a further requirement
of cables and innumerable batteries.
Who can forget the impression made by Maria
Carmi as the Madonna ? In private life she was
Fran Karl Volmoeller. She had never acted before.
Reinhardt, Volmoeller, Stern, Gersdorff and Mr
Cochran were discussing possible Madonnas, at the
Deutsches Theatre, when Frau Volmoeller called
for her husband. Mr Cochran was presented to her ;
and when she left said to Reinhardt :
"There's the Madonna."
" Cochran's right," said Reinhardt ; and the sugges-
tion was adopted. Frau Volmoeller was Italian the
daughter of a pastry-cook in Florence.
" How shall I bill your wife ? " said Mr Cochran
to Volmoeller, who produced two lists, one of Italian
Christian names, and one a list of towns and villages
in Italy. Mr Cochran picked Maria from one,
Carmi from the other.
Humperdinck was already well known here, in the
instances of Hansel and Gretel and The Children of
the King, with its witch and its gingerbread house.
He came of a family of musicians, and was for many
years the protege and friend of Wagner, whom he
helped greatly with Parsifal. Humperdinck had
the cultured German's adoration of Shakespeare, and
A HARMSWORTH BOOM 173
wrote scores for The Tempest, A Winter's Tale, The
Merchant of Venice and As You Like It.
The nun, whose lapse, toward the persuasion of an
ungallant knight, and tragical fate formed the basis
of the story, was Madame Trouhauowa, who for two
years had been the principal mime and danseuse at
the Opera in Paris. Then there was the fantastic
Spielman, or Master of the Revels, Max Pallenberg,
a Viennese comedian with an essential mood of
tragedy.
On the first night The Miracle drew a vast crowd,
which received it with enthusiasm. But it soon
became apparent that the probable receipts, during
the necessarily limited season, would not be likely
to recoup the initial outlay and meet the heavy
current expenses. In plain figures, the receipts were
about five thousand a week, and the expenses were
about five thousand a week so the capital outlay
lay dead, and ready to be written off, for theatrical
property sells badly. An early visitor was W. T.
Stead, who was much impressed. He said frankly
to the anxious impresario: "Shall I praise you, or
shall I attack you ? When I was lecturing, I found
that the sure 'call' to a second-night audience was
an attack. In fact, I used to carry my own * heckler.' '
* I chose the attack," said Mr Cochran ; " but it did
no good." He got Mr Ranger Gull, the " Guy
Thorne " of When it was Dark, to write a pamphlet,
which was widely circulated. Still, no good.
business increased, but so slowly. Then a wonder-
ful tlmiu- happened. The Harmsworth, now the
Northclitte, Press look up The Miracle, urged its
174 "THE MIRACLE"
merits on the public in season and out of season,
and saved the situation. How this was managed
was not a miracle but a mystery to the public.
Here is the simple explanation : Miss Owen, Lord
Northcliffe's secretary, was present at the first per-
formance and reported well. Then came Lady
Harmsworth, with a party, including Mr Beach
Thomas. She was delighted, distressed by the
paucity of the audience, and reported to Sir Alfred
on his later return to town, having meanwhile seen
The Miracle again and again. She brought Sir
Alfred, and within half-an-hour of his leaving the
building came a telephone call to Mr Cochran to
repair to Carmelite House. Then began the boom.
Mr Cochran was enjoined to give the reporters
every facility and all the information that could
help them. Mr Hamilton Fyfe, from frequent
attendance at the rehearsals, was already primed.
He began with an article declaring it to be a public
scandal that so beautiful a spectacle did not fill the
largest hall in London. It was "a public disgrace."
The tide of enthusiasm o'erflowed for Sir Alfred
Harmsworth brought in his old colleague and friend,
Mr J. L. Garvin, and The Pall Mall Gazette. Day
after day articles and statistics appeared. Olympia
was filled every afternoon and evening, and the
situation was saved. Sir Alfred Harmsworth made
one characteristic condition. All his papers were
forbidden to receive from Mr Cochran any displayed
advertisement nothing but the common !
Had it been possible to continue the run of The
Miracle it would, no doubt, have been a financial
SECRET OF SUCCESS 175
success. The eventual cost just doubled the estimate.
And, indeed, much that appeared in the estimates
was experimental, and eventually useless. The
girder supporting the cathedral doors, 120 feet wide,
alone cost 1100. But the largest sum was ex-
pended on the centre trap, and the flame effect,
which might have been dispensed with.
Mr Cochran still propounds the belief that the
success of The Miracle was his original inspiration
the quiet grandeur of the Cathedral scene.
CHAPTER XXIII
"THE ARCADIANS"
Comic Opera in English Robert Courtneidge's Career The
Arcadians Always Merry and Bright London Catchwords
THERE is always a disposition to belittle English
music ; to charge the public with supporting Offen-
bach, Lecocq, Planquette, Audran ; with giving a due
share to Sullivan, and, otherwise, turning a deaf ear
to any Orpheus. As a matter of fact, there has been
a market for English music in the theatre any time
these fifty years a demand; and a certain supply.
That erratic genius, Edward Solomon, who began
life as a pianist at the Middlesex Music Hall, and
had an odd way of spending every few pounds he
earned on a marriage licence or an elopement, did
well enough with Billee Taylor, and might have
done better. Cellier put half-a-dozen successes to
his name other than Dorothy. Frederick Clay was
capable of fine work, and would have done it had he
lived. I suppose we may call Ivan Gary 11 English
the youthful Dutchman, Tilkins, came here in very
early youth, and it is quite thirty years since his
first comic opera, The Lily of Leoville, was done.
John Crook has been too content with incidental
music. I think The Lady Slavey represents his
largest work in the public eye. Osmond Carr did
176
ROBERT COURTNEIDGE'S CAREER 177
not go forward as one had hoped he would from /;/
Town. Sydney Jones certainly vindicated English
music with ./ Gaiety Girl, An Artist's Model, The
Geishd, * I Greek Slave and San Toy. Howard Talbot
and Lionel Monckton bring us to date.
I am inclined to regard Robert Courtneidge as one
of the finest influences on musical comedy. George
Edwardes had his particular inspiration, method and
moral. Courtneidge is an odd mixture of an actor
and an idealist. He played pantomime dames for
forty pounds a week, when he wanted to play Hamlet
for the love of God. Not always forty pounds a
week ! A Scotch boy, with the glimmering of an
Auld Licht guiding him still, he ran away to join
a theatrical company, and paid for it with every
vicissitude the stroller can know. He " padded the
hard hoof" from town to town, pausing in inns to
earn a crust, if he might, with his recitations.
Mr Courtneidge often recalls an incident of his first
iy in management, with the late Joe Burgess. It
was a perishing night at Oldham. A spy saw through
the curtain an audience of three. It was decided
after discussion to invite them behind the scenes,
where the party sat by the fire and drank mulled ale
till the storm abated, and then all, in a solemn pro-
c < ssion, made homeward together. Probably the
greatest contrast in Courtneidge's career has Man-
Chester for its background. For a long time he was
managing director of the Prince's Theatre and the
historic Theatre Koyal, the scene of Charles ( 'a 1 vert's
exploits in Shakespearean production, the birthplace,
if ever all the truth be told, of Henry Irving's
178 THE ARCADIANS"
ambition, the first breath of the renascent English
drama. At Manchester Mr Courtneidge produced
a Cinderella pantomime of which the purity and
elegance became a world's talk. It came to London,
to the Adelphi. It is touring still. And Mr
Courtneidge 's first employment in Manchester was
to help in rolling up a carpet, for a shilling a night.
You can see the tide-marks of these emotions and
experiences in the man of to-day. The face is lined,
the eyes are keen, the judgment is swift, often hard,
always, in intention, earnestly just. The heart behind
is kind. As a manager Mr Courtneidge is something
of a martinet. He is the one man I have ever
met in whose conversation Shakespearean quotation,
better still Shakespearean phrase, comes naturally.
He has an old-fashioned notion that an actor should
be able to dance, and fence, and speak English with
some knowledge of intonation. But his eye is never
off the humblest members of his companies. The
smallest excellence means advancement. In the
reticule of every Courtneidge chorus girl is the
contract of the prima donna.
For Mr George Edwardes, Mr Courtneidge pro-
duced Madame Sans Gene. It had been the dream
of Florence St John's life to play this part ; but she
was a little passee, and wept her heart out when she
heard the news. I often wonder if there are in life
more poignant tragedies than such a moment in the
life of a popular favourite contains ! Poor Lycele.
" Now neither Coan purples nor sparkling jewels
restore those years which winged time has inserted
in the public annals. " The part was given to brilliant
THE PROBLEM 179
Evie Green and that rare and effulgent song-bird
faded still more quickly. On his own account Mr
Courtneidge adventured Tom Jones, The Dairy-
maids and The Blue Moon. Then with his colleagues
he secured a lease of the Shaftesbury, and tentatively
selected a play. Came along Mr Mark Ambient,
with a rough idea of The Arcadians, and some scenes
sketched. It was selected, but the work of comple-
tion was slow. Mr Robert Courtneidge, the avowed
collaborator in many pantomimes and musicial
comedies, at length addressed himself to The
Arcadians. He called in Mr A. M. Thompson,
now so supreme a writer on labour and social
economy that he might be forgiven if he forgot
the days when he alternated the reporting of cricket
matches and dramatic criticism for a Manchester
paper, growing up to the libretto of a local panto-
mime, and then to the books of Tom Jones and
The Dairymaids.
Up to the very eve of the production, the third
act baffled the authors. Mr Courtneidge, called to
Brighton, cogitated till he lost his train, and walked
uj) and down Victoria platform, cudgelling his brain.
When he secured a carriage, its only other occupant
was a young officer, who stared at the distraught
manager, but complacently fell asleep and snored.
Suddenly the solution of the problem came. Mr
Courtneidge sprang to his feet with a cry, feeling
n< rvously in one pocket for a non-existent pencil
to scribble notes, in the other for a match to light his
dead cigar, finally deciding not to wake the sleeper,
and steaming contentedly into Brighton, whence
180 "THE ARCADIANS"
he promptly telephoned to town two words that
contented many minds : " Got it ! "
An immensely important factor in The Arcadians
was the contrast of his two comedians, Dan Rolyat,
all spontaneous vivacity, irresponsibility, humour,
and the lugubrious Lester as Doody the Jockey.
Here is his inception :
" No man," writes Edward Spencer, " ever employed
more heroic measures to keep down his weight than
did the late Frederick Archer. I once accompanied
him from a race meeting to a well-known training
establishment in Berkshire, where the jockey was due
to ride in a trial on the following morning. Our
host had a reputation for doing his guests well in
the way of creature comforts ; and the dining-table
was already spread with snowy napery and solid, old-
fashioned silver, with, in the centre, a race-cup filled
with choice hothouse blooms. From the kitchen in
the distance was wafted the perfume of savoury
meats, and we had no sooner changed our clothes
and descended than a sturdy, rosy-cheeked man-
servant (who looked like a stableman who had put
on flesh) made his appearance, his back bending
under the weight of a great Tay salmon on a lordly
dish. Poor Archer's face, as he surveyed the initial
preparations for the evening meal, was quite piteous
to watch. Then, with a shrug of the shoulders
and a sigh, but ill concealed by a cynical remark,
he left us, and shortly afterwards we saw him
pass the window on a hack, galloping towards
the training - grounds. Later on he partook of
a tiny glass of champagne, and a water biscuit,
LONDON CATCHWORDS 181
played one game of billiards, and retired to his
couch."
Doody was, in truth, Mr Alec Thompson's very
personal contribution to the scheme ; and the greatest
difficulty was experienced in getting Lester to gr;isp
its humour. Trained to the stage from childhood^
he was one of the countless thousands of Willies in
I-'. <ist Lynne he ran the gamut of the provincial
actor, and finally decided that his ambition, if not
his metier, was to become a light comedian.
Always Merry and Bright was a song which the
doleful Lester sang with great effect. It came from
the facile pen of Mr Arthur Wimperis ; but the
phrase was that of Mr Alec Thompson. It became
a I .ondon catch-phrase I think it was the last. The
last word in the popularity of such a phrase is when
the street urchin, addressing nobody, apropos of
nothing, ecstatically hurls it to the skies. I think
the first was, " There he goes with his arm in a sling,"
alternatively "with his eye out." That was a slur
on the earliest volunteers. Then came " What a
shocking bad hat" and "Does your mother know
you're out." " Not for Joe " was the cheery negative
of a London busman, which Arthur Lloyd annexed
lor a song title and made immortal. Miss Marie Lloyd
claims the defiant "Let 'em all come." Whether
the phrase suggested the song, or the song suggested
the phrase, deponent sayeth not, but serio-comic
singers quarrelled in the hospitable columns of Tin-
Era as to who originated " There's 'air." "Git your
hair cut" was the injunction of the gallery boys at
the Royal music hall to a long oil-haired official of
182 "THE ARCADIANS"
the house whose duty it was to change the proscenium
numbers. The modern "Not 'arf" and "It's a
rumour " were mere colloquialisms.
For two and a half years The Arcadians drew
crowds to the Shaftesbury, from 28th April 1909
onwards. For ten years it has toured the provinces
sans cesse, and looks as though it might continue
its comfortable rounds twenty years more. Not to
publish a balance sheet, it may be said that the
Shaftesbury then took up to 220 a performance ;
and in those days more than one afternoon perform-
ance a week was almost unknown. The Arcadians
cost 8000 to produce, neither a meagre nor a
foolishly extravagant outlay. Probably Sans Gene,
which cost 15,000 to produce, then held the record.
But a consideration of the company, and the
salaries paid, is most interesting. It is not derogatory
to the artists to say that not one of them was a well-
known London star though many of them now
enjoy that distinction, and the salary pertaining.
Most of them were, in fact, artists who, by their
successes in his pantomimes, had attracted the notice
of Mr Courtneidge. Their salaries ran, at the outset :
Mr Rolyat, 50; Miss Phyllis Dare, 45 ; Mr Nelson
Keys, 5; Mr Harry Welchman, 10; Miss Smithson,
30; Mr Lester, 35. In the chorus at 2 were
Marie Blanche and Cicely Debenham. What would
not a manager give if he could get one of them for
the aggregate? And yet the reflection constantly
recurs there are fish in the sea as good as ever
came out of it. Why don't our managers take to
fishing ?
CHAPTER XXIV
"THE MERRY WIDOW "
Two Struggles for Life George Edwardes's Reluctance to Deal Danilo
detests his Part Box and Cox Authors Edwardes as a Gambler
Run of Two Years Audiences and Earnings A World-wide
Popularity
A DESPERATE struggle for life is the common experi-
ence of uncommonly successful plays ; but never was
struggle so desperate, so oft renewed, so uncertain
on the very eve of victory as that of The Merry
Widow. In the event madam made fortunes for
many men, changed the course of theatrical enter-
prise in England for years, and wandered o'er the
earth to find in its four corners a welcome. At
one time there were concurrent performances in
thirteen languages. China, Siberia and Hindustan
figured in the itinerary of The Merry Widow. She
recently, after a long interval, took to the road
again. And the name of Austria is never mentioned
to her !
That the maiden effort, save for a few classical
exercises of the young ex-bandmaster of an Austrian
in tan try regiment, Franz Lehar, should be slow to
find acceptance is comprehensible. But that eighteen
months should elapse after her sensational capture of
the Viennese imagination ere The Merry Widow vas
int induced to London caused the andienee assembled
'83
184 "THE MERRY WIDOW
in Daly's Theatre on 8th June 1907 to pause in its
raptures and wonder greatly. The explanation in
two words, the temperament and method of George
Edwardes may herein be found.
Lehar's music, and perhaps his handsome face,
fascinated the daughter of the director of the Theatre
an Wien. In season and out of season she insinuated
Die Lustige Witwe to her father. He would have
none of the dame, till, at a sudden loss for a tempor-
ary attraction, he agreed to give her a chance. On
30th December 1905, then, Die Lustige Witwe, with
a book taken from the French by Victor Leon, and
Leo Stern, was produced for a possible run of
two weeks, with makeshift scenery, and any old
costumes the wardrobe contained. The serious
adventure contemplated for the season had mean-
while been settled, and its rehearsal was called for
the Monday ensuing to the production of Die
Lustige Witwe on Saturday. It was indefinitely
postponed, for the stop-gap opera ran, not two
weeks, but into a second year.
Its success was reported to Edwardes, but he was
not impressed, and obstinately refused to consider
the matter just as years before he declined several
offers of The Belle of New York, the last at the
bargain price of 300 "all in." He never ceased to
revile The Belle as vulgar rubbish.
At last Edwardes grudgingly gave his metteur en
scene, " Pat " Malone, permission to visit Vienna and
inform himself of the quality of Die Lustige Witwe.
Malone returned full of enthusiasm ; and Edwardes
secured the opera for 1000, in behalf of the Gaiety
EDWARDES'S RELUCTANCE TO DEAL 185
Company, in spite of the assurance that it was not
a Gaiety piece at all, but a Daly piece. There is
a subtle difference of environment which it is hard
for the layman to appreciate. The wrong theatre
accounts for many a failure. As a matter of fact,
when The Merry Widow was eventually produced
at Daly's the formality of repurchasing the opera
from the Gaiety Company had not been completed,
and at one moment trouble threatened on that
account.
Edwardes made it a condition in dealing for
Die Lustige Wiiwe that the original exponent of
the part, Mizzi Miller, should be included. He had
not taken the precaution of viewing mademoiselle,
and the position was that of Henry VIII. and Anne
of Cleves. He weighed her in his mind's eye and
sent her home. For she was virtuous but homely.
She had the voice of an angel, but no waist. None
the less, she had a good case at law, which she
sturdily maintained and won. This, it will presently
appear, was not the only heavy expense The Merry
\ I i (low had to carry.
When the piece was cast for Daly's, Edwardes
laughed to scorn the suggestion that Miss Lily
Elsie should play Sonia. He did not "see her"
in the part at all ! Miss Elsie was, of course,
already an actress of distinction. She had left her
first great London success in . /. Chinese Honeymoon
several years behind, and indeed had done good
work for Edwardes himself in the meanwhile. To
Mr George (.raves for Popoff he cordially agreed-
Mr (; raves was eventually succeeded by Mr .1. F.
186 "THE MERRY WIDOW
M'Ardle. But he was not specially keen on Mr Joe
Coyne for Danilo. Coyne himself detested the part
on sight, and refused to play it. He had made but
two appearances in London then at the Duke
of York's Theatre in 1901 with Miss Edna May, in
The Girl from Up There ; and, after a long interval,
at the Aldwych Theatre, again with Miss Edna May,
in Nelly Neil. As to Danilo, he protested that he
was a funny man, not a romantic lover, and that he
could not sing. He succumbed to salary, and most
of the songs were, for his relief, entrusted to other
artists. When the run came to an end, Coyne
professed delight, and the determination never to
appear again as the hero of romance.
As to the adaptation, there was a regular schemozzel
nothing but the Jewish phrase seems to express the
situation. Without consulting any of his colleagues,
Edwardes entrusted the work to a gentleman who
had certainly a musical comedy success of some note
to his name, but who contrived to produce a book
which Mr Malone promptly declared to have eluded
the spirit of Die Lustige Witwe so effectually that
he, on his part, declined to attempt its "production."
Challenged to find a better adapter, he nominated
Captain Basil Hood, with whom he returned to
Vienna, and within a few weeks that deft and
fanciful writer produced the version which was
eventually employed and which was viewed with
complete surprise by adapter number one on the
first night. For Edwardes had shirked the un-
pleasant duty of explaining the situation to him,
and ingeniously excluded him from rehearsals. To
mollify an importunate chorus girl with a sealskin coat
EDWARDES AS A GAMBLER 187
was one thing ; to face a humiliated and righteously
angry author was another. He paid a high price,
however, for his hesitancy. Legal proceedings were
begun, and the easy compromise which might have
been effected at an earlier stage was repudiated. In
the event, both authors had to be paid ; and each
accumulated a comfortable fortune. Both are dead ;
but their estates are still increased from the Widow 9 s
cruse.
What money must have trickled through George
Kdwardes's fingers. Four plays ran, altogether, ten
years at Daly's Theatre The Geisha, San Toy,
A Country Girl and The Merry Widow each with
upwards of seven hundred performances to its credit.
But a man who bets in thousands and plays cards
on an equally heroic scale is apt to know money
troubles ; and, not to put too fine a point on it,
Edwardes was frightfully hard up when he produced
The Merry Widow.
Here is a card-playing adventure illuminative of
his character. Dining with a friend at his favourite
grill, he readily accepted the invitation of a well-
known actor with him, as the lawyers say, a
clerical-looking person to join in a game upstairs.
Edwardes and his friend lost in thousands, and
departed with the certainty that they had been
swindled, but unwilling to take any steps that might
lead to scandal moreover, the business relations
between the manager and the actor who organised
the party were intimate and delicate. Years later
K(hvar<k-s amazed friends sitting with him in the
stalls of the Palace Theatre by a sudden and vigorous
188 "THE MERRY WIDOW
expression of anger. He recognised, or thought he
recognised, in a conjurer on the stage his clerical-
looking opponent at cards.
And one more instance this time of a casual
business method. That engaging rascal, Mike Leven-
ston, on his return from a tour of South Africa
presented a petty cash account for 1000. " How
do you arrive at such a figure ? " queried Edwardes
weakly, prompted by the accountant. " Oh," said
Levenston, "I've just put down what I thought of! "
" You'd better take it away and supply details," said
Edwardes. " Why, certainly," said Mike ; " but I
shall keep on thinking." The discussion was ended
with the cheque.
No fewer than seven hundred and seventy-eight
performances were placed to the record of The Merry
Widow at Daly's. Few functions in the memory of the
playgoer compare with that of the last, on Saturday,
31st July 1909. In the queue one lady boasted of
having seen The Merry Widow one hundred and
twelve times, and she had close competitors.
Miss Lily Elsie, the first Sonia, returned, to be the
last. Meanwhile there had been six Miss Constance
Drever, who "created" the role in Paris, Miss
Gertrude Lester, Miss Clara Evelyn, Miss Emmy
Wehlen and Miss Gertrude Glyn. The receipts
for two years were little short of 250,000. Probably
the opera was seen by upwards of a million people.
In New York the story was repeated. The Merry
Widow ran a year at the New Amsterdam Theatre,
and took a million dollars. Figures published about
the time of the second anniversary at Daly's spoke
A WORLD WIDE POPULARITY 189
of 40,000 then paid to Lehar in fees ; of 70,000
made by the Viennese publishers of the music ; of a
three million sale of the unforgettable waltz. Of
course these figures are long ago out of sight. But
many things conspire to prevent one getting out a
more accurate statement.
There is no creature so gregarious as your London
manager. To a man he went to the Continent
in search of Merry Widows. Edwardes was so
fortunate as to secure in immediate succession to
The Merri/ Widow, The Dollar Princess, which had
put 100,000 into the pocket of another poor
concert master, Leo Fall. Then came in succession
The Waltz Dream, The Count of Luxembourg and
The Marriage Market. The English composer found
the remnant of his occupation gone. Thousands
of pounds of English money lay in Germany and
Austria deposited on opera options when the war
broke out. That Edwardes should, in effect, get
his death-blow as a prisoner of war in Austria was
the grimness of satire.
CHAPTER XXV
KATE VAUGHAN
Death in South Africa Drury Lane Pantomime Early Days at the
Grecian Little Em'ly Old Style Burlesque The Sisters Vaughan
At the Gaiety Old English Comedy
KATE VAUGHAN sleeps in an African grave a
thousand miles away. That the pathetic butterfly
should flutter so far to die ! Delicate always, and
careless often, the once worshipped artist found life
very hard towards its close. She hoped to renew
health and fortune in the colony a twofold, tragical
failure ! It is a strange coincidence that on the
night of her death, Saturday, 21st February 1903,
in Johannesburg, London was delightedly applaud-
ing her counterfeit presentment at the Gaiety, when
and where George Edwardes produced a revue
of its historic successes, The Linkman entitled.
Twenty years almost exactly had elapsed since
Kate Vaughan's last appearance there, in 1883;
thirty years since her first appearance there, in 1873 ;
fifty years or thereabouts since her birth.
I saw her described the other day as " a great
English dancer." Doubtless the greatest this coun-
try has produced; but I imagine she would have
preferred the style of actress, for that way her
ambition tended, and she often protested that her
earlier fame prevented that which she more desired.
190
DRURY LANE PANTOMIME 191
The critics of her histrionic endeavour were not, in
fact, encouraging, when she was supposed to make
her debut as Amy Robsart, shortly after her de-
parture from the Gaiety proceeding to what is
called old English comedy, to which she devoted
nearly all the twenty years ensuing. Old Farren,
on his part, flatly declared she was the best Lady
Teazle of his experience. She gave, indeed, an
exquisite performance, with all the graces of her
earlier acquired art and the fine manner of the good
society with which for many years she was in
contact.
But Kate Vaughan had played many parts in
drama before the Amy Robsart matinee, and
Farren's laudation was anticipated by old BJan-
( hard of The Daily Telegraph. In the 1875 panto-
mime at Drury Lane Beauty and the Beast Kate
Vaughan was the Beauty, Zenora, of whom he wrote :
' Those who beheld the charming personage intro-
duced by Miss Kate Vaughan had no misgivings as
to the bright fate in store for her. The audience
must have felt a flutter of surprise when they found
one chiefly known as an accomplished dancer ex-
hibit ing all the quality of an arch and refined
burlesque actress; and her rendering of her first
song, immediately encored with great heartiness,
secured for her the warmest appreciation of IK T
newly developed power."
Kate Vaughan 's dancing always had a character-
is! i<- and incomparable charm. It is possible she
was of Scandinavian descent, like a dozen other
great dancers. Candelin pere that was the family
192 KATE VAUGHAN
name always maintained a claim to vast, afforested
tracts of Sweden. Meanwhile his circumstances
were humble. He was a musician employed at the
Grecian Theatre, City Road, and there apprenticed
his little daughter as a dancer to old Mrs Conquest,
the wife of the proprietor and manager. It was a
hard but a fine school, whose pupils played many
parts in the widely varied entertainment. The old
lady, in her day a famous dancer, had grown very
fat and, sitting comfortably in her arm-chair, im-
parted the steps by nimbly moving her fingers on her
knees. Among her pupils were Therese Cushnle,
Johnny Milano, Dentin, Flexmore and the Leclerqs.
Little Kate, delicate always, was excused the ex-
treme rigours of the Italian school, and perhaps that
saved her natural grace and charm, for the system
is apt to secure supreme technique at a cost of
spontaneity and even dulled intelligence. Oft, no
doubt, the dancer, passing to and fro, heard the
strains of
" Up and down the City Road,
In and out the Eagle,
That's the way the money goes !
Pop goes the Weasel."
Gone is the Grecian ; gone the Eagle ; silent the
song, though antiquarians wrangle still as to its
meaning.
Rouse, known as " Brayvo " Rouse from the
encouraging cry of his audiences, developed the
Eagle Tavern and the Grecian Saloon, with many
minor pleasances of a dancing lawn and amiable
arbour, from an eighteenth-century tea-garden.
LITTLE EM'LY 193
He was a bricklayer, but became at any rate the
architect of his own fortune, for his premature
White City flourished greatly from 1822 till 1851,
when he sold it to Benjamin Oliver, who, rising from
the condition of a bootmaker or of a coachbuilder
the authorities furiously rage together to that of a
popular comedian, added the name of Conquest,
married the dancer aforesaid and founded a stage
family luxuriant in its branches.
Rouse purveyed a wonderful entertainment. He
was an early patron of Flexmore and the " great
little " Robson. He produced the classic operas and
oratorios, and, not intentionally of course, got the
valuable advertisement of a fatal balloon ascent.
There was an annual loss of 2000 on the moderately
scaled gate-money. But your pleasure-seeker of
those days was a thirsty soul, and what Rouse lost
on the roundabouts he made on the swigs in plain
English, the Eagle Tavern and the refreshment
booths achieved a net profit of 3000 a year.
As Kate Candelin, Kate Vaughan took part in
the dramatic performances in the Grecian. She
was the Little Em'ly in an American adaptation of
David Copperfield. She played Little Nell. George
Conquest actor, acrobat, author and stage mechanic,
so long the entrepreneur of the Surrey played Peg-
gotty, but he was soon replaced by Gilbert Hastings
Mac <!( Tinott, not yet the " great " and still a stranger
to tin- halls." A little later Miss Candelin appeared
as Mary Kindly in Flowers and Weeds of Erin, by
Macdermott, whose real name was Farnll. IK-
began life as a bricklayer's labourer, then spent
N
194 KATE VAUGHAN
some years at sea, getting his taste for the stage
from the amateur theatricals engaged in on board
ship, and eventually becoming a popular heavy man
at the outlying theatres. He had the knack of
writing melodrama, and put quite a number of plays
on his record. A music hall engagement to fill in a
summer vacation and an extraordinary success with
Henry Pettitt's song, // Ever there was a Damned
Scamp, changed the course of his career and secured
him the then enormous salary of 60 a week. But
he frequently revisited the glimpses of the moon to
play Badger, with song, in The Streets of London.
In 1887 he wrote and toured a melodrama called
Racing, in which Cyril Maude made almost his first
remarkable success. Macdermott was a little brutal
in aspect and manner, but he had an extraordinarily
clear enunciation in song and speech.
Kate Vaughan as such was a member of the
company of the beautiful Miss Litton, at the Court
Theatre, memorable for the production of some of
W. F. Gilbert's earlier works Randall's Thumb,
The Happy Land, and The Wedding March. Kate
Vaughan joined the company at Easter, 1872, to
appear in Re Rebecca, a second edition of a burl-
esque of Andrew Halliday's tawdry, historical play
fashioned from Ivanhoe, for Drury Lane. Re Rebecca
was written by a young Oxonian, T. F. Plowden,
who had such distinguished interpreters as Miss
Kate Bishop, who played Ivanhoe ; Miss Nelly
Bromley, Rowena ; Miss Oliver, Rebecca ; Mr
Alfred Bishop, Brian de Bois Gilbert ; Mademoiselle
Corneille d'Anka, Richard Coeur de Lion ; and Mr
Tm VAUGHAN SISTERS
THE SISTERS VAUGHAN 195
Edward Uighton, Isaac of York. The curse pro-
nounced by Isaac on de Bois Gilbert is a typical
bit of the burlesque writing of the day.
"Avenge me then, ye fates, I do implore.
May he, like me, be martyr to lumbager,
Tic doloreux, sciatica and ager,
Sore throats, neuralgia, whooping-cough and sneezings,
Rheumatics, asthma, cold and bronchial wheezings.
And while the north-east wind doth round him blow,
Clouds hail, mizzle, drizzle, sleet and snow,
Rain rakes and pitch-forks, kittens, cats and dogs,
While down his throat pour vapours, mists and fogs.
May broken chilblains ever stud his toes,
May icicles hang pendent from his nose,
May winter's cold his shaving water freeze,
May he be stopped whene'er he's going to snaeze,
And when appalled you loudly call for helps
May palsies seize you.
SIR B. Oh ! shade of Mr Phelps."
Iii the early seventies the Vaughan Troupe of
dancers was formed of Kate, her sister Susie, now
a highly esteemed dramatic actress, and two ballet
iMils not related. The actual sisters spoke the
others merely joined in the dances to which the
dialogue led up. Eventually the party addressed
i I self to the then popular Parisian quadrille or
can-etui.
Kate Vaughan personally made a memorable
success as the Spirit of Darkness in the liallet of
produced by Frederick Strange, of the
Alhambra, at the Ilolborn Amphitheatre in black
skirls and black tights, relieved by \\( cml>mider\.
Not so lonjr since I fell across a Spanish acrobat in
ii of the Cirque Holborn, deeply angered by
196 KATE VAUGHAN
the police, who persistently directed him to Holbom
Circus ! He wanted to inspect the scene of the
exploits of his ancestors and of other great
gymnasts. Lulu, for instance. This building,
now the Stadium, is often confused by theatrical
writers with the Holbom Theatre, eventually the
Mirror and the Duke's. It was variously known as
the Alcazar, the Connaught and the Holborn Theatre
Royal. John Hollingshead made it the scene of one
of his eccentricities and did Beaumont and Fletcher's
Maid's Tragedy. I believe he lived to become a
director of co-operative stores installed there.
It was in truth his lifelong fight against conven-
tion that brought Kate Vaughan to the Gaiety in
1873, on Ash Wednesday. The current attraction
then was Robert Reece's Don Giovanni in Venice,
with Toole as the naughty hero and Nellie Farren as
Leporello. In those days the Lord Chamberlain,
with an iron hand, closed every London theatre on
Ash Wednesday. Among the many institutions
Hollingshead abhorred this was his pet abhorrence.
On the occasion to which I refer he sent Toole to the
provinces, and at the Gaiety gave a variety show,
in which the Vaughan Sisters took part, also the
" great " Mackney, negro delineator, the Dancing
Quaker, in their camouflaged can-can, " Lieuten-
ant " Walter Cole, the ventriloquist, Constance
Loseby, " Jolly John" Nash, Rose Fox, "Billy 5
Randall and many other dead-and-gone celebrities
of the music hall. It took Hollingshead years
of vigorous fighting to get the Ash Wednesday
restriction removed in 1886.
AT THE GAIETY 197
Meanwhile, in the autumn of 1876, the manager
committed himself to the definite policy of burlesque.
Then Royce, Terry and Kate Vaughan, who had
just previously made a most successful appearance
in a musical play by M. de Goncourt in Paris,
joined the company, and Recce's little Don Ccesar
marked the beginning of this famous quartet.
Kate Vaughan was the Gretchen in Little Dr Fauxt.
the Esmeralda in the burlesque of that name, the
Donna Sol in Handsome Hernani, the Diana Vernon
in Robbing Roy, the Morgiana in The Forty Thieves ,
the Princess Badroulbadour in Aladdin, the Maid
Marian in the Little Robin Hood and the Tili in
Bluebeard.
Her popularity at the Gaiety was immense, but
not her salary. I do not think it ever reached 50
a week, and that by a process of slow increase.
In the summer of 1885 Miss Vaughan introduced
a solo to Mr Charles Hawtrey's production of the
Italian ballet, Excelsior, at Her Majesty's Theatre,
and paragraphs of wonder appeared when it be-
came known that the dancer's 70 a week worked
out at 1 per minute of her appearance on the
stage.
Nothing so effectually baffles description as danc-
ing. Of course you can go from point to point of
technique. It is like following Hamlet's soliloquy
with a stop watch! Vestris said of his son thnt
when he rose from the stage le ballon is the
technical phrase you wondered would he ever
return. Pavlova becomes the creature of passion.
Kate Vaughan eluded all these classifications. She
198 KATE VAUGHAN
was supra-grammaticam~but in the sense that she
had made grammar her stepping-stone to freedom.
The lace handkerchief she habitually carried seemed
to be a part of her the leaf of a willow bending in
a gentle breeze. The soft skirts with which she
replaced the tu-tu, shortened and stiffened in the
seventies to a thing of horror, was not, of course, as
I once heard her claim, her own invention. It was
an admirable return to the modesty of the greatest
dancers, but she could claim to have preceded Yvette
in the cult of long black gloves. One night gay
youth in the stalls saluted her by raising black-
gloved hands.
Early in the eighties there was a sense of disrup-
tion at the Gaiety. Hollingshead's explanation was
that he resumed work too soon after an illness, that
he lost his nerve, that he had to seek partners,
whereas his temperament was that of the autocrat.
At any rate, Kate Vaughan went her way.
At Christmas, 1883, she was the Cinderella of
Harris's pantomime nominally by E. L. Blan-
chard, though the new manager regarded the veteran
as an old man of the sea and ruthlessly edited his
books, with the help of Harry Nicholls, later of
Horace Lennard. Oscar Barrett, brilliant maitre
d'orchestre, was soon to go his way too. What
memories the cast revives ! The prince and her
page were the Sisters Mario, Minnie and Dot, of
whom the elder married Harris's friend and ally,
Alfred Gibbons. Gibbons had been a draper. He
founded The Ladies' Pictorial, brought it through
many vicissitudes to a fine position, and incidentally
OLD ENGLISH COMEDY 199
had much to do with the development of the
" fashion plate " productions of the modern stage.
He was an inveterate Bohemian, but none the less
angered at his country house one Sunday by a clatter
that seemed likely to bring down the ceiling of his
library. Madam and her sister, in the bedroom
overhead, had unearthed a set of dancing clogs and
the temptation was too great ! Harry Nicholls and
Herbert Campbell were the ugly sisters. Whether
or not this was their occasion of singing E. V. Page's
I\< t /> it Dark, one of the earliest and one of the best
topical duets, I do not recall. Dream Faces I do
remember as the ballad of that season. The impos-
ing Katti Lanner was the ballet mistress, and Palla-
dino, married long since and living in retirement in a
London suburb, the premiere danseuse.
Twenty years remained, more than half of Kate
Vaughan's professional career, twenty years mostly
of provincial wandering, with The Country Girl, with
School for Scandal, with She Stoops to Conquer and
other forgotten comedies, which she studiously
mastered. Later came Masks and Faces, The Lifflr
Viscount, For Love and Honour and The Dancing
(ihi. There were long intervals of illness, on occa-
sion painfully apparent to her audiences, as, for
instance, at the Farren benefit. In 1894 the curious
experiment was tried of reassociating Kate Vaughan
and Kdward Terry in a series of glimpses from old
(iaiety successes. This was in an cxtravagan/a
railed King Kodak at Terry's Theatre. It was a
grisly business. My last memory of Kate Vaughan
is pleasant an ingenious litlle monologue : ;i
200 KATE V A UGH AN
with an imagined partner, dancing a waltz, listen-
ing to his love-making, to his impetuous proposal,
and admitting that was "How it happened." It
was a brilliant exploitation of personality and
art.
CHAPTER XXVI
A PAGEANT OF PRINCIPAL BOYS
The Coming of Augustus Harris Most Music Hall, most Melancholy
Vale the Yokes Family Blanchard's Bitter Cry Some Salaries
Spangles in the Dust Tragic Comedians
I SYMPATHISE with the small boy who refused to
go to Drury Lane pantomime because " he knew
that Sir Augustus Harris was only going to surpass
himself." A damnable iteration of usage made
the phrase tiresome. One wondered what the
recorders could say next in the succession of super-
latives, which began with Harris's first pantomime,
Bluebeard, in 1879. " A cleverer libretto, better
acting, or more gorgeous scenery Vl had, I read,
" never been known." In this the Yokes family
made their last appearance at Drury Lane. As for
nine years previously they had, in effect, been the
pantomime, you have here a survey of half-a-century
at " the Lane." The ensuing Christmas saw them
with their old employer, Chatterton, again, in
Valentine and Orson, at Covent Garden. But he
was rapidly nearing the final disaster, while Harris
proceeded to " the biggest and most successful
thing of its kind seen on the boards of our National
Theatre."
Harris was. in truth, greatly responsible for flic
vulgarising incursion of the music hall to the
201
202 A PAGEANT OF PRINCIPAL BOYS
" Christmas annual." To be sure, the " great "
Macdermott had appeared at Covent Garden, but
he was an actor in those days. I doubt if he had
yet appeared on the music hall stage. Harris's
example was copied far and wide crude splendour,
a serio, and quelques poupees was his formula ; and
it was not until Mr E. H. Cooper, the novelist,
bringing a fresh mind to the subject, smote Drury
Lane hip and thigh, and compelled its enterprising
impresario to a process of cleansing and improvement
which eventuated in the exquisite Cinderella of this
year that the spirit of Perrault was set free again.
All Harris's geese were swans. He was obstinate
in his adherence to barbaric splendour and banal
humour. He was unreceptive of ideas at least,
he would toss them contemptuously into a pigeon-
hole and bring them out as his own long afterwards.
I wonder what became of his copy of Blanchard's
Diaries. He had furiously noted the old man's
strictures on the modern management of Drury
Lane, and was with difficulty restrained from the
publication of a rejoinder.
Harris's second pantomime, Mother Goose, em-
ployed two Blanches, Agnes Hewett, Carrie Coote
a ten-year-old actress who lived to become my Lady
Pearce, and died at thirty-seven Kate Santley,
Arthur Roberts, James Fawn and Fred Storey
an enterprising youth who had insisted on Harris
seeing him dance, with the bold assurance that he
could do with each leg what Fred Vokes could only
do with one ! Poor old Blanchard's troubles had
already begun, though his name was associated
NELLIE POWER 203
with the authorship of the "book" till 1885.
" Looking over the ghastly proofs of the Drury
Lane Annual," he writes, " in which I find my
smooth and pointed lines are turned into ragged
prose and arrant nonsense. I shall consider the
payment due to me an equivalent for the harm
done to my literary reputation."
The Robinson Crusoe of 1881 was Fanny Leslie.
still happily among us, though it is more than a
year or two since she was a girl actress and dancer
at the Metropolitan Music Hall, then famous for
its ballets; since she was a favourite performer in
optra bouffe at the Alhambra, and the sprightly
Phoebe Sage in Charles Reade's Drink at the old
Princess's. Arthur Roberts, James Fawn, Harry
Nicholls and Harry Jackson were a notable group
of comedians.
In 1882, when Nellie Power played Sinbad, the
author complained that the pantomime had been
converted into a " very dreary music hall entertain-
inent. For the misprinted and grossly interpolated
book I am in no way responsible. Hardly anything
done as I intended, or spoken as I had written ;
the music hall element crushing out the rest, and
the good old fairy tales never to be again illus-
trated as they should be." Nellie Power, to be
sure, \\.is a music hall artist, but she had proved
at the Vaudeville to be a charming actress in
burlesque. She married a scamp, and her later
lit'r WHS unhappy, though she rose a^ain to popular
favour en she died, with a song by the veteran
K. V. Page, La <U Dn.
204 A PAGEANT OF PRINCIPAL BOYS
Nelly Power's support included Vesta Tilley, as
Captain Tra-la-la. Strangely enough, Vesta Tilley
was only once, as King Courage, in the 1890 Beauty
and the Beast, principal boy at the Lane. In the
provinces, especially at Birmingham and at Liver-
pool, she was easily the most popular boy, and in
the former city has received, I suppose, the " record "
salary of 500 a week. She has, of course, an
intimate family relationship with Birmingham.
There for many years was her home. She was
born at the neighbouring city of Worcester, her
father, a circus artist known as Harry Ball, actually
Powles, being a great " character."
To Puss in Boots, at Christmas, 1887, there was
an inroad from musical comedy of " Tilly " Wadman
and of Letty Lind not long emerged from the state
of " La Petite Letitia." Letty was one of the large
and talented Birmingham family of Rudge, which
includes Miss Millie Hylton, Miss Adelaide Astor
and Miss Lydia Flopp. Letty was apprenticed to
Howard Paul, the entertainer, who gave her the
name by which she became famous.
Harriet Vernon soon restored the atmosphere of
the variety stage, with Lady Dunto, a music hall
peeress, who as one of the Sisters Bilton was a fine
figure in Bohemia. " Fresh, fresh, fresh as the new-
mown hay " was the refrain of their best-remembered
song. But no doubt the most music hall and
most melancholy pantomime of all was that which
associated in Bo-Peep with Ada Blanche as Boy
Blue Marie Loftus, a brilliant boy, in the curiously
ill-chosen character of Bo-Peep ; Marie Lloyd
DAN LENO 205
as Red Riding-Hood, Little Tich, Herbert Campbell
and Dan Leno.
Marie Lloyd appeared in three Drury Lane
pantomimes Humpty Dumpty, Little Bo-Peep and
Robinson Crusoe, respectively in 1891, 1892, 1893
as principal girl. Her ambition to play principal
boy was gratified a little later at a suburban house ;
but the " Queen of Comedy " was not at her best
in either character. Much, I recall, was made of
the fact that her Drury Lane salary was 100 a
week. When Mr Arthur Collins did The Sins of
Society at Drury Lane he was very anxious to have
Marie Lloyd play the music hall heroine, vis-a-vis
to Chevalier ; but she declined as she has declined
revue feeling, with propriety, that the music hall
is her metier.
Ada Blanche played Dandini in Cinderella at
Christmas, 1878, and she was the Princess in
Mother Goose, Harris's second (1880-1881) panto-
mime. Her career as " principal boy >:> began at
Christmas, 1892, as Boy Blue in Little Bo-Peep.
Followed Robinson Crusoe, Dick Whittington, the
Prince in Cinderella, Aladdin (Arthur Collins's first
pantomime) and the Babes in the Wood. Amurath
(after an interval) to Amurath succeeds, for the
delightful prince of the most recent Cinderella was
Miss Marie Blanche, Miss Ada Blanche's niece.
Dan Leno arrived at Drury Lane at Christmas,
1888, to appear in The Babes in the Wood. Harris
had noted him at the Surrey, where he played
two Christmases. The little man was elated at
the prospect of 28 a week for himself and wife at
206 A PAGEANT OF PRINCIPAL BOYS
Drury Lane. His last salary was 240 ; in the
meanwhile, George Graves has nearly doubled that-
He was at Drury Lane for six years from 1909.
Dan Leno was engaged to play the " wicked aunt "
in The Babes in the Wood. Not yet was he associated
with Herbert Campbell, whose fellow babe was
Mr Harry Nicholls. Next year Leno played the
" dame " again, in Jack and the Beanstalk ; the
year following he figured as Sir Lombard Street in
Beauty and the Beast. Then in Humpty Dumpty,
1890-1891, began that memorable partnership with
Campbell as the King and Queen of Hearts, to be
continued through Little Bo-Peep, Robinson Crusoe,
Dick Whittington, Cinderella, Aladdin, The Babes
in the Wood, The Forty Thieves, Jack and the Bean-
stalk, The Sleeping Beauty, Bluebeard, Mother Goose,
and Humpty Dumpty in which the twain sang :
" And we hope to appear
For many a year
In the panto of old Drury Lane."
Within a few months both were dead !
It seemed hard to identify the wretched creature
who died in a Liverpool institution a while ago
with brilliant, high-spirited Maggie Duggan, for
two years a prominent figure in Drury Lane panto-
mime ; still more difficult to visualise her with
Frank Dicksee's chaste and beautiful Evangeline,
for which she was the model. Maggie Duggan re-
turned to her source. She was a street urchin whose
first boots were provided by a pantomime engage-
ment ; she joined a troupe of dancers and expanded
VIOLET CAMERON 207
to a popular burlesque boy, eventually to a favourite
of the variety stage. Queenie Leighton was for years
a favourite " boy " at Drury Lane.
Nellie Stewart, an Australian prima donna in
comie opera, made a most engaging Ganem in The
rortif Thieves of 1898 ; but on the eve of the next
year's pantomime fell ill. In this emergency, Violet
Cameron was engaged it was, I think, her last
appearance in public. In does not seem so long ago
since a comfortable-looking lady of middle age
and suburban aspect was persuaded to the piano.
She adjusted her glasses and sang like an angel
<n m after gem from the opera bouffes popular in
the eighties. It was Violet Cameron, living, as she
had lived for years, in retirement at Worthing,
paying one of her rare visits to town. There she
died, fifty-seven years of age, nearly half-a-ccntury
after she made her first appearance on the stage, a
child of nine, as Karl, in Faust and Marguerite at
the Princess's Theatre. For several years ensuing
slu was a baby actress in pantomime at Drury Lane
and the Adelphi. For she came of a theatrical
family. Her mother was one of the Sisters
Brougham, favourite performers at the Canterbury
and the Oxford the first, I suppose, of a long line
of music hall "sisters," though, if report may be
IK lit \ cd, none came near them in the distinction of
their musical attainments. She was a relative, too,
o! Lydia Thompson, whom you might almost call
an historic "principal boy" in pantomime and
bnrl< s(|nr. and whose " farewell benefit," in rxlreme
old age, is si ill wilhin memory.
208 A PAGEANT OF PRINCIPAL BOYS
Violet Cameron in the hey-day of opera bouffe
went from success to success from Les Cloches
de Corneville to Madame Favart, to Olivette, La
Mascotte, Boccaccio, Rip Van Winkle and Falka.
She made an amazing marriage with a man of
Greek extraction, and quite soon the theatrical
world rang with a scandal in which the name of a
well-known peer was involved. There were stage-
door scenes, and a terrible to-do. The sordid
details of an unhappy domestic life were eagerly
devoured by a public that loved to hear the worst
of its pretty favourite. It was, let it be told,
her prettiness and charm, and the purity and sweet-
ness of her voice, rather than dramatic power,
that made Violet Cameron's reputation. She
sought refuge in a long American tour. She came
back to find herself still beloved appearing in Faust
Vp-to-Date at the Gaiety, in Morocco Bound at the
Shaft esbury, and in the pantomime at Drury Lane.
And then she slipped into a sedate, comfortable,
happy retirement.
Dainty little Marie George graduated from
" principal girl "' to " principal boy " as Aladdin
in 1909. This was the year of reformation, when
Sir Frank Burnand was brought in to give the
literary touch demanded by the Mail, and in the
course of time the principal boy was suppressed ;
in her stead, a manly baritone. The first was
Mr Wilfrid Douthitt, the second Mr Bertram
Wallis.
But Mr Arthur Collins returned to convention, or
at any rate half-way, when he persuaded Miss Madge
CINQUEVALLI 209
Titheradge to become the most beamish of boys,
with a dramatic recitation thrown in.
Oscar Barrett, long musical director at the Lane,
produced the pantomime of the interregnum be-
lueen Harris and Collins, Aladdin, introducing the
only music hall artist who, in my experience, has
i able to assimilate his special art to that of the
MM. ire. But Paul Cinquevalli was a born comedian,
and in other circumstances might have rivalled
Wyndham. It was characteristic of him that,
broken to bits in a fall from a trapeze the Little
Flying Devil was his earlier name he learned to
juggle during many weeks in hospital. Not here
to discourse of his miraculous skill he was, by
the way, particularly proud of Lucas's account of
him in A Wanderer in London I knew him as a
most gracious and charming gentleman. His death
was one of the little tragedies of the war. In spite
of his Italian name, he was a Teuton, German or
Austrian, born Kestner, although world wandering
! i oin infancy had robbed him of all homing instinct.
He was completely cosmopolitan. His one loyalty
was to his calling, and when the vulgar instinct
of the people to whom his charity had been his
religion made a pose of ostracising him, it broke
his heart.
On second thoughts, I suppose that Harry Fragson
must be classed with the variety artists. Actually
Pott by name, he betook himself in disgust, with
his piano, to Paris, having been scornfully rejected
at the Middlesex, or " Old Mogul," music hall when
he applied for work there. He became the idol of
210 A PAGEANT OF PRINCIPAL BOYS
the French capital, and introduced his piano to
the 1905 Cinderella, and to the two succeeding
pantomimes with rare facility. He proved to be
a comedian of finesse. Poor Fragson ! He was
murdered by his father in a fit of jealous rage.
A WEDDING C.ROUP
TOM THIMI AM) l.AVINIA WAUKKN
BKII)KS\|AI1>. M1NMI. \VAKKK\
. 10, 1863
CHAPTER XXVII
A DWARF, SOME MONSTERS AND A MAGICIAN
The Countess Magri and Tom Thumb Egyptian Hall Alumni
The Siamese Twins The Two-headed Nightingale Chang
Maskelyne and Cooke's Entertainment
POOR little Countess Magri ! Her death in Decem-
ber last, at the advanced age of eighty, attracted
little notice ; and yet the reflected glory of a world-
wide celebrity was hers. More than fifty years ago,
London, as the painter Hay don bitterly recorded,
was obsessed by Tom Thumb madam's first
husband, to whose memory she was always faithful.
She spoke somewhat contemptuously of the Count,
as a philanderer. His title, at any rate, was genuine,
as that of his Georgian prototype, Count Borulaski,
was. The knighthoods of Xit, the Tower dwarf, and of
Charles the First's favourite, " Sir " Geoffrey Hudson,
are legendary, I fear. The Countess Magri was of a
retiring nature, and, having rather ungraciously
exhibited herself, she hated to go abroad. When
last in London, at the time of the Tinytown annexe
to the Fun City at Olympia, she had become an
ardent Christian Scientist, and regularly attended
the services of the believers. She was proud to
think I hat she bore a likeness to Queen Victoria,
and sedulously copied that estimable lady's dowdy
style of dress. Her tiny body should have been
211
212 SOME MONSTERS
embalmed and enshrined in the Egyptian Hall.
But " England's Home of Mystery," as for many
years it was known under the direction of Maskelyne
& Cooke, had long disappeared, to be replaced by a
caravanserai of company promoters. For nearly
a century this sombre structure faced Burlington
House. It was built for a natural history museum ;
and its original entrepreneur claimed to have
accumulated twenty thousand quadrupeds, birds,
reptiles, fishes, insects, shells and fossils from every
part of the known world at an outlay of 25,000.
He soon found an annexe of Napoleonic relics more
profitable. Then the Siamese twins set a fashion
in monsters. For thirty years these pathetic
creatures were what I suppose you would call
popular favourites. There was much speculation
as to whether one would survive the illness of the
other, after an operation for which preparations
were made, but he did not. The Missing Link,
apparently half man, half monkey, and of alarming
ferocity, had a short life, for Curtes, the lion king of
the day, forced his way into the cage, tore off a mask,
and revealed an acrobat named Henry Leach.
The Two-headed Nightingale, Millie Christine, was
another distinguished visitor to the Egyptian Hall.
There were two of her negresses of a considerable
intelligence, fair vocalists, joined as the Siamese
Twins were. They were brought to this country by
the son of the cotton planter on whose estate they
were born, and tended with much care and kind-
ness. Anon came a giant differing from all other
giants I have known, in that he was symmetrical,
EGYPTIAN HALL ALUMNI 213
intelligent and charming. Chang invested a fortune
made by showing himself in the tea trade, and had
a shop near the Holborn Restaurant. After years
of retirement he died, no great while ago, at Bourne-
mouth. The Egyptian Hall housed more edifying
visitors in Albert Smith, with his ascent of Mont
Blanc; Howard Paul; Arthur Sketchley, illustrating
tlu- adventures of Mrs Brown, a great character in
her day ; Artemus Ward ; Maccabe, the still un-
equalled protean artist ; Professor Pepper with his
ghost, and so on.
It was, I believe, to the genius of Maskelyne that
the description of the Egyptian Hall as " England's
Home of Mystery " was due. When, in 1903, the
hall was demolished to make room for the great
block of offices and flats known as Egyptian House,
there was an attempt to carry the phrase, with the
entertainment, to St George's Hall, where Maskelyne
followed another famous entertainment, that of
the German Reeds, but it did not seem to fit.
The' entertainment was varied a little, the built-up
illusions and sleight-of-hand performances alternat-
ing with dramatic sketches and musical and other
" turns."
There was eager competition among aspiring
,u lists for an engagement at St George's Hall,
even at modest terms, for it was apt to bring
other engagements, especially at society functions.
Barclay Gammon was a notable instance of this.
He had four or five pounds a week at St George's
H.I 11 ; at the Palace h< rose to 120, and probably
doubled this l>\ drawing^foom work. The St
214 A MAGICIAN
George's Hall audience was amazingly respectable,
and the entertainment, to the present contributor,
unspeakably boring.
With Maskelyne, at the outset of his career, there
was associated one Cooke, who was more of a
chopping-block for the other than a partner ; also
William Morton, unobtrusively for many years the
capable business manager, and able, if he would, to
tell much of the vicissitudes of the little party in
their earlier adventures through the provinces by
way of the Crystal Palace and St James's Hall to
the Egyptian Hall.
Maskelyne was always masterful. In the course
of time Morton went his way to become a pioneer
of the suburban theatre at Greenwich. Cooke was
pensioned off and died. His name was promptly
removed. Maskelyne took into later partnership
David Devant, a prestidigitator of rare charm
and resource, especially fascinating in contact with
children. But Devant is understood to have found
the music halls more lucrative, and at an advanced
age Maskelyne resumed the active control of his
business. He was performing daily until illness
seized him.
Maskelyne always claimed that the matinee was
copied from his scheme by the theatres by Irving,
in fact, who remarked upon the good business done
in an afternoon at the Egyptian Hall, and promptly
tried the experiment of a matinee at the Lyceum.
So it may be ; but there is a more interesting point
of contact between the men, for Irving also, in
the intervals of theatrical engagements, addressed
MASKELYNE AND COOKE 215
himself to the exposure of the Davenport Brothers,
I believe, in Manchester.
Throughout his life Maskelyne was possessed by
a passionate hatred of so-called spiritualists. His
encounter with the eccentric - if that be the
sufficient adjective Archdeacon Colley is well
within memory. Archdeacon Colley challenged
Maskelyne to reproduce certain phenomena, and
especially to produce a spirit form from the side
of a man. This the conjurer did triumphantly ;
but the 1000 glibly offered by Archdeacon Colley
was not forthcoming. The quarrel was continued
in the Law Courts and much dirty linen washed.
Archdeacon Colley predeceased his antagonist.
More recently Maskelyne contested the claim
of some youngsters to have copied his box trick
successfully. Technically he lost the case, but
he contrived to keep the secret of his own box
immune as he did that of Psycho, the auto-
maton chess-player which baffled and beat every
champion, which figured in Punch and Parliament,
and which after a rest of five and twenty years
came out as fresh and fascinating and elusive as
ever. Psycho's only serious rivals have invariably
stood revealed as human deformities accommodated
to a machine.
Maskelyne used to say that he had made two
fortunes. That which he lost he probably sacrificed
to an impulsive speculation at the time of tin
Diamond Jubilee. He acquired an immense ware-
house in St Paul's Churchyard, undertaking to r.r/r
it to the ground, to use the vacant space for a stnnd.
216 A DWARF
to rebuild the warehouse according to specifications,
and to hand it over to its original owners, a well-
known firm of drapers, at an agreed date. It was
all to be done with the quickness of one of his
conjuring tricks. So, indeed, it was, but he lost
heavily on the deal. I do not believe he made a
great deal out of the typewriting machine, which
was another by-product of his extraordinarily fertile
invention.
" They rush by thousands to see Tom Thumb.
They push, they fight, they scream, they faint,
they cry help and murder. They see my bills and
caravan, but do not read them. Their eyes are
on them, but their sense is gone. In one week,
12,000 persons paid to see Tom Thumb, while
only 133J paid to see my Aristides." So, bitterly,
wrote Benjamin Hay don of these competing ex-
hibitions at the Egyptian Hall, but it is not quite
fair to lay the unhappy painter's suicide to Tom
Thumb's account. Other humiliations and many
embarrassments had driven him to madness. Of
Tom Thumb's popularity, Haydon was an accurate
enough reporter. It was greatly assisted by Queen
Victoria, who twice received the little man, permit-
ting a freedom of conduct, and laughing at a
remark, that would have been outrageous impudence
in a normal creature. Tom was received and nursed
by the Dowager Queen Adelaide and chaffed the
Duke of Wellington about the battle of Waterloo.
His impersonation of Napoleon was his tour de force.
Phineas T. Barnum discovered Tom Thumb, as
Charles Sherwood Stratton, at Bridgeport, Con-
GENERAL TOM THUMB 217
necticut, in 1842. He was then four years of age,
not quite two feet high, weighing less than sixteen
pounds, but " perfectly formed." Barnum engaged
him for four weeks, at three dollars a week, with all
travelling and boarding expenses for himself and
his mother. The engagement was extended to a
year, at seven dollars a week, with a gratuity of
fifty dollars at the end of the engagement. Tom
Thumb came to England in 1846, appearing in
Liverpool immediately after his arrival ; then to
the Egyptian Hall. He had a persistent friend
in the American ambassador, the Hon. Edward
Everett, to whom he owed his introduction to
London society. The Rothschilds were among his
earliest entertainers.
Eventually Barnum formed a party of manikins.
There was Commodore Nutt, less tall, but also less
gifted, than Stratton, who sang and danced and
cultivated many parlour tricks, and there was
Lavinia Warren, whose affections the General
diverted from the Commodore. Barnum made a
long story of their rivalry, and engineered the
marriage of Tom Thumb and Lavinia in a fashion-
able church, before half New York. A like, un-
lovely exploitation of the altar was effected in
the case of the Aztecs, at St George's, Hanover
Square, in 1867. I have seen it stated that Com-
modore Nutt solaced himself with Lavinia Warren's
younger sister Minnie. This is not the case.
Minnie, who joined the party, married a rival dwarf,
and soon died in childbirth. The Commodore be-
came quite a successful man of business, in part IK i
218 A DWARF
ship with his brother these twain being the only
dwarfs in an otherwise normal family. The Thumbs
lived happily together for many years eventually,
in comfortable retirement. Tom became rather
gross in appearance, with a skimpy beard. He died
of apoplexy in 1883, and New York built a forty-
foot column over his grave, surmounted by his
effigy. Madam, after many years of widowhood,
married another dwarf, Count Magri, and appeared
at Olympia so recently as 1908, when Mr Charles
B. Cochran aggregated half-a-hundred dwarfs in a
so-called Lilliputian City. The cleverest of them
was Smaum Sing Poo, a tiny Burmese acrobat,
since dead symmetrical and wonderfully skilled.
Then there was " Princess " Pauline, a diminutive
serio-comic singer. But the thirty or forty dwarfs
forming the background were wizened little creatures,
for all the world like the gnomes in Rip Van Winkle.
I believe they breed freely in some remote Austrian
village, and often live to a great age.
CHAPTER XXVIII
FRENZIED FINANCE
War and the Theatre Changing Audiences An Immense Increase of
Rents The Evil of the Syndicate What the " Bars" mean
AT the outset of the war there was much speculation
as to the effect it would have on the theatres.
Previous wars, it was recalled, had awakened in
the public a great desire for diversion. At first
it seemed as though this experience were to be re-
peated. Then came critical months and years, and
disaster stared the manager in the face. Air raids,
bereavements and general apprehension kept the
playgoer at home. The authorities imposed ruinous
restrictions on theatrical enterprise. And then
again a change. The theatres, whether presenting
good shows, bad or indifferent, prospered exceed-
ingly. Simultaneously there was an immense in-
crease in the rentals.
A curious difference became apparent in the
personnel of the audiences. The regular, known
patron of the theatres seemed to disappear. In his
place came strangers, constant in mutation cosmo-
politan visitors to town, soldiers home on leave,
mainly anxious, it seemed, to kill time under any
cover and, if they paid any attention to the per-
formance, caring most for inane, vulgar and often
indecent revue, or crude and unlifelike studies of
219
220 FRENZIED FINANCE
warfare. This migratory pleasure-seeker went his
way. The habitual, mainly intelligent playgoer
resumed his habit. The character of the entertain-
ment improved. But rents kept up, and every mood
of labour increased the anxiety of the manager.
Journalistic comment on the situation was pro-
fuse, and mostly ignorant. Freeholds, and leaseholds
with varying ground rents were all one. It failed
to differentiate between a theatre disbursing 2000
a week to run a huge spectacular entertainment,
and capable of taking 3000 a week, and a theatre
spending half the money to run a little comedy, but
capable only of accommodating half the attendance.
It accepted without question the figures of managers,
who had been prodigally extravagant, to avoid the
tax on " excess profits." On the other hand, it
brought wild charges of " profiteering."
No doubt many fortunate leaseholders seized the
opportunity of securing large profit rentals and re-
tiring from dangerous speculation in " production."
But it does not seem to me they did more than
take a shrewd advantage of the market. A much
worse culprit is the reckless, often technically in-
experienced manager, who, backed by a wealthy
syndicate, has no care but to secure his own well-
paid position, and does so heedless of cost. He is
most responsible for inflated rents. Rumour credits
such a syndicate with a loss of 30,000 during a few
months. The merest tyro in accountancy, setting
its expenses, which included payments to the pro-
moting manager approximating 100 a week, against
the possible receipts of a theatre always crowded to
AN IMMENSE INCREASE OF RENTS 221
its utmost capacity, saw that a profit was hopelessly
impossible. The excuse was that a business was in
the way of being built up !
It is ridiculous to make a crude comparison be-
tween the rentals of, say, twenty-five years ago and
those of to-day. There has been an immense arti-
ficial increase, but there has been a very large
natural increase. Happy the present owners of
the London Coliseum and the London Opera House,
who were able to buy them at a tithe of their cost
from the debris of disastrous company flotation.
Why, even the Cinderella (or Court) Theatre changed
hands the other day for 20,000, showing a cent,
per cent, profit to the vendor !
" Twenty new theatres " was glibly suggested the
other day as a relief to the situation, with the sug-
i ion that to build them would be the best possible
investment for any real estate man, who should let
the theatrical men concern themselves with the
theatrical side. But would it? You have to
reckon first with the fastidiousness of the County
Council as to sites and structure, the increased cost
ol land, material and labour. You could once begin
and complete a theatre in twelve months for 50,000.
i would in ( <! now to at least double each estimate.
And so your rrnt trouble is just as great as cvrr.
Plans for a sii^m sird new theatre were lately sub-
mitted to a well-known manager who quickly figured
out that the ultimate rental would be 20,000 a
year !
Rent to the layman is just rent and nothing more.
But I hen- arc important qualifications, that need
222 FRENZIED FINANCE
not be too technically discussed. They are of four
kinds. The would-be tenant sometimes learns that
he must repair the theatre and hand it over in a
state of proper maintenance at the end of his
tenancy. Some of the most pretentious West End
houses were allowed to dilapidate terribly during the
war the matter was often beyond the volition of
the immediate lessee, who could get neither labour
nor material, and was indeed peremptorily forbidden
to spend more than a certain amount of money on
construction, improvement or decoration. But he
took good care that when the time came the outlay
should not be his. A recently incoming tenant had
to spend 15,000 on a house which he had esteemed
himself fortunate to secure at an enormous rental.
This was probably the extreme case. But an out-
lay of 5000 has not been uncommon in such cir-
cumstances. During the term of his personal
tenancy of the Haymarket Theatre Mr Frederick
Harrison has, I believe, spent not less than 50,000
on the reconstruction and improvement of the
Haymarket.
Then there are the " bars," sometimes included
in the rental and sometimes reserved. The " bars 5!
mean a monopoly of the sale of refreshments, sweet-
meats and similar commodities, programmes and
the conduct of the cloakrooms. In the notable
instance of the Lyceum the Melvilles reserve this
monopoly, which yields them an annual profit
almost exactly equal to their rent.
Augustus Harris put it on record that when he
entered Drury Lane his only possessions were the
WHAT THE "BARS" MEAN 223
lease and the key, and that his working capital was
secured by the sale of the " bars " for 1000 cash.
That was in 1885. He would command a much
higher figure now. A not uncommon offer of the
speculator in this monopoly is 40 a week, and his
profit is probably cent, per cent., of which the least
proportion is on the actual bars for the consump-
tion of alcohol in a West End theatre is very small.
Another qualification of a nominal rent is the pro-
prietary seat. A lessor will retain for his specific
use a box, a few stalls and a few dress-circle seats.
Of course he cannot sit in them all at once ; nor does
lie fill them with sisters, cousins and aunts. They
are sold for him by the " libraries," and under happy
conditions may yield him 2000 a year, which, of
course, diminishes the receipts of the tenant, or,
you may put it, increase the figure of his rental by
that amount. Happy the theatrical lessee there
are a few who is not encumbered by proprietary
seats.
Finally, in addition to the rent, the tenant is
often invited for some mysterious purpose of ac-
countancy, into which it would sometimes be un-
( difying to penetrate, to pay a premium. A private
payment of 100 a week was made by the immediate
ee to the immediate lessor of a theatre for a
recent intercalary season.
I suppose His Majesty's easily takes rank as the
iincst theatre in London in situation, style and
struct urc. It has seldom been let at a weekly rental
Chu Chin Chow, for instance, is run on sharing
terms. On one occasion it was let to Edward
224 FRENZIED FINANCE
Hedmont for an opera season at 400 a week. It
cost Tree 70,000 to build, and it is probably the
most substantial lot of theatrical building in London.
Its ground rent is 3500. Taking, at the usual rate,
interest on capital, the ground rent, the rates, in-
surance and depreciation, it stood Tree at 7500
a year. Before he went to America he would will-
ingly have sold out for 90,000, but found no eager
bidders. The theatre was sold after his death to a
North Country capitalist, represented by Grossmith
and Laurillard, for 110,000. The same gentleman
bought the Shaftesbury for them at upwards of
70,000. This theatre was built some thirty years
ago by John Lancaster, a shrewd Manchester
merchant, for the gratification of his wife, Miss
Wallis, a well-known Shakespearean actress, at
an outlay of 20,000, but it has meanwhile been
much improved. Mr Robert Courtneidge and his
firm long leased it at the rate of 120 a week.
Another very cheaply built theatre was the
Comedy, which cost 20,000 and this in spite of
the fact that a party wall grew up with an incline
over adjoining property, and might have led to a
costly lawsuit had not the owner courteously pointed
out the increasing encroachment in good time.
Not so long ago a well-known manager happened
to be in want of a theatre and decided to pay 320
a week for the Kingsway. He is, in fact, the head
lessee of the theatre, in which capacity he pays a
rental not exceeding 100 a week. It got into the
hands of a financial firm, by which it was sub-leased
at 225 a week to an actress who, unfortunate in her
THEATRE RENTS 225
personal productions, still managed to sub-let it for
300 a week, so that between the first rental and the
last rental of the entrepreneur at the time of this
writing there are three profit rentals approaching
an aggregate of 300.
At one time this house of many mutations went
a-begging at 20 a week. I have seen an opera
played there by Parsees ; I have heard the sinister-
looking hero of a mysterious murder trial bellow his
apologia from its stage ; I have known the audience
break the seats to hurl the fragments at reluctant
prize-fighters. Penley prematurely adventured in,
and lost 20,000 on the theatre, thinking it would be
absorbed in the Strand improvement scheme. Miss
Lena Ashwell first gave it artistic distinction, but
made no money. Its one huge success was made
with The Great Adventure.
Once 100 a week might have been regarded as
the unit of West End theatre rental. You could not
use that figure doubled hardly trebled as a safe
basis to-day. The Savoy is currently reported to
have reached the extreme figure of 500 a week.
This has been denied ; but certainly 500, reckoning
with percentages or a premium, was the basis of a
negotiation. The estate of the late H. B. Irving
holds the superior lease here, and is making an
immense profit on its rent (with, of course, various
onsibilities) of less than 100, though there are
intervening tenants. There has been a disposition
on the part of the "bed-rock" proprietors to sell
while prices are so high. For instance the Apollo,
one <>!' \ cry few freehold theatres in London, recently
226 FRENZIED FINANCE
changed hands at 150,000. Years must elapse ere
the present leaseholders can be disturbed. The
vendors represented Hans Lowenfeld, as to the exact
degree of whose alienage there was an interesting
discussion in the Law Courts lately. Which, again,
calls to mind that two immense theatrical under-
takings here are supported by the wealth of Russian
Jews, another by that of a Greek. The revelation
of the powers behind the throne would provide a
sensation indeed. On what terms the Gaiety and
the Adelphi were lately leased to the Grossmith
Laurillard group I cannot say; but a cheque for
240,000 changed hands.
Mr James White, who lately bought the lease of
Daly's Theatre, made it known, however, that he
meant to make himself personally responsible for
the productions there. The purchase price, 200,000,
included a large amount of stock-in-trade, copy-
rights, costumes and so forth. But it is safe to
say that the sum to be directly apportioned to the
theatre is more than double the capital value at
which it stood on its opening.
Sir Charles Wyndham, who left 300,000, was on
that account called a very shrewd man of business.
In fact he was somewhat impulsive, but most in-
variably fortunate, alike in the City and in theatrical
speculation. With extraordinary casualty the late
Lord Salisbury granted Wyndham a lease of a vast
area of slum property between Charing Cross Road
and St Martin's Lane, at the existing ground rents,
on the condition that he bore the expense of clear-
ing the site. The New Theatre and Wyndham's
THEATRE RENTS 227
Theatre were not extravagantly built, so they stand
the Wyndham and allied interests at the very moder-
ate figure of 200 a week. The New Theatre cost
a pre-war tenant 10,000 a year ! Wyndham's
Theatre is leased to Mr Frank Curzon for a term of
years at 8000 a year, which shows a handsome
profit to his landlords ; but he could make an equally
handsome profit himself. The Criterion was let by
the original partners in Spiers and Pond to the late
Alexander Henderson, who quickly transferred his
interest to Wyndham for 1000, and the surrender
of some share interests. Very soon the benevolent
Spiers & Pond granted a renewal of the lease for
many years at the rate of 50 a week. Long ago
the Criterion commanded 250 a week ; now, prob-
ably, 400. But Lady Wyndham has a predilection
for a personal interest.
Disaster followed disaster in respect of the vast
building speculation of which the Strand Theatre is
the centre. At one time in its history, which is en-
compassed by a few years, a bonus was actually
offered to any manager who could run it rent free to
save it from mildew. It was sold with some ad-
joining property for 6000, with a 4000 a year
ground rent, in 1911. Its annual rent is now
12,000.
For several houses there is no quotation in the
fevered market. Mr rede-rick Harrison, for in-
sliinee. of the Haymarket, Mr Anthony Priiisep,
and Miss Marie Lohr, in respect of the Globe, and
the (iattis in respect of the Vaudeville, never part
with (heir control.
CHAPTER XXIX
THEATRICAL FORTUNES
A Salary of ,750 a Week George Edwardes's Estate Garrick, Kean,
Macready The Savoyards Dan Leno at ^20 Some Music Hall
Magnates Circus Celebrities
RUMOUR credits a music hall artist with a recent
salary, in revue, of 750 a week. This is certainly
the highest point reached in the way of individual
emolument, not taking into consideration the share
of the receipts now, in circumstances, accorded to
a popular favourite. Actors have occasionally left
large fortunes, but upon examination it seldom
proves that these have been made by sheer acting
occasionally by the combination of management
with acting ; more often by speculation outside the
theatre. Wyndham's fortune of 300,000 was the
largest, so far, accredited to an actor for probate of
his will, but Wyndham made much of his money,
most of it, probably, by fortunate speculation.
Probate figures, I may point out, are apt to be
illusory. Penley's once large fortune had dwindled
to a nominal 15,000, and that was mostly pledged.
Tree's will was proved in respect of 40,000, but his
interest in Chu Chin Chow soon increased that mani-
fold. Harris's estate probably worked out to a
large increase on 23,677. When George Edwardes
died his estate would assuredly not have realised a
228
GEORGE EDWARDES'S ESTATE 229
tithe of 50,000. But careful nursing, especially of
Daly's Theatre, and the successful production of
The Maid of the Mountains immensely increased
its value. Considerable surprise was expressed
that young Harry Irving should have left 40,000,
double the fortune of his father, and many times
that of his brother, Laurence, who left but a few
hundreds. A rather unkind comparison of the
ability and characteristics of the two boys, uttered
by Irving, who earnestly desired Harry to keep to
his original profession, the Bar, and Laurence to
that of diplomacy, comes to mind. Harry Irving's
fortune was mainly due to the increase in value of
his lease of the Savoy. Weedon Grossmith, who
died about the same time, left but a few thousands.
He was an embittered man, and left a solemn in-
junction to his widow not to speculate in the theatre.
Probably the largest fortune made out of acting
was that of Toole a manager too, but not count-
ing seriously as an actor manager. He disposed of
80,000 in an eccentric will, which left oddments to
a multitude of friends, many of whom predeceased
him. In like manner Henry Neville made his will
a sort of diary of predilections, altered from day
to day, and containing a curious dissertation on
M.isonry. It was surprising that he left no more
than 7724, just as it was surprising that Edward
Terry, another ardent Mason, by the way, left no
more than 44,000. Probably in each case there
were other than testamentary dispositions. Neville
had a liberal taste in investments a hotel at
Reading and a music hall at Clapham, for instance.
230 THEATRICAL FORTUNES
Compare the fortunes of half-a-dozen great actors
of old time. Garrick, according to Mr Percy
Fitzgerald, " accumulated 140,000 " during his
management of Drury Lane. When Kean died all
his possessions had to be sold to pay his debts.
Charles Kean left 35,000 ; Macready, 20,000 ;
Phelps less than half that s im.
So soon as George Alexander began to make real
money he established a fund, as apart from the
theatre, on which he determined that he would
never entrench for theatrical speculation. At one
time the theatre showed a persistent disposition to
lose money, and he declared to friends that he would
be steadfast to his resolution that when a certain
point had been reached he would wish the theatre
good-bye and retire on his now adequate reserve.
George Conquest once expounded to me his theory
of management : "If Augustus Harris wants a
steam-engine he buys a steam-engine I look round
the theatre for a few tables and paint the tops like
wheels." Conquest's salary limit was 5, and when
a confident youngster asked for more he promptly
said : " Good-bye, my lad and good luck at the
West End." He was in a generous mood when he
gave Dan Leno and his wife a joint salary of 20
for the little man's first pantomime. He left
64,000; Andrew Melville left considerably more.
He was little more than a schoolboy when his father,
a handsome, effective, irresponsible actor, left him
in charge of a West Country theatre, which the
wideawake boy soon learnt was bankrupt and pro-
ceeded to pull it together. Melville was known
MUSIC HALL MAGNATES 231
at the Grand Theatre, Birmingham, to rewrite a
melodrama to suit a stock of posters.
One's mind has been turned to the Gilbert-
Sullivan-Carte combination again. Carte, on the
instigation of his wife, was a shrewd but heroic
speculator. Probably the Savoy Hotel had a good
deal to do with his quarter of a million, just as a
passion for gambling reduced Sullivan to a com-
paratively modest 54,000. Gilbert recognised the
source of his 111,000 by generous bequests to
theatrical charities, to which much of the Kendals'
large fortune goes. Living authors could easily
o'ercrow Gilbert's figure, just as a living actor and
a living manager are credited with larger fortunes
than any here enumerated. Music hall artists have
not, according to Somerset House, shown a disposi-
tion to save. Dan Leno's 10,000 was mostly due
to a fortunate insurance. But there is a " comique "
of immense wealth still among us. It was a matter
of very great surprise that the music hall magnates,
among whom there was a large mortality a few years
ago, left so little Henri Gros less than 10,000 ;
Adiu-y Payne upwards of 20,000 for, not to put
too fine a point on it, there were some pretty
pickings in the company flotations of the nineties.
Sir Kdward Moss's fortune, exceeding 200,000,
began, of course, in the music hall, but its large in-
crease was from many other sources; and indeed
many of his clients in music hall enterprise were
much aggrieved 1>\ his tendency to decrease his
holdings. Sir Oswald Stoll differs in this respect
h< certainly has fait h in I he earning rapacity and the
232 THEATRICAL FORTUNES
future of his enterprises. Herbert Sprake, the last
individual proprietor of Collins's Music Hall named
after his ancestor, its founder, the Irish comedian,
Sam Collins could never be called a magnate.
Slow and sure was his motto. He had an eye on
every twopen'orth of ale consumed in the bars,
while madam sat observantly in her box, to ensure
that the serio-comic singers were sufficiently skirted
and that they never outraged propriety in their
songs. Sprake left upwards of 50,000. All the
old-time circus proprietors left large fortunes. The
Astleys, the Battys, the Henglers and the Ginnetts
approached their hundred thousand, though their
finance was elementary, as revealed by " Lord '
George Sanger when an unfortunate company flota-
tion subjected him to cross-examination. He
" paid in " to one trouser pocket and " paid out " of
the other. He bought back his circus from the
shareholders and pulled it together again. He left
about 30,000, as compared with 40,000 left by his
brother, who predeceased him.
CHAPTER XXX
EVERLASTING FLOWERS
Too many Cooks ! Three Generations of Cowell A Royal Romance
Extinct Celebrity The Emerys and the Farrens "Lay" Parents
SALA, I think, spoke of himself as a " distressed
compiler." I wonder why distressed. Compila-
tion and compilations have a horrid fascination.
Have you ever opened, say, Brewer's Handbook of
Phrase and Fable, and turned from page to page till
the dreadful bell of the Reading Room bade you
homeward ere delicious divagations had let you get
near the original object of your search ? I had
rather be imprisoned with the London Directory
than with Sir Charles Grandison.
And the compiler ! When I consider the exhila-
rating excursions my friend Bui loch has enjoyed in
accumulating his genealogies of the stage, I am
possessed by envy. Think of tracing the Cookes
to their fountain-head, probably the tight-rope
dancer at Astley's, and of linking them up, right
and left, with the Rignolds and the Belmores.
When I was a youngster there was a dear old lady
living in a remote Warwickshire village to whom
there came each Sunday morning a belated Era.
The rest of the day was devoted by a young relative
to reading what used to be called the Actors' Hil>l<
to the dame, from title-page to imprint. She was
233
234 EVERLASTING FLOWERS
the mother of the Rignolds handsome William,
who in his old age was led forth like Samson, white-
haired and blind, to thank the friends who had
gathered round him at the most pathetic benefit
ever known; handsome George, who used to tour
the country as " Henry Fifth, with his famous white
horse, Crispin." Her nephew, a richly unctuous
comedian, Lionel Rignold, died quite recently.
There are, I doubt not, still a dozen Rignolds on
the stage.
There was a Cooke of a perfectly Biblical benev-
olence to Mr Bulloch, for he left wellnigh twenty
children. I expect J. M. B. took fright if ever he
tackled the Jees. They do say that if you raise the
canvas of any circus the world over and cry Jee,
someone will respond. They are such elusive rascals
these Jees. I remember a Jee who was the very
Musical Blacksmith when he beat upon his anvil
tunes rang out ; if you dug him in the ribs he
warbled. There was a very clean-cut and graceful
tight-rope dancer by the name of Jee. Those
amazing fellows, the Musical Dustmen, are Jees.
The Burnell troupe of pantomimists are Jees.
Mr Bulloch's tables keep the playgoer young.
Are you disposed to think that the stage is in a
bad way ? See, then, how its genius is for ever
renewing. Are you the weary and the wearisome
laudator temporis acti ? How much better it is to
join yourself with the enthusiasm of the boy who
" would be a rider, as his father was."
For me, since my first pantomime, more than
fifty years ago, I have gone to the theatre as many
A ROYAL ROMANCE 235
as six nights in the week. Grant even that ninety-
nine out of a hundred plays have qualities of bore-
dom, the hundredth will repay the true lover of the
theatre to the full, and never so generously as when
he is welcoming some youngster to his inheritance,
or hers.
In some respects the Haymarket is the most
interesting of the London theatres. What a text
for reminiscence it provided the other day, in the
instance of The Young Person in Pink, and then
again in Mary Rose. Donald Calthrop adventured
the first-named play. He is one son of "Jack"
Clayton, the unforgettable Hugh Trevor of All for
Her and the first Henry Beauclerc of Diplomacy.
His brother is that graceful writer, Dion Calthrop
Clayton. Their mother was a Boucicault.
The " young person "' herself was Miss Joyce
Carey, in voice, in person and in method an exact
renewal of her mother, Miss Lilian Braithwaite.
But most wonderful of all is Miss Sydney Fair-
brother, whose bibulous wardrobe dealer was de-
clared to be an incarnation of a Dickens character.
Well, Miss Sydney Fairbrother's grandfather was a
contemporary of Dickens and a notable illustrator,
on the stage, of his works. Miss Sydney Fairbrothn
takes her name from that famous English dancer
whose marriage to the Duke of Cambridge was one
of the clean romances of royalty. She is the
daughter of an actor and of an actress, Mrs A. B.
Tapping, an incomparable " old woman " to-day,
as she was everything in her graceful pro^
through the n^es. Mario leant on the little girl's
236 EVERLASTING FLOWERS
shoulder and wept when his voice first failed him in
Dublin and the gallery was brutal in resentment.
" I'm done, Tiny, I'm done," he moaned. And
Mrs Tapping was once Florence Cowell, daughter of
the arch-vocal comedian of the variety stage, the
incomparable Artful Dodger.
Mary Rose, in the person of Miss Fay Compton,
goes backward through two families of celebrity on
the stage, her mother being the youngest of the
Bateman sisters, to the Kembles. Mr Robert
Loraine is the son of a fine old actor, whose memory
reverted to circuit days and who had " supported"
Macready and Helen Faucit. Not long before his
death he told me a characteristic story of Macready,
with whom he was to play Macduff. In his hotel
the great man impulsively suggested a rehearsal of
the fight, flinging Loraine an umbrella, but himself
selecting the poker. The elder Loraine was playing
lago with G. V. Brooke when a sailor clambered
from the pit to the stage and confidentially advised
Othello to beware of " that pirate craft."
Ben Webster, that perennial jeune premier, is
the son of a solicitor, but the grandson of fine
old Ben Webster. Two girls took naturally to
the stage and married actors.
One of my earliest memories in the way of journal-
ism was the funeral of Charles Calvert, whose death
made a most profound impression in Manchester.
His Shakespearean revivals there coming between
those of Charles Kean and Henry Irving avoided
the pedantry of the former and inspired the latter.
Calvert, a small, swarthy man, was, old Manchester
EXTINCT CELEBRITY 237
men have told me, an inspired actor. His widow is
a wonderful instance, at eighty-three, of longevity
on the stage. She played with the Keans in child-
hood. Her father, James Biddies, was the manager
of the Bower Saloon, at Lambeth. The Calverts
gave five sons to the stage, of whom Louis has lately
written a quite remarkable book on the Problems of
the Actor. He is just now associated in Macbeth
with Mr James K. Hackett, who lately renewed
with the younger Macreadys the friendship of their
famous fathers.
The Broughs came of a literary family. It gave
the stage two brilliant comedians, in Fanny Brough
and her uncle Lionel, whose sons seemed likely to
carry on his great work. But death took a heavy
toll. Still with us is Miss Mary Brough, old Lionel's
faithful companion.
Drury Lane's latest principal boy, winsome
Marie Blanche, takes her name from her mother,
one of the famous Blanche family, the children of
Cicely Nott, a once popular favourite in opera bouffe,
and of that experienced owner and music hall
manager, Sam Adams. Rosie Blanche was the wife
of Robert Courtneidge, and his effective business
partner. Their children, Cicely and Charles, are
both artists of consequence now, and the baby
Rosalind is of a determination to follow in their
footsteps.
Some of the most famous names on the stage are
now but names Gin-rick's, for instance. There
was a passable Rosalind, who claimed descent from
our " Grande Sarah," as Mrs Scott Siddons.
238 EVERLASTING FLOWERS
The name of Macready so passionately devoted
to his domesticity and so heavily bereaved is
famous now in public life. But Macready hated
the theatre in his heart. Phelps was not happy in
his children, though a dear lady, Phelps by mar-
riage, is remembered still. She was one of the
fixtures of the George Edwardes household. Old
Harry, or " Beetle," Kemble had a clear claim to
his name. His father was a soldier. His love of
the theatre, to which he proceeded from the Civil
Service, was encouraged in the house of his aunt,
the beautiful Fanny Kemble.
From the eighteenth century, through four genera-
tions, there has been a William Farren, transmitting
the title of an " Old " Farren to a young Farren.
The William Farren of to-day had a boy with no
predilection for the stage, likely, it seemed, to dis-
tinguish himself in science. He fell in the war.
Nellie Farren's son, Joseph, known as Farren Soutar,
is the last representative of his family that I know
of. Still further back go the Emerys. But it is
understood that Miss Winifred Emery's daughter,
Margery Maude, definitely retired from the stage on
her marriage.
En revanche, many of the popular favourites of
this generation made for the stage in sheer perver-
sity and in defiance of family tradition. Bancroft's
father was a gentleman of independent means.
To be sure, Lady Bancroft's parents were on the
stage. Hare was a student for the Civil Service
when a success as an amateur actor turned his
thoughts to the stage. Wyndham's father was a
"LAY' PARENTS 239
kind of medical practitioner. Toole's was the
City Toastmaster ; Tree's a corn merchant; Alex-
ander's a tradesman ; Hawtrey's a schoolmaster ;
Bourchier's a soldier and a city man ; Forbes
Robertson's an art critic. Of these, Irving and
Tree have given children to the stage, though the
remaining Irving, Harry Irving's son, Laurence, has
chosen another career. Hare's son, Gilbert, is
alternatively a doctor and an actor. Young Ban-
croft acted a little and then preferred to cultivate
dramatic authorship. His marriage with Miss Effie
Hare was lately responsible for making Sir John and
Sir Squire great-grandfathers.
CHAPTER XXXI
THE PASSING OF THE MUSIC HALL
Sale of the Empire Its History The Pernicious Promenade Memories
of the Middlesex William TelPs Bad Shot Vesta Tilley's Farewell
Some Male Impersonators
RECENTLY the directors of the two great music hall
enterprises conducted competitions in the search
for so styled " talent," particularly of the quality
of the red-nosed comedian. I denied myself the
pleasure of assistance and my course proved wise.
No genius was disclosed ; not even mediocrity of
promise. Most of the aspirants, I am told, were
slavish plagiarists of well-known types as Robey,
Dunville, Harry Freeman, George Lashwood. They
might have chanted Morituri te Salutant as they
approached. The return was a cortege of slain
hopes.
Everywhere the memories of the Victorian music
hall are fading. As I write, the shareholders in the
Empire are completing the sale of thier historic
theatre for use as a picture house. Vesta Tilley de-
finitely merged her personality into that of Lady de
Freece at the most impressive function I recall in
the history of the variety theatre, the other day.
" Jimmy " Gray don lived to see the Old Mogul be-
come a fashionable theatre, then died. Each event
had a really deep significance for the student of the
240
THE MIDDLESEX
variety theatre indeed might form the text of an
essential chapter in its history.
First, the Mogul. Not for me now to trace
its history to the source often claimed for it a
pleasant tavern in the days of Charles II., where
Nell Gwynn may have quenched her thirst. If,
in fact, one seeks the oldest continuing music hall
licence, I believe the claim must be allowed to the
Standard, Pimlico, now the Victoria Palace. But
in the sixties the Great Mogul Tavern developed
a singing-room into a music hall ; and eventually
there was a kind of partition between the Middlesex
Music Hall and its parent public-house, as in the
case of a dozen other variety theatres notably
the Pavilion, the Oxford, the Royal Holborn, the
Metropolitan and Collins's. In none of these
instances was there an absorption of the earlier
structure ; nor, in the cases of the Grand Theatre,
Islington, or the Britannia or the East London.
This alliliation with an inn is one of the oldest
traditions of the English variety theatre. You may
draw a fantastic parallel between the gallcried yard
of Shakespeare and the Criterion, the old Gaiety
not to drag in His Majesty's and the Carlton if
you like. Under Graydon, in the seventies and
e in- 1 1 Lies, the Middlesex was a typical old-style
music hall. It clung to the tradition of tin
chairman, around whose table you might find
young medicos from the neighbouring King's
College Hospital. A famous Hurley SI reel prac-
titioner not so long since sat into the small hours
with me, joyously recalling such experiences.
THE PASSING OF THE MUSIC HALL
Graydon, on the other hand, was furious when
George Sims spoke of the earlier musical hall
proprietors as originally potmen. But, in fact, they
were. The wonder is they did so well for them-
selves, and for the art of variety. Graydon had an
odd weakness for speaking of his early employment
as that of " secretary 9: to another celebrity of
the variety stage, Weston, of the Royal Holborn.
Actually, he was West on 's cellarman, but a worthy
creature, an honourable man of business, a shrewd
judge of what was technically called " talent."
Almost every celebrity of the variety stage
appeared at the Old Mo'. But, strangely enough,
none was " discovered '' there. It was a kind of
intermediate school. It claims Dan Leno's London
debut. Not so ! But when Leno had just been
remarked by the agents as a youngster of promise
he got a joint engagement, at the Mogul, and
at the vanished Deacons', a stone's-throw from
Sadler's Wells Theatre. The Mogul was again and
again the battle-ground of the sketch, and but for
Graydon's persistence it is probable that the music
halls would not enjoy, as they do now by
tolerance, not even yet by statutory right the
blessed privilege of playing short comic and serious
dramas.
One of the few fatal accidents in music halls
occurred at the Middlesex, when the girl carrying
the apple on her forehead in a William Tell act
was shot. In such exhibitions there is usually
trickery not that the performer cannot, by sheer
skill, extinguish candles, or lift weights as advertised.
SALE OF THE EMPIRE 243
In practice, the candles are extinguished for him,
just to make sure ; the weights are diminished to
save his strength. When Graydon relinquished the
actual control of the Middlesex, and the Stoll group
acquired a controlling interest, a series of revues
by one of the lower grade Parisian companies was
done, and had a certain vogue. " Habitues " of
the Old Mogul had a curious sensation as they saw
scantily dressed French beauties marching a " joy
plank" across its once sanded floor to its once
impeccably virtuous stage. When the Mogul was
taken over in the Grossmith and Laurillard interest,
and turned into a smart theatre, not less than
70,000 changed hands, and a vast sum was spent
on its reconstruction and beautification. I suppose
its capital value stands at ten times that of five
and twenty years ago. Moreover, the most typical
music hall of the day has been obliterated. And
here is the Empire by way of being sold for nearly
half a million, and likely to be turned into a picture
house to which your nursery governess may take
the children. There comes a time in a man's life,
accordingto DcMurger's Bohemian, when he should
nge " himself. So with theatres. There is, in-
<1< <<!. a certain fitness in the Empire becoming a
pic hi re palace, for, after a tentative season at the
Polytechnic, the first cinema exhibition was given
at the Empire, in the afternoon, then as a
conspicuously modest feature of the evening
programme.
No need to be reticent about the Empire now. It
was never virginibus pucrisqut. Still, public opinion
244 THE PASSING OF THE MUSIC HALL
was complacent, and, in the nineties, declined to
listen to the exhortations of Mrs Chant and her
companions, but heartily endorsed Clement Scott's
denunciation in The Daily Telegraph of " Prudes on
the Prowl." Half-hearted authority sought to miti-
gate the offence of the promenade by enclosing the
bars with Moorish fretwork. Young bloods tore down
the partitions, and with a potential Prime Minister
of to-day at their head marched down Piccadilly,
brandishing fragments. The manager of the Empire
in those days took a careful census of the demi-
monde, by way of proving the sparsity of its
inhabitants, and could never be induced to see the
damning humour of the proceeding.
When, in 1916, the promenade was abolished
there was no outcry, except from the Bishop of
London, who proclaimed a triumph that was not
really his. Public opinion had spontaneously im-
proved. The sultanas had, in sheer weariness,
ceased their ambulation. Sir John M'Dougall,
whose name became a silly synonym for hypocrisy,
is dead ; but Mrs Chant, in some rural retreat, may
hear of the end of the old Empire. They were
well-meaning, estimable people, of broader view by
far than their critics allowed. They made the
common error of such reformers in marshalling
exaggerated hearsay as indefeasible evidence.
Of course the Empire is much younger than its
neighbour and competitor, the Alhambra the
latter is upwards of fifty years old, the former
fewer than forty. The historian of Leicester Square
finds himself wandering on Lammas land in an
HISTORY OF THE EMPIRE 245
incredibly short time. But when building began
on the north side of the square a tenantry of
memorials supremely interesting to the lover of
London crowded in. The Empire stands almost
on the site of the town house of the Earls of
Leicester. It had a spacious courtyard in front,
and, at the back, a more spacious garden. In the
course of time it was the residence apportioned
to distinguished foreigners visiting London. Here
lived the pathetic Winter Queen, Elizabeth of
Bohemia. Here Peter the Great may have drunk
his favourite mixture of pepper and brandy. Here
George II. set up his Court, as Prince of Wales,
having quarrelled with his father ; and Frederick,
the later Prince of Wales, did just the same thing.
So it was called the " pouting-place of princes."
Next door was Saville House, eventually destroyed
by the Gordon Rioters, and from the steps of Saville
House, in the circumstances set out above, George
III. was proclaimed King. Great is the temptation
to wander southward o'er the square, swept by
Baron Grant and garnished with Shakespeare and
geraniums, to recall duels and distinguished
residents, circuses, poses-pl(ixtlqncx> judge and jury
shows, and what not. But indeed you might write
a volume about the fifty yards or so from Stagg
& Mantle's corner, where Miss Linwood exhibited
the old masters weirdly done in worsted, to the
little French church, once a panorama, where one
of our most popular comedians was, not so long
since, received into the ancient \\\\\\\.
A wonderful museum of many thous.-md objects
246 THE PASSING OF THE MUSIC HALL
was accumulated in Leicester House toward the
end of the eighteenth century by Sir Ashton Lever
as the Holuphiskon, and dissipated by public
lottery. On or around the site now occupied by
the Empire, in the sixties, shows of every kind,
that might have agglomerated into a Bardelmy
Fair, from " anatomical : ' monstrosities to negro
minstrelsy, ensued. The finish was an Eldorado
Music Hall, burned to the ground, in spite of the
efforts of King Edward VIL, then, of course, Prince
of Wales, and his vivacious friend, the Duke of
Sutherland, who drove up on a fire engine and
pumped away. On the site cleared by the fire a
huge panorama was built its lines may still be
traced in the structure of the theatre into which
it was transformed as the Alcazar, as the Pandora,
eventually as the Empire, opened on 17th April
1884, with Chilperic.
Neither this nor a succeeding Gaiety burlesque
proved profitable, and in 1887 the blessed privilege
of a licence for music and dancing was secured.
The entertainment consisted of two ballets of
magnitude and magnificence, and of a perfectly
conventional variety show by Dan Leno, Arthur
Roberts and the like. To this a proportion of the
audience paid serious attention. But the world-
famous characteristic of the Empire was the
promenade, with its cosmopolitan crowd and an
unmoral, an unobtrusive-immoral, element. As
these diminished the prosperity of the Empire
diminished, though it should always be remem-
bered in explanation of the once enormous-seeming
VESTA TIL LEV '217
dividends, in the neighbourhood of 60 per cent.,
that they were paid on a ridiculously small capital.
Writing without reference books available, I should
say that the paid-up share capital of those days
was about 30,000, the debenture issue about equal
in amount, and the receipts in the neighbourhood
of 100,000 a year.
Genee, for years the great asset of the Empire,
got about 30 a week. To-day she would com-
mand from ten to twenty times that salary. On
the other hand, as much as 10,000 would be
spent on the production of a ballet. In the course
of time the Empire tried revue, and eventually
returned to its first form of entertainment, ex-
travaganza and opera. But all this is common
knowledge.
That Vesta Tilley on her retirement can boast of
fifty years' continuous work on the variety stage
seems almost incredible. The explanation is that
she was a popular performer when ordinary urchins
are the prisoners of the nursery. Her extraordinary
vivacity and youthfulness were the astonishing
characteristics even of her last performance.
I cannot make a genealogical tree for the
"male impersonator." I think that Ella Wesiu r,
an American girl, who visited England in the
seventies, was one of the first. She usrd t<> sino ;m
advert ising song :
" The Richmond Gem,
I Richmond Gem,
Wherever I go,
I always smoke them."
248 THE PASSING OF THE MUSIC HALL
She had a successor, a compatriot, Zelma Rawl-
ston. Vesta Tilley had a contemporary, Bessie
Bonehill, and a once potential rival, who married,
and retired, and declined to become a wonderful
representative of, say, Frau Potash Millie Hylton.
But when Vesta Tilley found herself, say thirty years
ago, she never dreamed of yesterday. Her curious
facility for wearing men's clothes was due to the
fact that she did wear men's clothes, got from the
best outfitters for men, and worn as a man might-
no corsets, made ties, and high-heeled boots, which
betrayed so many of her rivals, but the real thing
right through. She actually set men's fashions.
Moreover, she had an extraordinary capacity for
living in her costume. Some sixth sense of insight,
some supersimian power of mimicry, made her indeed
Algy, and Tommy, and who not ? If you want to
measure the height and the depth of Tilley worship,
you must go to Birmingham, which had watched
her beginnings, knew the loyalty and sweetness of
her home life, her charities. She was born hard
by and had family ties with the city. Her father,
a curious old " character," was a clown, by name
Powles. Tilley was christened Matilda, and as-
sumed the style of Vesta from a match-box. Odd,
because the name of Vesta Tilley seems to have
an inseparable fitness. Old Powles was chairman
of a Nottingham sing-song, grandiosely called St
George's Hall. For years the " Great Little Tilley,"
of whom pictures are extant as the infant Sims
Reeves, with a moustache that seemed too large
for her little body, endured all the vicissitudes
CHARLES COBORN 249
of music hall life. Not only are its memories vivid
its comrades are not forgotten. In surroundings
that reeked of beer and tobacco ; in dressing-rooms
where the talk was no cleaner than the atmosphere ;
in poor lodgings and in "palaces" where putrid
songs were specifically demanded by swine-eyed
proprietors, she grew as sweetly and as strangely
as the prison flower. And now her work is
done.
What is the future of the music hall ? 1 fear if
fear should be the word it has none. I loved it.
I love to babble of it, as the old lady fondled her
memory of sin. I look at a Pavilion programme,
with its twenty alternations of lions "comique," or
" serios," and acrobats no " sketch," no interlude
of classic music, nothing more elevating than The
Lost Chord on a cornet. I wonder if it could obsess
me again ? When Ralph Neville reads this heresy
he will fling my poor book into the hearth. Randall
Charlton will weep. Willoughby Maycock will pause
in his generous and infallible addenda to admit there
is something in what I say. Kheu fugaces ! The
flight, at any rate, is a fact.
A somewhat earlier retirement from the scene was
that of .Charles Coborn, whose farewell benefit was
approved by the Bishops of Willesden and of Win-
chester. Two Bishops and Two Lovely Black Eyes.
Can you imagine a more curious citation ?
Coborn typified the music hall singer in the respect
that he began in most humble circumstances some-
what short of fifty years ago, and rose to fame un-
taught, unaided. He did not typify the music hall
250 THE PASSING OF THE MUSIC HALL
singer in the respect that his songs were always
clean ; he was careful in the finesse of his art,
passionate in his claim for the dignity of his
calling.
He came of dour Scotch parents, and abandoned
" the city " in his teens to try his luck as an " artiste "
for a few shillings a week in the singing-rooms then
attached to hundreds of public-houses in London
and the provinces. He made his first success with
Here's Another Kind Love, a ditty such as the soul
of the music hall habitue loved. He made his first
important appearance at the Middlesex, the play-
ground of many a music hall celebrity, and most
respectable of its common, kind. The old building,
fumed with ale, sawdust and tobacco, is now a
luxurious theatre. By singing Our 'Armonic Club
Coborn got Chevalier's ditties a vogue in " the halls,"
and possibly suggested to the actor poet his apostolic
trip to the variety stage. Coborn tried Kipling's
ballads too, but without remarkable success. Two
Lovely Black Eyes, first sung in the provinces, came
to West End ears through the Trocadero, long since
absorbed in the restaurant of that name. The
history and style of this hall epitomise the history
and stereotype the style of what, when all is
said and done, is or was the most characteristic
form of English entertainment. The Trocadero
was transformed from the Argyll Rooms, and
the Argyll Rooms has been, not quite correctly,
identified with a Georgian haunt called Laurent's
Casino. In the seventies the Argyll Rooms was as
a modern night club, without its perfunctory con-
THE TROCADERO 251
dition of election to membership. You just bought
a ticket and went in to mix with the demi-reps
and the demi-mondaines who danced and drank till
morning, to the accumulation of a vast fortune for
its last proprietor, one Bignell. Several times he
was threatened with the loss of his licence, and at
last it went. The golden youth contemplated a
lusty last night, but there was no last night. As
the hour for the function approached the police
formed a cordon round Windmill Street and drove
back the angry roisterers.
For a long time Bignell sulked in his tent, and then
he had the brilliant idea of turning the Argyll Rooms
into the Trocadero Music Hall. The bar was as
large as the hall, from which it was only defined by
arches. It was not uncommon for champagne to be
ordered by the dozen. Once I saw a fight between
the pugilistic bodyguard of the late Mr " Abingdon r
Baird and others of a rival noceur. Twenty police
instantly filed in, for the incident was expected.
In spite of all its privileges of tradition, situation
and circumstance, the Trocadero only flourished
while Coborn sang Two Lovely Black Eyes. It was
Ins own conceived and executed parody of a silly
Christy Minstrel song, My Nellie's Blue Eyes. He
was engaged at the Trocadero as an emergency
" turn " at five pounds a week, and he \v;is retained
two years at eventually ten pounds a week under a
contract. " Jimmie " Davis, otherwise Owen Hall,
who claimed, with some excuse, to be the inventor of
musical comedy, wrote a eulogy of Two Lovely Blade
Eye* in his smart, scandalous paper, The Bat, and
252 THE PASSING OF THE MUSIC HALL
soon fashionable London, dull peers and the sultanas
were fighting for admission.
Two Lovely Black Eyes pervaded the world. It has
outlived the Trocadero. It will outlive the music
hall. To few men are given two such successes.
But Coborn soon followed with Bill Sloggins :
" . . . 'orl right when you know 'im,
But you've got to know 'im fust.
'Orl right when you know 'im,
But nasty when he's vexed.
'E'll stand a pint one minute, and
'E'll black your eye the next."
Then came The Man that Broke the Bank at
Monte Carlo, of which Coborn bought the performing
rights for a guinea. At the outset its acceptance
was so grudging that the author and composer, Fred
Gilbert, gladly disposed of all rights, publication
and what not for ten pounds. Could a success such
as that of Two Lovely Black Eyes be reasonably
looked for to-day, Coborn might command not five
but possibly five hundred pounds a week. Could a
song achieve such a success as that of Monte Carlo,
it might make ten thousand pounds. ;t . . . Pity
them both ! Pity us all who vainly the acts of
our youth recall."
And, again, a landmark of the music hall dis-
appeared in John Read, whose death, at the ripe
age of eighty-seven, removed probably the last of
the chairmen. A chance reference to him not long
before his death brought a cheery letter from the
veteran, declaring that he was still hale and hearty,
playing Darby to the Joan of his wife, a once well-
THE CHAIRMAN 253
known " serio-comic singer," who survived him.
Read was for many years master of the ceremonies
at Collins's Music Hall, Islington. His office was
abolished long ago. The last chairman, at anyrate
in the London area, was a venerable gentleman,
Walter Lever by name, who retired from the Royal
Albert Music Hall in Canning Town nearing his
eighties, after little less than half-a-century of public
service. By day he was a skilled mechanic, and
proudly possessed a letter from King Edward VII.
recording his worth. He went to school with
Arthur Orton, and was a damning witness against
the claimant.
The chairman was the last link between the
modern music hall and its forerunners, the song and
supper room and the " free and easy." In the first
case mine host himself occupied the chair, and en-
couraged his guests to wine and song at Evans's,
Paddy Green, who had been himself a chorister ; at
the Coal Hole, a great favourite of the literary and
theatrical celebrities of the day, John Rhodes, whose
hospitable board groaned beneath a weight of solid
silver tankards. In the course of time the Coal
Hole became the Occidental Tavern, a great haunt
of needy actors, who were allowed generous credit ;
and then the famous old hostelry became Terry's
Theati
When Morton remodelled the Canterbury he con hi
not do without the chairman; one John Caullirld,
who eventually accompanied Morton to tlu Oxford,
an old aclm from the Haymarket, officiated
Madame Caullicld was the first srrio-romir singer.
254 THE PASSING OF THE MUSIC HALL
Of their children, a son married the Alhambra
favourite, Constance Loseby, and a daughter was
the ill-fated Lennox Grey, one of the sweetest ex-
ponents of early comic opera. Caulfield was a ver-
satile genius musical, histrionic, literary. He wrote
Sam CowelPs Faust song and kept it up to date
with topical verses of a notably daring character.
John Read was a fertile writer of songs, of which
he was an effective exponent. Probably the best
known ran :
" Sitting by the fireside, smoking my long clay,
That is how I like to pass a winter night away,
A glass of grog, a flaming log, that blazes now and then,
Upon my word, I do declare, I'm the happiest of men."
Strange as it may seem, he could link up with
Canterbury, with Cowell and Caulfield ; for a popular
member of the company there was Sam Collins, who
stands for the type of the stage Irishman. No
music hall programme, and indeed no stock com-
pany, was complete without its Irish comedian, con-
ventional, cap-a-pied from the caubeen on his head
to the brogues on his feet, green coat of the pattern
we call a dress coat now, drab cord breeches, worsted
stockings and shillelagh. Collins probably modelled
himself on George Hodson, whose father wrote Tell
me, Mary, how to Woo Thee, and somewhile managed
the Bower Saloon, and whose daughters became
celebrated actresses as Kate Hodson and Henrietta
Hodson Mrs Henry Labouchere, of the sharp
tongue. The last of the Irish comedians was Pat
Feeney, a real genius, and Irish body and soul.
HARRY FOX 255
Sam Collins used to sing The Kocki/ Road to Dublin,
but I doubt if he ever trod it. He was a London
chimney-sweep, by name Vagg, and he used to carry
his wardrobe in a bundle slung over his shoulder at
the end of a shillelagh so, tramp miles from "turn "
to " turn," his pay, at the outset, being three half-
crowns a show and a hot drink. But he saved
money, bought the Lansdowne Arms, Islington
Green, and turned it into a music hall, which eventu-
ally changed hands for 50,000. He was a good
fellow, as his epitaph testifies :
11 Farewell, honest-hearted Sam,
Until we meet before the great I Am."
Harry Sydney, the topical vocalist, was the author
of this priceless gem.
Not far from Collins's was a hall known as
Deacons', swept away by Rosebery Avenue. The
chairmanship of Deacons' indirectly shaped the
course of music halls and musical comedy. There
were two competitors for the job, contributors to
the current programme. Fred Williams thought
his fortune was made when he secured the post at
li\ e pounds a week. His bitterly disappointed rival
kept on comic singing being Arthur Roberts and
was soon drawing all London to the Oxford Music
Hall.
And, again, a chairman exercised a remarkable
influence on the commerce of the variety stage-
Harry l-'ox. (haii man for many years of I he Middle-
sex, or the " Old Mogul." Fox it was who encour-
aged professionals to look in on him on Sunday
256 THE PASSING OF THE MUSIC HALL
night, negotiated engagements for them, and acted
as clerk of the agreement for, in truth, they were
an illiterate lot.
If Fox were the father of music hall agency, which
meanwhile has yielded incomes ranging to ten
thousand a year to some very curious gentry, he
was not, as I saw stated the other day, the father of
Rose Fox, the Gaiety skipping-rope dancer which,
by the way, would make him the grandfather of
Maude Darrell. The founder of that family was a
North Country man.
The vastness of the South London Music Hall
suggested the removal of the chairman's seat to the
centre of the hall, where the gallery boy " chi-iked "
him with an incessant chorus of " Bob, Bob, Bob."
His name was Robert Courtney Baron Courtney,
if you please. I suppose the title was imitated from
" Baron " Nicholson, the chairman of the infamous
" Judge and Jury." Courtney blazed diamonds,
but died in abject poverty. Another chairman
typified the vicissitudes of variety. W. B. Fair was
chairman of various halls. He became famous as
the singer of Lonsdale's Tommy, make Room for
your Uncle, which had a run of ten years. Robert
Browning protested against the maddening strains :
" Treading down rose and ranunculus,
You, 'Tommy, make room for your uncle us,'
Troop, all of you man or homunculus."
Fair invested his fortune badly, and shortly before
his death was a linkman at the London Coliseum.
Naturally, the Pavilion, built over the stable-yard
of an inn, from which you were entitled to draw an
REVUE 257
allowance of liquor as part of the contract expressed
on your ticket of admission, had its chairman. Well
remembered by viveurs in the seventies was Harry
Cavendish, who, like most of his kind, joined the
vocation of " buffo vocalist " to that of chairman,
and readily obliged with The Village Blacksmith if
an artist should fail or be late. The chairma'n
lingered in the provinces long after London had no
further use for him. Probably the last to go was
he of Chatham.
Revue, so called, was the requiem of variety.
Revue might have given it new life. Revue is, of
course, a very definite form of art, and, exact in cir-
cumstance and detail, can hardly be transplanted to
our soil. The attempt was first made, many years ago,
by the precocious genius of Seymour Hicks, abetted
by the matured cynicism of Charles Brookfield, in
Under the Clock, at the Court Theatre. It was
made again at the Coliseum, when that costly
structure first slid out into deep water to capsize
and sink but what a salvage I Then the Alhambra,
the Hippodrome, the Empire, the London Hippo-
drome were given over to scabrous splendours,
^ely of American origin, called revues, absolutely
n F) like their French namesake, just as the music
halls were filled up with the precipitated baseness
of pantomime the puns, the " unprincipalled " boy,
tin soppy-sentimental heroine, the obtrusive, inane
comedians, the second-hand clothes and shal>l>\
scenery. Mostly these were " run " by that thing
of ineptitude and cupidity the music hall agent,
short of his habitual prey.
258 THE PASSING OF THE MUSIC HALL
Plays and ballets encroached upon the pro-
grammes of the more important music halls. The
others found themselves depleted of the acrobats,
who were mostly Germans, summoned to military
service, and of the Americans who cried " Me
for home ! " when the first maroon sounded. There
were left the artists most characteristic of the music
hall English artists, usually uneducated, in letters
and in the art of entertaining ; picking their way
diffidently to public failure as an inefficient pianist
feels for a tune with one finger ; fatally apt to
stereotype a single success. The curse of the music
hall has always been proprietors without inspira-
tion, eye on dividends ; stage direction without
suggestion or discipline ; artists reliant on a thumb-
rule improvisation. The revue, which was not a
revue, seemed to be an opportunity of supply-
ing the music hall with an artistic medium ; of
giving the entertainment homogeneousness I have
seen Cleopatra lean on a Piccadilly lamp-post to
sing of the Nile; of tutoring the ignorance and
stimulating the genius whose birthplace may have
been a casual ward. But no ! The music hall
artist, good enough for the theatre, is taking that
incentive. The music hail proprietor chews his
cigar from one corner of his mouth to the other, and
spits contentedly. When the last God Save the
King has been played in his " hall " he can doubtless
make another fortune by surrendering it to " the
pictures." The Victorian music hall, whether you
come to bury it or to praise it, is as dead as Caesar.
CHAPTER XXXII
CONCERNING GILBERT AND SULLIVAN
A Wonderful Revival Gilbert and Sullivan's First Collaboration A
ty Burlesque Trial by Jury The Savoy Choosing the
Company A Quarrel and a Reconciliation
IN an earlier chapter I spoke of Gilbert and Sullivan
opera as having been a dead letter in London for
twenty years, and disputed the belief encouraged by
what in America they would call the Gilbert and
Sullivan " fans " that the first coming of the brilliant
pair scattered the professors of opera bouffe as chaff
before the wind. Both statements should be quali-
fied. Truly enough, the Savoy was never quite the
same after the quarrel of the parties to its fame. No
attempt to replace Gilbert and Sullivan really suc-
led. Their reconciliation was just an experiment
with poor cement. For some time from 19(K3 the
S;i\oy \\as closed, and thereafter devoted to other
. But it is the proud boast of Savoy opera that
from the time it had a habitation and a name, not a
working day has passed without a performance s >me-
\vherc, in England or abroad. Moreover, hardly any
attempt to revive an optra b<tufjt\ however popular
in its day, has been even moderately successful.
So Gilbert and Sullivan laugh last.
In I he autumn of 1!H9 a wonderful thing happened.
During eighteen \\eeks almost every Gilbert and
359
260 CONCERNING GILBERT & SULLIVAN
Sullivan opera was played at the Prince's Theatre.
Indeed the only omissions were those of Ruddigore,
which, in fact, was the least successful of the earlier
Savoy productions ; of Utopia, the seal of the in-
effectual reunion of Gilbert and Sullivan in the
autumn of 1893, after a quarrel that was conveni-
ently concentrated on a carpet, but had, in fact, been
long in the brewing ; and of The Grand Duke, with
which the second partnership came to an end death
from inanition.
Probably the two men were never personally
sympathetic to the degree that their public associa-
tion seemed to indicate. Sullivan was an incorrig-
ibly indolent, pleasure-loving Bohemian to the end.
Gilbert, as he prospered exceedingly, fell easily into
the role of the country gentleman and county
magistrate, somewhat cantankerous, though there
was a sweeter side to his nature, and he was capable
of generous deeds. A considerable moiety of his
large fortune comes eventually into the treasury of
theatrical charities.
Ruddigore was a really delightful burlesque on the
old school of melodrama perhaps already vieu jeu.
A certain section of the public found the title re-
volting, and Gilbert, in a characteristic mood of
sarcastic humour, suggested its change to the in-
significant Kensington Gore. It was Sullivan who
stood firm. The burlesque was itself burlesqued
butter on bacon as Ruddy George, at Toole's
Theatre. And it gave rise to a situation more absurd
than any it contained. For many years the corre-
spondent in London of the Paris Figaro was a very
M. JOHNSON 261
French old gentleman with the most English name
of Johnson, in style and sentiment a kind of Brixton
Road Blowitz. And M. Johnson took deep offence
on account of Richard's song about a short sharp
sea battle:
"Then our captain he up and he says, says he :
' That chap we need not fear
We can take her if we like,
She's sartin for to strike,
For she's only a darned Mounseer,
D'ye see ?
She's only a darned Mounseer !
11 ' But to fight a French fal-lal it's like hitting of a gal-
It's a lubberly thing for to do ;
For we, with all our faults,
Why, we're sturdy British salts,
While she's only a Parley-voo,
D'ye see ?
A miserable Parley-voo ! ' "
M. Johnson sent cablegrams to his journal which
graduated from an angry protest to a clear call to
arms. But the authorities had not yet reached
that stage of idiocy which made them later forbid
the performance of The Mikado lest Japanese
susceptibilities should be hurt!
It is the fact that two of the most shrewd and
enterprising of the important London managers
discussed the question of a revival of Gilbert and
Sullivan opera at the West End, and dismissed it,
in spite of the fact that long repertory seasons in
Manchester .Hid Birmingham might have shown
them the trend of public desire.
In considering the material results achieved at the
262 CONCERNING GILBERT & SULLIVAN
Prince's, it should be remembered that the theatre
has probably twice the holding capacity of the Savoy.
The operas were sumptuously redressed, after new
designs. There was a careful avoidance of " star-
ring " any artist. There was, of course, no attempt
to bring Gilbert "up to date." Not even his
most topical allusions to the extreme of " Captain
Shaw : type of true love kept under " were deleted.
Many of them proved, indeed, of a perfectly
prophetic appositeness. What was the result ?
An immediate 30,000 pouring into the box office
for " advance booking " from applicants who often
presented themselves whistling selections ! Two
splendid survivals of the old guard, Mr Rutland
Harrington and Miss Jessie Bond, were quickly
recognised in their boxes by an audience of which
some members proudly claimed a record of every
first night. Such a parade of affection was never
known.
For all time the name of D'Oyly Carte will be
associated with the operas of Gilbert and Sullivan
with a chapter of supreme and infinite importance in
the history of the English stage. Richard D'Oyly
Carte was the son of a maker of musical instruments ;
in early life a musical agent, shrewd, better educated
than persons of that calling were, or are apt to be,
himself a composer of no mean skill and charm,
with an assistant sympathetic in all aspects in his
secretary, Miss Helen Black, who became his wife,
and who, in spite of a delicate constitution not
spared in tireless and methodical industry, long out-
lived him. But D'Oyly Carte was not responsible
"TRIAL BY JURY' 263
for the introduction of author and composer. A
Gaiety burlesque produced in the early days of that
t heativ, on 21st December 1871, first bore the names
of W. S. Gilbert and Arthur Sullivan as author and
composer. It proved acceptable long runs were
not expected then but seems to have appealed to
no one as uncommon, though Gilbert in later life
strenuously maintained that he never, in the stress
of pot-boiling, fell into the ditch of careless rhyme
and pernicious punning, as Byron did. Gilbert was
Hollingshead's first selection as an author for the
Gaiety he contributed a burlesque of Robert the
Devil to the opening programme on 21st December
1868, with Toole in the cast ; six months later a
1 1 1 ree-act comedy drama called An Old Score. Years
passed ere the production of Trial by Jury at the
Royalty Theatre, on 25th March 1875. Charles
Morton has been described as the father of Gilbert
and Sullivan opera. It is as terminologically in-
exact as to call him the father of the music hall.
Carte was running a season of opera bouffe at the
Royalty with the eiratic Selina, or " Dolly " Dolaro,
for liis leading lady. Trial by Jury was produced
;i> an after-piece to La Perichole, in supersession of
Charles Toilette's curiously entitled entertainment,
( i 'ii>lnconchoidsyphonostomata y obviously SU<ILJ< -s f < < 1
by Henry Carey's Chrononholontfhologos. I think
the sole survivor of Trial by Jury is Miss Nellie
Bromley, who, as Mrs Archibald Stuart Wortley, is
still an interesting and interested attendant at first
its. She was a popular favourite in comic o|
and l)url( s(|iie in her day. Fred Sullivan, the learned
264 CONCERNING GILBERT & SULLIVAN
judge, was the composer's brother, a fine comedian,
who went to America and died there. W. S. Penley
was an eventual foreman of the jury, but not the
first.
More than two years later, in the late autumn of
1877, the Opera Comique was opened under the
direction of the Comedy Opera Company, one of the
earliest " syndicates," which created a nine days'
wonder by a free fight ere it dissolved. A simple
partnership between Carte, Sullivan and Gilbert
was the sequel. To Pinafore ensued The Pirates
oj Penzance and Patience. The last-named was on
10th October transferred to the Savoy, then regarded
as the last word in theatre structure flooded with
what the descriptive writers still called the " new
illuminant." A great name is curiously associated
with The Pirates of Penzance. There was a mysteri-
ous first performance at Penzance to baffle the
pirates of America, and the first Major- General
Stanley was that erratic genius, Richard Mansfield,
son of the once famous vocalist, Emma Rudersdorf.
Mansfield was a grateful prote'ge' of D'Oyly Carte
and long a member of his companies as Sir Joseph
Porter and John Wellington Wells.
It was probably more than a coincidence that
many of the early and most of the important ex-
ponents of Gilbert and Sullivan had been " enter-
tainers." There was George Grossmith ; there was
Rutland Barrington, who, after a brief novitiate
with Henry Neville, went to the Howard Pauls.
There was Mrs Howard Paul herself. Jessie Bond
was a concert vocalist. May not the explanation be
THE SAVOY 265
that Gilbert deliberately chose artists free from the
traditions and tricks of the stage plastic material
he could mould with firm fingers ? He is spoken of
as an exigeant, an autocratic stage manager. He
insisted on his lines being spoken without omission
or addition. He imparted " business " that was in-
frangibly stereotyped. But then his lines were, and
are, unimprovable. And his knowledge of stage-craft
was extensive and peculiar. Like so many of the
settlers in " the beautiful city of Prague," Jeff
Prowse's witty way of indicating London as the
capital of Bohemia, Gilbert had been a barrister,
bitterly reviled, as he humorously relates, by one of
his first clients, and a Civil servant. He became a
serious and comic journalist, illustrating his own
articles with a pen that perceived a divided duty-
he was so clever a draughtsman. He was a trenchant
critic of the drama, a hack writer of pantomime and
burlesque, the founder of a new school of fancy
bred comedy, and the first of the " problem play-
wrights," with Mrs Kendal for his "woman with
a past " in Charity. He had practical experience
of the stage from harlequin in a pantomime
to the associate in Trial by Jury, when it \\ns
done at the Nellie Farren benefit. It has always
formed a useful vehicle on such occasions for intro-
ducing crowds of celebrities. Gilbert always used a
miniature of the Savoy stage, with ingenious details,
for his situations and colour schemes. He had given
infinite pains to the study of mise en scene, and so
long ago as the Haymarket days had sharp encounters
with an opponent of such strong character as Mrs
266 CONCERNING GILBERT & SULLIVAN
Kendal. Hollingshead recalls that he usually got
what he wanted at the Gaiety, adding that what he
wanted was usually right. At the Savoy he had
developed into the complete autocrat, though he
maintained that he was always willing to listen to
suggestion less courageously tendered, no doubt,
after an experience of the scathing retort at which he
was an adept. A Rabelaisian quality has kept some
of his best mots from printed record.
One of the traditions of the Savoy was the sedulous
concealment of the name, the style and every inter-
esting detail of a contemplated production until the
first performance, or at any rate until the repetition
general, which was, I think, introduced to this
country at the Savoy. Once, when the story of
an opera leaked out there are many men in Fleet
Street who could tell now Gilbert assembled the
company and reproached all with the crime of one,
whom he professed to be able to indicate. He
magnanimously withheld the name of the " little
cad ; but it began with T." Poor little Frank
Thornton was desolated. But when he was soon
cleared of all suspicion he had the courage to refuse
Gilbert's grudging and half-hearted withdrawal,
and to insist on a second assembly of the company
and an apology as unmistakable as the offence had
been.
Arthur Sullivan's early activity was addressed to
the composition of oratorio, incidentally of music
for The Tempest. He collaborated with Burn and
in a musical version of Box and Cox ; again in
an operetta done by the German Reeds, entitled
AS COLLABORATORS 267
Contrabandista. Of his eventual association with
Gilbert the latter said :
" When Sullivan and I began to collaborate
English comic opera had practically ceased to exist.
Such musical entertainments as held the stage were
adaptations of the plots of the operas of Offenbach,
Audran and Lecocq. These plots had generally
been Bowdlerised out of intelligibility ; and, when
they had not been subjected to this treatment, they
wciv frankly improper, whereas the ladies' dresses
suggested that the management had gone on the
principle of doing a little and doing it well. Sullivan
and I set out with the determination to prove that
these elements were not essential to the success of
humorous opera. We resolved that our plots, how-
ever ridiculous, should be coherent ; that the dia-
logue should be void of offence ; that, on artistic
principles, no man should play a woman's part and
no woman a man's. Finally we agreed that no la<ly
of the company should be required to wear a < i
sh<- ronM not with absolute propriety wear at a
I'.-inry dreBfl hall."
CHAPTER XXXIII
POSTSCRIPT
Tom Thome's Death Actors as Horsemen Story of Two Roses
Irving's First Appearance Good-bye to Cecil Clay
MECHANICAL difficulties, the saint-like patience of a
publisher, an incorrigible habit of procrastination
have kept these pages long in waiting. So the lapse
of time permits some frank footnotes to the earlier
chapters. Tom Thorne is dead. The painful cir-
cumstances might have warranted the secrecy of his
relatives. But it was curiously decided to put the
news in circulation twelve months after the event.
Thorne was a hard, uncouth kind of actor, one of a
large theatrical family, whose members took to the
stage as a matter of course. Tom acted with Phelps.
He was at his best, to my recollection, as Parson
Adams ; and, again, as the Methodist minister of
Jones's Saints and Sinners. I bore a grudge against
him, I own, for ruining, by sheer force of inappro-
priate personality, a profoundly interesting play
of Haddon Chambers, The Honourable Herbert; no
doubt, too, a little before its time. So was Griersorfs
Way. Odd that when, after twenty years, Mr
Esmond carried out a cherished scheme of giving it
a second chance it should be found old-fashioned by
the young critic. The moral seems to be, let sleep-
ing plays lie. Thome's last jeune premier of note
268
ACTORS AS HORSEMEN 269
was Leonard Boyne, whose recent death revealed
something like his real age, as seventy- three. He
was sensitive on the point, resenting even the sixty-
seven years allowed him in the biographical records.
Perhaps much exercise in the open air was respon-
sible for his extraordinarily youthful appearance
and temperament. Boyne was one of the last
actors not afraid to act. He was a brilliant horse-
man one of the very few who did not cut a ridicu-
lous figure when he needed to mount a horse on the
stage, as in A Prodigal Daughter. As a stage lover
he was incomparable. Perhaps the leading ladies
of his youth the lovely, red-haired Mrs Rousby,
the adorable Ada Cavendish were responsible. He
played Claudian with a moustache and a still more
pronounced brogue. He defended both. When
mischievously asked if there were Irish settlers in
Ancient Rome, he asked defiantly : " An' whoy
not ? "
Lady Wyndham is excogitating a revival of Two
A'o.sr.v, which, produced on 4th June 1870, established
the uncertain fortunes of the Vaudeville, and was the
one outstanding success of her first husband, Janus
AllxTv, who became, however, well accustomed in
I IK adaptation of French farces to the English stage.
Albcry, in the character of an exuberant first-night IT,
once asked Ben Webster, towards the end of a tire -
soi IK play, if he was likely to be very long ; but, on
tin- other side of the footlights, reviled the audience
th;if <lid not like his ./, T/.-.S atnl Jills at the Vaudeville.
Hut it was during Burnand's Headless Man that
Wyndbam angrily objurgated a "man in a white
270 POSTSCRIPT
hat." When the audience dispersed a white hat was
left on the ledge of the upper circle and not claimed.
It was preserved as a relic at the Criterion for years
and may still be there. Albery wrote a sequel,
Two Thorns, which had but a short run. Of Two
Roses there have been half-a-dozen revivals. In
this play Henry Irving, as Digby Grant, was allowed
to "take rank among the very best actors on the
London stage . . . the selfish arrogance, the stuck-
up hauteur, the transparent hypocrisy, and the utter
heartlessness of the character, made all the more
odious by the assumption of sanctity, were depicted
by Mr Irving with exquisite truthfulness of detail
and admirable brilliancy and vigour of general
effect. His make-up for the part was excellent ;
and his whole performance spirited, characteristic
and life-like." Previously Irving had played
Doricourt in The Belle's Stratagem at the St James's,
Rawdon Scudamore in Boucicault's Hunted Down,
Harry Dornton in The Road to Ruin, and Count
Falcon in Idalia. At the Queen's Theatre he was
Bob Gassitt in Dearer than Life, and in the first per-
formance of Formosa at Drury Lane, on 5th August
1869, he played the villain, Compton Kerr.
But, in truth, Irving's absolutely unnoticed first
appearance in London was at the Princess's Theatre,
on 24th September 1859, in a play entitled Ivy Hall,
adapted by John Oxenford from the French. The
actor came up eager to begin a three years' engage-
ment with Augustus Harris the first, to find that he
had an utterly insignificant part to play, three lines
to speak. Bitterly disappointed, he asked for, and
_
X - <
< - 5
STORY OF TWO HOSES" -J71
obtained, his release, and returned to a weary round
of the provinces. Much of his time was spent
in Manchester, where Boucicault claimed to have
" discovered " him.
Two Rose* first appeared most suitably as a serial
in The Family Herald. Of the three partners in the
Vaudeville. James did not appear, though he eventu-
ally succeeded to the character of Our Mr Jenkins.
Handsome Harry Montague played Jack Wyatt ;
Thome was the blind Caleb Deecie; George Honey,
the original Eccles, played Our Mr Jenkins. Honey
was stricken by paralysis while playing Eccles in a
revival of Caste and held up in the doorway of the
scene till the curtain fell, the audience shrieking
with laughter at his contorted face.
Of the Two Roses, Addie Newton became Mrs
Thorne. It was not a happy union. Amy Fawsctt
went to America. She was found dead in sordid
circumstances. Her husband, a veritable soldier of
fortune, contracted two later marriage's with popular
favourites in burlesque. I do not believe t he-re is
a survivor of the original cast of Two Roses. Of
Irving's Lyceum revival in 1881, Miss Winifred
Kincry is, of course, with us but Terriss the Jack
Wyatt, Alexander the Caleb Deeeie. Janus the
Mr Jenkins, and Helen Matthews the Ida are dead.
Of the Criteria n revival, Miss Annie Hughes, the
Lotty, succeeded by Miss Ellaline Terriss. survives;
and Mr George (Jiddons, the Caleb Dcccie; but
_mnr arc William Farren the Dijjby Grant, Sydney
Hrough the Jack Wya! 1, I )a\ id James, Mrs Edmund
Ph. l| , William Hkikely and Maud Millett, the Ida.
272 POSTSCRIPT
Maud Millett was one of unnumbered thousands
who died after years of suffering in secret, begun
by an awful air raid experience. Returning to the
stage after several years of retirement to domesticity,
she was in fact a better actress in her middle age
than she had been in her girlhood, as the adored but
not specially accomplished incarnation of Pinero's
" creamy English girl."
" Dear Cecil Clay. . . ." The words were hardly
dry on a simple note of friendship when news came
of his death. They are a sufficient epitaph. I sup-
pose that Cecil Clay was never heard to say an
unkind thing of man or woman. He would have
beggared himself in benefaction. Much might be
written of his prowess in the playing fields, notably
at cricket and at tennis, but that was before my time.
He was an enthusiastic and brilliant card player,
and somewhat of a racing man infinitely beyond
my ken. But as an assiduous first-nighter, a charm-
ing host, a delightful raconteur, I knew him well and
loved him better. He took the keenest interest in
the accumulation of these pages, and carefully re-
vised the stories of his Pantomime Rehearsal, and
of the Vokeses. He belonged to more clubs than
any man I know. It was at the St James's that
he gently reproached a fellow-member who com-
plained of the matches. " You should thank God,
my dear fellow, there is something left that ' will
not strike.' ' I saw it stated that On the March
was his " last work for the stage." In truth, he
never " worked " for the stage. He was the inter-
ested onlooker, the desultory adviser. Much of A
"ON THE MARCH" 273
Pantomime Rehearsal was in the way of others'
addenda in the beginning, " Scrobbe " Ponsonby ;
at the end, Brandon Thomas. On the March was an
amplification of a Vokeses sketch, In Camp, I think.
It was tentatively produced at Sheffield, whither
a pleasant picnic-party Charley Stephenson, Clay,
" Cricketer Bill " Yardley, Ned Saunders, whose
chief concern was the meticulously careful composi-
tion of menus. He breakfasted with a sheet of
foolscap before him, on which he made notes for
lunch and dinner. Now all are " sleeping, sleeping,
sleeping on the hill."
APPENDICES
APPENDIX I
FIFTY YEARS OF PANTOMIME AT DRURY LANE
18G9-1870. Beauty and the Beast. By E. L. BLANCHARD.
Cast : Zerlina, Miss Jessie Vokes ; Zemira, Miss Victoria
Vokes ; Fatima, Miss llosina Vokes ; Prince Agor, Mr
Fred Vokes ; Azalea, Miss Kate Santley ; Lakmella,
Miss Harriet Coveney.
[The Vokes family made their formal debut at the
Lyceum in the pantomime of Humpty Dumpty, 1868-
1869.]
1870-1871. The Dragon oj Wantlcy. By E. L. BLANCHARD.
(His 21st pantomime.) Cast : Lady Joan, Miss Victoria
Vokes; Miss Madge, Miss Rosina Vokes; Columbine,
Miss Jessie Vokes ; More of More Hall, Mr Fred Vokes :
Jingo, Mr Fawdon Vokes ; Mother Shipton, Miss Harriet
Coveney.
is? 1-1872. Tom Thumb. By E. L. BLANCHARD. CV/.s-/:Sir
Tristram, Miss Victoria Y K< ; Sir Caradoc, Miss Ilnsina
Yokes ; Sir Lionel, Miss Jessie Vokes ; Kinjj Arlhur, Mr
Fred Vokes ; Dagonet, Mr Fawdon Yokes ; Sir Lanec lot.
Miss Harriet Coveney.
[The Tom Thumb was a six-year-old Australian
prodigy, John Manley.]
1872-1878. The Children in the Wood. By E. L. BLANCHARD.
Cast : Master Willie, Miss Victoria Vokes ; Miss Mary,
.Miss Rosina Vokes ; Miss Winifred, Miss Jessie Vokes ;
275
276 APPENDICES
Sir Roland, Mr Fred Vokes ; Geoffrey Nimblelegs,
Mr Fawdon Vokes ; Queen Mab, Miss Violet Cameron ;
Walter the Woodman, Miss Harriet Coveney.
1878-1874. Jack in the Box. By E. L. BLANCHARD. Cast :
Goblina, Miss Kate Vaughan ; Little Bo- Peep, Miss
Violet Cameron ; Prince Felix, Miss Harriet Coveney ;
Prince Poppett, Miss Alma Murray.
[The Vokes family were on tour in America.]
1874-1875. Aladdin. By E. L. BLANCHARD. Cast: Aladdin,
Miss Victoria Vokes ; Princess Badroulbadour, Miss
Rosina Vokes ; Genii of the Lamp, Miss Jessie Vokes ;
Kazrac, Mr Fawdon Vokes ; Mother of Aladdin, Miss
Harriet Coveney ; Genii of the Ring, Miss Clara Jecks.
1875-1876. Whittington and his Cat. By E. L. BLANCHARD.
Cast : Dick, Miss Victoria Vokes ; Alice Fitzwarren,
Miss Rosina Vokes ; the Fairy of the Dell, Miss Jessie
Vokes ; Alderman Fitzwarren, Mr Fred Vokes ; Jimmie,
Mr Fawdon Vokes ; the Cook, Miss Harriet Coveney.
1876-1877. The Forty Thieves. By E. L. BLANCHARD.
Cast : Morgiana, Miss Victoria Vokes ; Ganem, Miss
Rosina Vokes ; Abdalla, Miss Jessie Vokes ; Ali Baba,
Mr Fred Vokes ; Hassarac, Mr Fawdon Vokes ; Cogia,
Miss Harriet Coveney.
1877-1878. The White Cat. By E. L. BLANCHARD. Cast :
Prince Natty, Miss Victoria Vokes ; Prince Nectar, Miss
Jessie Vokes ; Prince Tremor, Mr Fred Vokes ; King
Gnome, Mr Fawdon Vokes.
1878-1879. Cinderella. By E. L. BLANCHARD. Cast :
Cinderella, Miss Victoria Vokes ; the Prince, Miss Jessie
Vokes ; the Baron, Mr Fred Vokes ; Servant, Mr Fawdon
Vokes ; the Ugly Sisters, Miss Julia Warden and Miss
Hubspeth.
1879-1880. Bluebeard. By E. L. BLANCHARD (Augustus
Harris's first pantomime). Cast : Fatima, Miss Victoria
APPENDICES 277
Vokes ; Selim, Miss Jessie Vokes ; Bluebeard, Mr Fred
Yokes ; Shacabac, Mr Fawdon Vokes ; Sister Anne, Mrs
Fred Vokes.
1880-1881. Mother Goose. By E. L. BLANCHARD. Cast:
Prince Florizel, Miss Kate Santley ; the Princess Bella,
Miss Ada Blanche ; Dr Syntax, Mr Arthur Roberts ;
Yokel, Mr James Fawn ; Young Time, Miss Carrie
Coote ; Mother Goose, Little Addie Blanche.
1881-1882. Robinson Crusoe. By E. L. BLANCHARD. Cast :
Robinson Crusoe, Miss Fanny Leslie ; Pollie, Miss
Amalia ; Mrs Crusoe, Mr Arthur Roberts ; Mr Timothy
Lovage, Mr James Fawn ; Will Atkins, Mr Harry
Nicholls ; the Cockatoo, Mr Harry Jackson ; Luna,
Miss Dot Mario ; Youth, Miss Minnie Mario.
1882-1883. Sinbad. By E. L. BLANCHARD. Cast : Sin-
bad, Miss Nellie Power ; Fatinitza, Miss Constance
Loseby ; Captain Tralala, Miss Vesta Tilley ; Koolinari,
Mr James Fawn ; Ali Mi, Mr Arthur Roberts ; Kabool,
Mr Herbert Campbell ; Kohinoor, Miss Minnie Mario ;
Attar Shool, Miss Dot Mario ; Kybosh Arabi Pasha, Mr
Harry Jackson.
1883-1884. Cinderella. By E. L. BLANCHARD. Cast :
Cinderella, Miss Kate Vaughan ; Prince Pastorelle, Miss
Minnie Mario ; Pousette (his Attendant), Miss Dot
Mario ; Baron, Mr Harry Parker ; Baroness, Miss M. A.
Victor; the Ugly Sisters, Mr Harry Nicholls and Mr
I It rbert Campbell ; General Sharpwitz, Mr Fred Storey.
1884-1885. Dick Whittington. By E. L. BLANCHARD.
Cast : Dick Whittington, Miss Fanny Leslie ; Alice
Fitzwarren, Miss Kate Munro; Tom, Mr Harry
Nicholls ; Eliza, Mr Herbert Campbell ; Zura, Miss Dot
Mario; Captain <>!' the Ship, Miss Minnie Mario; Cat,
Mr Charles I/mri.
278 APPENDICES
1885-1886. Aladdin. By E. L. BLANCHARD. Cast :
Aladdin, Miss Grace Huntley ; Chee Kee, Miss Nellie
Leamar ; Princess Badroulbadour, Miss Kate Leamar ;
the Widow Twankee, Mr Harry Nicholls ; Abanazar,
Mr Herbert Campbell ; the Emperor of China, Mr Victor
Stevens ; Kazrac, Mr Charles Lauri.
188CK1887. The Forty Thieves. By E. L. BLANCHARD.
Cast : Ganem, Miss Edith Bruce ; Magician, Miss Connie
Gilchrist ; Sinbad, Miss Minnie Mario ; Camaralzaman,
Miss Dot Mario ; Mrs Cassim, Miss M. A. Victor ; Cogia,
Mr Herbert Campbell ; Ali Baba, Mr Harry Nicholls ;
Ally Sloper, Mr Victor Stevens ; Cassim, Mr Robert
Pateman ; the Donkey, Mr Charles Lauri.
1887-1888. Puss in Boots. By E. L. BLANCHARD. Cast :
Joycelyn, Miss Wadman ; the Princess, Miss Letty Lind ;
King and Queen, Mr Herbert Campbell and Mr Harry
Nicholls ; Wicked Brothers, Mr Charles Danby and Mr
Lionel Rignold ; Cat, Mr Charles Lauri.
1888-1889. Babes in the Wood. By E. L. BLANCHARD.
Cast : Robin Hood, Miss Harriet Vernon ; Maid Marian,
Miss Florence Dysart ; Will Scarlet, Miss Maggie
Duggan ; the Babes, Mr Harry Nicholls and Mr Herbert
Campbell ; the Wicked Uncle, Mr Victor Stevens ; the
Wicked Aunt (his first pantomime here), Mr Dan Leno ;
the Poodle, Mr Charles Lauri.
1889-1890. Jack and the Beanstalk. By E. L. BLANCHARD.
Cast : Jack, Miss Harriet Vernon ; Oberin, Miss Agnes
Hewitt ; Princess Diamond Duckz, Miss Maggie
Duggan ; King Henry, Mr Harry Nicholls ; Queen
Fanny the Flirt, Mr Herbert Campbell ; Mrs Simpson,
Mr Dan Leno (their first association) ; Puck, Mr Charles
Lauri.
1890-1891. Beauty and the Beast. By WILLIAM YARDLEY
and AUGUSTUS HARRIS. Cast : Beauty, Lady Dunlo ;
APPENDICES -279
King Courage, Miss Vesta Tilley ; Sarah Ann, Mr
Herbert Campbell ; Mary Ann, Mr Harry Nicholls ;
Mr Lombard Street, Mr Dan Leno.
1891-1892. Humpty Dumpty. By AUGUSTUS HARRIS and
HARRY NICHOLLS. Cast: Humpty Dumpty, Little
Tich ; King Dulcimar, Miss Fanny Leslie ; Princess
Allfair, Miss Marie Lloyd; King of Ik-arts. Mr Herbert
Campbell; Queen of Hearts, Mr Dan Leno; Dancer,
Miss Mabel Love.
1892-1893. Little Bo-Peep. By AUGUSTUS HARRIS and
J. WILTON JONES. Cast : Boy Blue, Miss Ada Blanche ;
Red Riding Hood, Miss Marie Lloyd ; Bo-Peep, Miss
Marie Loftus; Daddy and Goody Thumb, Mr Dan
Leno and Mr Herbert Campbell ; Hop o' My Thumb,
Little Tich ; Dame Mary Quite Contrary, Mr Arthur
Williams ; Rinella, Miss Mabel Love.
1893-1894. Robinson Crusoe. By AUGUSTUS HARRIS and
HARRY NICHOLLS. Cast: Robinson Crusoe, Miss Ada
Blanche ; Polly, Miss Marie Lloyd ; Mrs Crusoe, Mr Dan
Leno ; Will Atkins, Mr Herbert Campbell ; Man Friday,
Little Tich.
1894-1895. Dick Whittington. By AUGUSTUS HARRIS,
CECIL RALEIGH and HENRY HAMILTON. Cast : Dick
Whittington, Miss Ada Blanche ; Alice, Miss Marie
Montrose ; Idle Jack, Mr Dan Leno; Kli/.a the Cook,
Mr Herbert Campbell; small parts \\ere phryed l>\
Mr Fawdon Yokes and Mr Joe Cave.
is'>V-1896. Cinderella. By AUGUSTUS HARRIS, CECIL
H\ LEIGH and ARTHUR STURGESS. Caxt : tin IVino.
Miss Ada Blanche; Cinderella, Miss Isa Bowman ; Dan-
dim, Miss Alexandra Dagmar; the Baron, Mr 11. il>< rl
Campbell : the Baroness, Mr Dan Lcn<>: tin- Tutor, Mr
Lionel Ki^nold : the rr|y Sisters, Miss Sophie Larkin
and Miss Kmily Miller.
280 APPENDICES
1896-1897. Aladdin. By ARTHUR STURGESS and HORACE
LENNARD. Cast : Aladdin, Miss Ada Blanche ; Princess
Badroulbadour, Miss Decima Moore ; Sau-see, Miss
Clara Jecks ; Mrs Twankey, Mr Dan Leno ; Abanazar,
Mr Herbert Campbell ; Slave of the Lamp, Mr Paul
Cinquevalli.
1897-1898. Babes in the Wood. By ARTHUR STURGESS and
ARTHUR COLLINS. Cast : Prince Paragon, Miss Ada
Blanche ; Marian, Miss Violet Robinson ; Miss Gertie
Girton, Miss Alice Barnett ; Reggie, Mr Dan Leno ;
Chrissie, Mr Herbert Campbell.
1898-1899. The Forty Thieves. By ARTHUR STURGESS and
ARTHUR COLLINS. Cast : Ganem, Miss Nellie Stewart ;
Hassan, Miss Rita Presano ; Morgiana, Miss Amelia
Stone ; Abdallah, Mr Dan Leno ; Zuleika, Mr Herbert
Campbell ; Ali Baba, Mr Johnnie Danvers ; Cogia,
Miss Lillie Belmore.
1899-1900. Jack and the Beanstalk. By ARTHUR STURGESS
and ARTHUR COLLINS. Cast : Jack, Miss Nellie Stewart ;
Princess Pretty I., Miss Mabel Nelson ; Dame Trot, Mr
Dan Leno ; Bobbie, Mr Herbert Campbell.
[Miss Nellie Stewart did not appear on Boxing Night
and was replaced by Miss Mollie Lowell. Later on,
Miss Violet Cameron took up the part of Jack.]
1900-1901. The Sleeping Beauty and the Beast. By J.
HICKORY WOOD and ARTHUR COLLINS. Cast : Prince
Caramel, Miss Elaine Ravensberg; Princess Beauty,
Miss Madge Lessing ; Queen Ravia, Mr Dan Leno ; King
Screwdaper, Mr Herbert Campbell ; Nurse, Mr Fred
Emney ; Witch Malevolentia, Miss Alice Ainsley Cook.
1901-1902. Bluebeard. By J. HICKORY WOOD and ARTHUR
COLLINS. Cast: Selim, Miss Elaine Ravensberg ; Fatima,
Miss Julia Franks ; Bluebeard, Mr Herbert Campbell ;
APPENDICES 281
Sister Ann, Mr Dan Leno ; Mustapha, Mr Fred
Emney ; Hassarac, Mr Lawrence Cam I ; Shacabac, Little
Zola.
1902-1903. Mother Goose. By J. HICKORY WOOD and
ARTHUR COLLINS. Cast : Colin, Miss Maud Beatty ;
Jill, Miss Madge Lessing ; Gretchcn, Miss Marie George ;
Mother Goose, Mr Dan Leno ; Jack, Mr Herbert Camp-
bell ; Mayor of Japham, Mr Fred Emney ; the Lain I.
Mr Lawrence Caird ; Goose, Mr Arthur Conquest ;
Alexander, Little Zola.
1903-1904. Humpty Dumpty. By J. HICKORY WOOD and
ARTHUR COLLINS. Cast : Humpty Dumpty, Miss
Louise Willis ; Blossom, Miss Marie George ; King, Mr
Herbert Campbell ; Queen, Mr Dan Leno ; Cook, Mr
Harry Randall; Randolph, Miss Ruth Lytton ; Peter,
Mr George Bastow ; Scarecrow, Mr Hugh Ward.
[Miss George was compelled by indisposition to retire
from the cast and was replaced by Miss Mabel Love.]
1904r-1905. The White Cat. By J. HICKORY WOOD and
ARTHUR COLLINS. Cast : Prince Peerless, Miss Queen ie
Leighton ; Cupid, Miss Marie George ; Prince Patter,
Mr James Welch ; Prince Plumett, Mr Fred Eastman ;
Simeon, Mr Hugh Ward ; Populo, Mr Tom Wootwell ;
Fairy Asbestos, Mr Harry Randall ; Aristo, Miss Ruth
Lytton ; Snale, Mr Tom Hearn.
1! M)5-l 906. Cinderella. By F. C. BURNAND, J. II u K<I;V
WOOD and ARTHUR COLLINS. Cast: Prince Jasper,
Miss Qneenir Leighton; Cinderella, Miss May de Suiisa ;
Baroness de * Jin IT, Mr Walter Passmore ; Alfonso, Mr
Harry Handall : Haron de Bluff, Mr Arthur Williams;
the Ugly Sist< Pollie Kmery an<l Mi^s Kmily
Spiller: Dandim. 1 1 a rry Fragson ; Growler. Mr T,.ni
282 APPENDICES
1906-1907. Sinbad. By J. HICKORY WOOD and ARTHUR
COLLINS. Cast : Hindbad, Miss Queenie Leighton ;
Ruby, Miss Marie George ; Sinbad, Mr Walter Passmore ;
Empress of all the Saharas, Mr Fred Emney ; Envoy to
the Empress, Mr Harry Fragson.
1907-1908. The Babes in the Wood. By J. HICKORY WOOD
and ARTHUR COLLINS. Cast : Robin Hood, Miss Agnes
Fraser ; Maid Marian, Miss Madge Vincent ; Reggie and
Cissie, Mr Walter Passmore and Miss Marie George ;
the Baroness, Mr Neil Kenyon ; the Governess, Mr
Harry Fragson ; the Baron, Mr Lennox Pawle ; Giants,
the Pender Troupe.
1908-1909. Dick Whittington. By J. HICKORY WOOD and
ARTHUR COLLINS. Cast : Dick Whittington, Miss
Queenie Leighton ; Alice, Miss Marie Wilson ; Katrina,
Miss Marie George ; Pedio, Prince of Shantasia, Miss
Truly Shattuck ; Idle Jack, Mr Wilkie Bard ; Alderman
Fitzwarren, Mr Johnnie Danvers ; Will Wathless, Mr
Aubrey Fitzgerald.
[Mr Neil Kenyon was cast for the part of Alderman
Fitzwarren, but pleaded a nervous breakdown and
retired.]
1909-1910. Aladdin. By F. C. BURNAND, J. HICKORY
WOOD and ARTHUR COLLINS. Cast : Aladdin, Miss
Marie George ; Princess Badroulbadour, Miss Ida Rene ;
Prince Pekoe, Miss Truly Shattuck ; Abanazar, Mr
George Graves ; Widow Twankee, Mr Wilkie Bard ;
Bolo the Dog, Mr George Ali.
1910-1911. Jack and the Beanstalk. By J. HICKORY
WOOD, FRANK Dix and ARTHUR COLLINS. Cast : Jack,
Miss Dolly Castles ; Princess Dorothy, Miss Julia James ;
Mrs Hallybut, Mr George Graves ; Prince Spinach, Mr
Harry Randall ; Rupert Hallybut, Mr George Barrett ;
Uncle Tom Cobbley, Mr Austin Melford ; Alexis the
Page, Mr Barry Lupino.
APPENDICES
1911-1912. Hop o' My Thumb. By FRANK Dix and
ARTHUR COLLINS. Cast-. IIilari, Miss Violet Loraine ;
Zaza, Miss Daisy Dormer; Hop, Miss Renee Meyer;
King of Mnemonica, Mr George Graves ; Pottcrini, Mr
Will Evans ; Smilia, Mr Barry Lupino ; John the Wood-
cutter, Mr Austin Melford ; Giant, Mr Frederick Ross.
[Miss Fanny Brough, who should have played Princess
Chicot, was, for the most part, replaced by Miss Alice
Esden.]
1912-1913. The Sleeping Beauty. By GEORGE R. SIMS,
C. H. BOVILL and ARTHUR COLLINS. Cast: Auriol,
Mr Wilfrid Douthitt; Princess Marcella, Miss Florence
Smithson ; the Duke of Monte Blanco, Mr George
Graves ; Pompos, Mr Will Evans ; Finnykin, Mr Barry
Lupino ; Puck, Miss Renee Meyer ; Duke Nemo, Mr
Charles Rock ; Blake and Holmes (detectives), the
Poluski^.
1913-1914. The Sleeping Beauty Reawakened. By GEO
R. SIMS and ARTHUR COLLINS. Cast : Auriol, Mr Wilfrid
Douthitt ; Princess Marcella, Miss Florence Smithson ;
the Duke of Monte Blanco, Mr George Graves ; Pompos,
Mr Will Evans ; Finnykin, Mr Stanley Lupino ; Puck,
Miss Renee Meyer ; Duke Nemo, Mr Forrester Harvey.
1914-1915. The Sleeping Beauty Beautified. By GEO
H. SIMS and ARTHUR COLLINS. Cast : Auriol, Mr
1 5< rtram Wallis ; Princess Marcella, Miss Feme Rogers ;
1 1 ic Duke of Monte Blanco, Mr George Graves ; Pompos,
Mr Will Evans ; Finnykin, Mr Stanley Lupino ; Puck,
Miss Renee Meyer ; Duke Nemo, Mr Forrester Harvey.
PI 1 5-1915. Puss in Boots. By GEORGE R SIMS, FRANK
Dix and ARTHUR COLLINS. Cast : Florian, Mr Eric
Marshall ; Princess Rosabel, Miss Florence Smithson ;
Puss in Boots, Miss Renee Meyer; the Grand Duchess
..IT. ml,;.. Mr George Graves : tlirCrand Duke. Mr Will
Evans; Polydor, Mr Stanley
284 APPENDICES
1916-1917. Ptiss in New Boots. By GEORGE R. SIMS,
FRANK Dix and ARTHUR COLLINS. Cast : Florian, Miss
Madge Titheradge ; Rosabel, Miss Florence Smithson ;
the Grand Duchess of Cerulea, Mr Robert Hale ; the
Grand Duchess, Mr Will Evans ; Polydor, Mr Stanley
Lupino ; Puss in Boots, Miss Lennie Deane.
1917-1918. Aladdin. By FREDERIC ANSTEY, FRANK Dix
and ARTHUR COLLINS. Cast : Aladdin, Miss Madge
Titheradge ; Princess Badroulbadour, Miss Daisy
Bindley ; Abanazar, Mr Robert Hale ; the Widow
Tankey, Mr Stanley Lupino ; Slave of the Ring, Mr
Will Evans.
1918-1919. Babes in the Wood. By FRANK Dix and
ARTHUR COLLINS. Cast : Lord Fairplay, Miss Marie
Blanche ; Joy, Miss Florence Smithson ; Horace and
Flossie (the Babes), Mr Stanley Lupino and Mr Will
Evans ; Mrs Skinner, Miss Lily Long ; the Robbers,
the Brothers Egbert.
1919-1920. Cinderella. By FRANK Dix and ARTHUR
COLLINS. Cast : the Prince, Miss Marie Blanche ;
Cinderella, Miss Florence Smithson ; Dandini, M. du
Calion ; the Baron, Mr Harry Claff ; the Baroness,
Mr Will Evans ; Page, Mr Stanley Lupino ; the Ugly
Sisters, Miss Lily Long and Mr C. Denier Warren.
APPENDICES 285
APPENDIX II
GILBERT AND SULLIVAN OPERA
Trial by Jury : Royalty Theatre, 25th March 1875. 1 L'.'I
performances. Cast : the Learned Judge, Mr I .
Sullivan; the Plaintiff, Miss Nellie Bromley; tin-
Defendant, Mr Walter Fisher ; Counsel for the Plaintiff,
Mr Hollingsworth ; Usher, Mr Kelleher ; Foreman of
the Jury, Mr Campbell ; Associate, First Bridesmaid.
Revivals : Strand Theatre, 3rd March 1877 ; Opera Comique,
25th March 1878; Savoy, llth October 1884; 22nd
September 1898.
The Sorcerer : Opera Comique, 17th November 1877. 175
performances. Cast : Sir Marmaduke Pointdextre, Mr
Richard Temple ; Alexis, Mr George Bentham ; Dr
Daly, Mr Rutland Barrington ; Notary, Mr F. Clifton ;
John Wellington Wells, Mr George Grossmith ; Lady
Sangazure, Mrs Howard Paul ; Aline, Miss Alice May ;
Mrs Partlett, Miss Everard ; Constance, Miss Giulia
Warwick.
Revivals : Savoy, llth October 1884 ; 22nd September 1898.
H.M.S. Pinafore : Opera Comique, 25th May 1878. 700 per-
formances. Cast: the Right Hon. Sir Joseph Porter,
K.C.B., Mr George Grossmith : Captain Corcoran,
Mr Rutland Barrington; Ralph Rackstraw, Mr (ieorge
Power ; Dick Deadeye, Mr Richard Temple ; Bill Bob-
stay, Mr Clifton ; Bob Beckett, Mr Dymott ; Josephine,
Miss Alice May ; Hebe, Miss Jessie Bond ; Little Butter-
cup, Miss Evcrard.
Revivals: Opera Comique, 12th November 1887; Savoy,
6th June 1899 ; 14th July 1908.
The Pirates oj Penzance : Opera Comique, :*nl April isso.
868 performances. Cast: Mujor-l ieneral Stanley, Mr
286 APPENDICES
George Grossmith ; the Pirate King, Mr Richard
Temple ; Samuel, his lieutenant, Mr George Temple ;
Frederick, Mr George Power ; Sergeant of Police, Mr
Rutland Barrington ; Mabel, Miss Marion Hood ;
Edith, Miss Jessie Bond ; Kate, Miss Julia Gwynne ;
Isabel, Miss M. Barlow ; Ruth, Miss Alice Barnett.
Revivals : Opera Comique, 17th March 1888 ; Savoy, 13th
June 1900 ; 1st December 1908.
Patience : Opera Comique, 23rd April 1881. 578 perform-
ances. Cast : Reginald Bunthorne, Mr George Gros-
smith ; Archibald Grosvenor, Mr Rutland Barrington ;
Colonel Calverley, Mr Walter Browne ; Major Murga-
troyd, Mr Frank Thornton ; Lieutenant the Duke of
Dunstable, Mr Durward Lely ; the Lady Angela, Miss
Jessie Bond ; the Lady Saphir, Miss Julia Gwynne ;
the Lady Ella, Miss Fortescue ; the Lady Jane, Miss
Alice Barnett ; Patience, Miss Leonora Braham.
Revivals : Savoy, 10th October 1881 (opening of that
theatre) ; 7th November 1900 ; 4th April 1907.
lolanthe : Savoy, 25th November 1882. 398 performances.
Cast : the Lord Chancellor, Mr George Grossmith ;
Earl of Mount Ararat, Mr Rutland Barrington ; Earl
Tolloller, Mr Durward Lely ; Private Willis, Mr Charles
Manners ; Strephon, Mr R. Temple ; Queen of the
Fairies, Miss Alice Barnett ; lolanthe, Miss Jessie
Bond ; Celia, Miss Fortescue ; Leila, Miss Julia Gwynne ;
Fleta, Miss Sybil Grey ; Phyllis, Miss Leonora Brahain.
Revivals: 7th December 1901; llth June 1907; 19th
October 1908.
Princess Ida : Savoy, 5th January 1884. 246 performances.
Cast : King Hildebrand, Mr Rutland Barrington ;
Hilarion, Mr Bracy ; Cyril, Mr Durward Lely ; Florian,
Mr Charles Ryley ; King Gama, Mr George Grossmith ;
Arac, Mr R. Temple ; Guron, Mr Warwick Grey ;
Scynthua, Mr Lugg ; Princess Ida, Miss Leonora
APPENDICES 287
Braham ; Lacly Blanche, Miss Brandram ; Lady
Psyche, Miss Kate Chard; Melissa, Miss .Jrs>ie Bond;
Sacharissa, Miss Sybil Grey ; Chloe, Miss Heathcote ;
Ada, Miss Lilian Carr.
Tlte Mi/cado : Savoy, 14th March 1885. 672 performances.
Cast : the Mikado of Japan, Mr R. Temple ; Nanki Poo,
Mr Durward Lely ; Ko-Ko, Mr George Grussmith;
Pooh Bah, Mr Rutland Barrington ; Pi.sh-Tush, Mr
Frederick Bovill ; Yum Yum, Miss Leonora Braham :
Pitti Sing, Miss Jessie Bond ; Peep Bo, Miss Sybil (ircy :
Kalisha, Miss llosina Brandram.
Revivals : 7th June 1888 ; 6th November 1895 ; 27th May
1896 ; 28th April 1908.
Kmldigore: Savoy, 22nd January 1887. 283 pcrlormai
Cast : Robin Oakapple, Mr George Grossmith ; Richard
Dauntless, Mr Dunvard Lcly ; Sir Despard Murgatroyd,
Mr Rutland Parrington ; Old Adam Goodheart, Mr
Rudolph Lewis ; Rose Maybud, Miss Leonora Braliam ;
Mad Margaret, Miss Jessie Bond ; Dame Hannah, Miss
Rosina Brandram ; Zorah, Miss Josephine Findlay ;
Ruth, Miss Lindsay.
The Yevman of the Guard : Savoy, 3rd October 1888. 423
pcriorinancrs. Cast: Sir Richard Cliolmmulelcy, Mr
W. Brownlow ; Colonel Fairfax, Mr Courtice Pounds ;
Sergeant Meryll, Mr Richard Temple; Leonard Meryll,
Mr \V. H. Shirley ; Jack Point, Mr George Grossmith :
Wilfred Shadbolt, Mr W. H. Denny; the Headsman, Mr
Hiehards : HiM Ye< .man, Mr Wilbraham ; Second Yeo-
man, Mr Medcalf ; Third Yeoman, Mr Merton ; Fourth
\>man, Mr Rudolph Lewis: First Citizen, Mr Kcd-
mi.nd ; Srcond ('it i/ n, Mr H<yd ; Klsic Maynard, Miss
Geraldinc Ulmar ; Phcebc Mcryll, Miss ,K ssir Bond ;
Dame Carruthers, Miss Rosina Brandram ; Kale, Miss
Hose Ilervey.
Revivals: 5thMayl897; 8th Dereinber 1906; IstMarchlUOO.
288 APPENDICES
The Gondoliers : Savoy, 7th December 1889. 554 perform-
ances. Cast: the Duke of Plaza Toro, Mr Frank
Wyatt ; Luiz, Mr Brownlow ; Don Alhambra del
Bolero, Mr Denny ; Marco Palmieri, Mr Courtice
Pounds ; Giuseppe Palmieri, Mr Rutland Barrington ;
Antonio, Mr Medcalf ; Francesco, Mr Rose ; Giorgio,
Mr de Pledge ; Annibale, Mr Wilbraham ; Ottavio, Mr
C. Gilbert ; the Duchess of Plaza Toro, Miss Rosina
Brandram ; Casilda, Miss Decima Moore ; Gianetta,
Miss Geraldine Ulmar ; lessa, Miss Jessie Bond ; Fia-
metta, Miss Lawrence ; Vittoria, Miss Cole ; Giulia, Miss
Phyllis ; Inez, Miss Bernard.
Revivals : Savoy, 22nd March 1898 ; 18th July 1898 ; 22nd
January 1907 ; 18th January 1909.
Utopia Limited: Savoy, 7th October 1893. 245 perform-
ances. Cast : King Paramount the First, Mr Rutland
Barrington ; Scaphio, Mr W. H. Denny ; Phantis, Mr
John Le Hay ; Tarara, Mr Walter Passmore ; Calyux,
Mr Bowden Haswell; Lord Dramaleigh, Mr Scott
Russell ; Captain Fitzbattle-axe, Mr Charles Kenning-
ham ; Captain Sir Edward Corcoran, Mr Laurence
Gridley; Mr Goldbury, Mr Scott Fishe ; Sir Bailey
Barre, Q.C., M.P., Mr E. Blackmore ; Mr Blushington,
Mr Herbert Balland ; the Princess Zara, Miss Nancy
Mackintosh ; the Princess Nekaya, Miss Emmie Owen ;
the Princess Kalyba, Miss Florence Perry ; the Lady
Sophy, Miss Rosina Brandram ; Salata, Miss Edith
Johnston ; Melene, Miss May Bell ; Phylla, Miss
Florence Easton.
The Grand Duke : Savoy, 7th March 1896. 123 perform-
ances. Cast : Rudolph, Mr Walter Passmore ; Ernest
Dummkopf, Mr C. Kenningham ; Ludwig, Mr Rutland
Barrington ; Dr Tannhauser, Mr Scott Russell ; the
Prince of Monte Carlo, Mr Scott Fishe ; Viscount Men-
tone, Mr Carlton ; Ben Hashbaz, Mr Workman ; Herald,
APPENDICES
289
Mr Jones Hewson ; the Princess of Monte Carlo, Miss
Emmie Owen; the Baroness von Krakenfeldt, Miss
Rosina Brandram ; Julia Jellicoe, Madame Ilka von
Palmay ; Lisa, Miss Florence Perry ; Olga, Miss Mildred
Baker ; Gretchen, Miss Ruth Vincent ; Bertha, Miss
Jessie Rose; Elsa, Miss Ethel Wilson; Martha, Miss
Beatrice Perry.
APPENDIX III
THEATRE ASSESSMENTS
Thtatrt
1911
1916
Lttl
Adelphi .
f4520
\1330
3767^
1108 /
4500
3750
r4500
\1500
3750^
1250/
Aldwych
4500
3750
3000
2500
r3900
I 600
3250^
500/
Apollo
5500
4584
4000
3384
5QOO
45S4
Ambassadors
1000
834
2000
Comedy
4500
3750
3500
2917
4500
3750
Coronet
860
717
Criterion
3500
2917
4000
3334
Court
1400
1167
900
750
1200
1000
Covent Garden .
5950
4959
6750
5625
Daly's
6150
5125
4500
3750
(5500
5419
Drury Lane
7000
5834
5500
4584
jiieo
16940
967 1
5284 /
D.ik.* of York's .
4500
3750
3750
3125
4000
Gaiety
7000
5834
QOOO
4167
7000
5831
Globe
1700
4792
4000
3331
0000
4084
Garrick
5000
4167
4000
3334
5000
11. ,7
Haymarket
5400
4500
1000
3750
5000
4084
His Majesty's .
0998
5813
BOO
1081
1000
5894
Kingsway .
1000
BM
1000
BM
1000
1100
Little
1440
TJOM
900
700
1000
1334
290
APPENDICES
Theatre
1911
1916
1921
Lyric
London Opera House
Lyceum
5500
8400
r4900
I 600
4584
7000
4084^
500/
4000
5000
4000
3334
4167
3334
5500
9000
J5350
I 650
4584
7500
4459^
542/
New
4500
3750
3750
3125
4500
3750
Playhouse .
Prince of Wales's
4074
5500
3395
4584
2250
4000
1909
3334
4000
5500
3334
4584
Prince's
1938
1615
1938
1615
2500
2084
Queen's
Royalty
St James's .
5750
1800
4500
4792
1500
3750
4000
4000
3334
3334
5500
2000
5000
4584
1667
4167
Savoy
Scala
3000
2500
2000
800
1667
667
3000
880
2500
774
Shaftesbury
Strand
5000
4750
4167
3809
4000
3000
3334
2500
5500
/2900
\2100
4584
2417\
1750J
Vaudeville .
(2900
I 100
84}
2500
2084
| 100
\3200
84|
2667 /
Wyndham's
St Martin's
4250
3500
3750
2000
3125
1667
4500
2750
3750
2292
NOTE. The columns represent the valuation ; and the lesser amount on
which the rate is levied.
INDEX
ABINGDON, W. L., 140
Abrahams, Morris, 132
Acrobat, The, 145
Addison, Carlo tta, 90
Adelphi Theatre, the, 22, 52, 122,
132, MS, i? 8 . 207
Adonis t 54
After Dark, 124
Ainsworth, W. Harrison, 48 et seq.,
158
Aladdin, 149, 197, 206, 209
Albery, James, 19, 20, 270
Albion Tavern, 20
Alcazar Theatre, 196
Aldwych Theatre, 196
Alexander, George, 26, 31, 140, 146,
203, 230, 239, 271
Alhambra, the, 28, 29, 75, 76, 158,
244. 25?
AH Baba, 76, 150
Alias, Charles, 33, 35, 36, 44
Al mack's, 121
Always Merry and Bright, 181
Amateur actors, 17
Ambassadors Theatre, 25, 101
Ambient, Mark, 170
Anderson, Professor, 103
'cy, Frederick, 147
Apollo Theatre, the, 225
Aquarium, The Royal Westminster,
Arabian Nights, The. 144
Arcadians, The, 179-182
Archer, Fred, 180
Arden of Fever sham, 80
Argyll Rooms, 98, 250, 251
Arnold, Matthew, 140-143
Artist's Model, An, 177
As You Like It, 173
Asche, Oscar, 151
Ash Wednesday Restrictions, 196,
197
Ashford, Charles, 37
Ashley, Henry, 43
291
Ashwell, Lena. 225
Astley's, 122, 155-161, 232
Astor, Adelaide. 204
Audran, E., 176, 267
Austin, Esther, 75
Avenue Theatre, the, 31, 43, 44
Ayrton, Mr, 118
Aztecs, the, 217
B
Babes in the Wood, 206
Back Kitchen, the, 88
Bailey, William, 29
Baird, Mr " Abingdon," 251
Ball, Harry, 204
Ball, Lewis, 23
Ballet of the Furies, 195
Bancrofts, the, 19, 81, 147
Bannister, 149
Barbe Bleue, 26, 28, 44
Barnard, Fred, 130
Barnes, J. H., 22, 23
Barnett, Morris, 147
Barnum and Ryley, 76
Barnum, P. T., 216, 217
Barrett, George, 134
Barrett, Oscar, 79, 198, 209
Barrett, Wilson, 131, 143, 145
Barrington, Rutland, 262$ 264
Barry, the clown, 159
Barry, Shiel, 36, 37, 68
Bartholomew Fair, 85
Baruchs, 169
Baum, John, 29
Beare. Florence, 64
Beatrice Company, the, 150
Beauchamp. John, 140
Beaumont and Fletcher, 196
Beauty and the Beast, 191, 204, 206
Bebe. 117
Bedford, Paul, 52, 53
Beecham. Sir Thomas. 35. 27
B**g m Student. The, 19
Belcher, Tom, 121
292
INDEX
Belle of New York, The. 68, 184
Belle's Stratagem, The, 270
Belle Helene, La, 28
Belle Lurette, La, 31, 35, 44
Belles of the Kitchen, 78
Bellew, J, C. M., 95, 157
Bellew, Kyrle, 22
Belphegor, 145, 146
Bennett, the Booth proprietor, 50
Bernard, Charles, 41
Betsy, 116 et seq.
Better 'Ole, The, 77
Betty, Master, 23
Beveridge, J. B., 140
Biblioteker, Der, 108
Billee Taylor, 55, 176
Billington, Mrs, 53
Bilton, the Sisters, 204
Bishop, Alfred, 195
Bishop, Kate, 18, 162, 194
Black Crook, The, 29
Black-Ey'd Susan, 126
Black, Helen, 262
Blakeley, William, 271
Blanchard, E. L., 123, 191, 198, 202
Blanche, Ada, 79, 202, 284
Blanche, Marie, 182
Blind Tom, 125
Blue Ballet, The, 79
Blue Beard, 78, 197, 201, 206
Blue Moon, The, 179
Bo-Peep, 204
Boccaccio, 208
Bon Gaultier Ballads, the, 155
Bond, Jessie, 262, 264
Borulaski, Count, 211
Botany Bay, 55
Boucicault, Dion, 36, 117, 124, 270,
271
Bourchier, Arthur, 162
Bower Saloon, 71, 254
Box and Cox, 123, 266
Boxiana, 121
Boyle, Frederick, 53
Boyle, Mary, The Hon., 102
Boyne, Leonard, 269
Branscombe, Maud, 44
Brickwell. H. T., 90
Brighton, 115, 116, 117
Brindle, Bishop, 40, 41
Britannia Theatre, the, 81, 241
Bromley, Nellie, 162, 194, 263
Brooke, G. V., 48
Brookfield, Charles, 257
Brough, Lionel, 31, 150
Brough, Robert, 150
Brough, William, 150
Brougham, the Sisters, 207
Broughton, Phyllis, 56
Bruce Edgar, 109, 147, 148
Buchanan, R., 96
Buckingham, Leicester, 150
Buckstone, J. B., 52, 148
Burgess, Joe, 177
Burnand, F. C., 26, 79, 117, 147,
162, 209, 266
Burville, Alice, 30
Bury, Felix, 30
Byron, H. J., 17, 20, 21, 22, 24, 30;
57. 58, 150, 263
Byron, Lord, 154
CcBsar and Cleopatra, 170
Called Back, 109
Calthrop, Donald, 235
Calvert, Charles, 89, 177
Cambridge, the Duke of, 97, 235
Cameron, Violet, 27, 31, 36, 207,
208
Campbell, Herbert, 199, 205, 206
Candelin, Kate. See Kate Vaughan
Canterbury, the, 109, 207, 254
Captain Coddington, 47
Carados, the original, 132
Carey, Joyce, 235
Carmagnole, La, 77
Carmi, Maria, 171$
Carr, Osmond, 176
Carson, Murray, 140
Carte, D'Oyly, 230, 262, 263
Cartlich (the original Mazeppa), 155
Cartwright, Charles, 140
Carwell, Madame, 163
Gary 11, Ivan, 176
Caste, 271
Castlereagh, Lord, 155
Catchwords, London, 181
Caulfield, Mr and Mrs, 253, 254
Cave of Harmony, 88
Cave, J. A., 57, 123
Cavendish, Harry, 257
Cellier, Alfred, 62, 63, 176
Cellier, Frank, 62
Chambers, Emma. 29
Chang, 213
Chant, Mrs, 244
Chapin, Harold, 140
Charity, 265
Charles I., 163
INDEX
203
Charles II., 158^ 241
Charles XII., 154
Charles. T. W.. 125
Charley's Aunt, 91, 94 et seq.
Charlton, Randall, 249
Charterhouse, the, 123
Chatterton, F. B., 78, 79, 201
Chaumont. 28
Chester, Edith, 107
Chevaliers du Brouillard (Jack
Sheppard), 54
Children of the King, 171
Chilperic, 26, 28, 246
Chinese Honeymoon, A, 149, 185
Christy Minstrels, the, 26
Chrononholongthologos, 263
Chu Chin Chow, 228
Churchwarden, The, 89, 92
Cigale, La, 32
Cinderella, 79, 148, 178, 198, 202,
206, 208
Cinquevalli, Paul, 209
City of London Theatre, 162
Clandestine Marriage, The, 145
Clay, Cecil. 101 et seq., 272, 273
Clay, Frederick, 96, 176
Clayton, Dion Calthrop, 235
Clayton, John, 235
Cloches de Corneville, Les, 31 et seq.,
56. 68, 208
Clodoche, 34, 75, 77
Coal Hole, the, 88, 253
Coborn, Charles, 249, 250, 251, 252
Coburg Theatre, the, 81
Cochran, Charles B., 25, 29, 101,
120, 154, 168-175, 218
Cock Robin (Lyceum pantomime),
76
Coffin, C. Hayden, 62, 64
Coghlan, Charles, 147, 148
Cole, Lieut. Walter, 196
Coloman, John, 57
Coliseum, the, 25, 256, 257
te, Charles, 29, 148, 263
Colley, Archdeacon, 215
Collins's Music Hall, 231, 241, 253,
Collins, Arthur, 209
Collins, Sam, 231, 254. 255
Colonel. The. 109, 147, 148
Colonna, 75, 76
Comedy Theatre, the, 31, 221, 224
Compton Comedy Company, 24
Connaught Theatre, the, 196
Conquests, the. .'30
Constance and Losebini, 58
Constantinople, 168
Contrabandista, 269
Con way, Harry, 22
Conway, Hugh, 109
Cook, Furneau, 64
Cookes, the, 157, 159. 160, 233, 234
Cooper, E. H., 202
Cootes, the, 79, 202
Coquelin, 155
Corbett, Jim, 128
Corder, Thomas, 83
Corder, William, 81 et seq.
Cornelys, Madame. 33
Coronet Theatre, 25, 117
Count of Luxembourg, The, 189, 199
Country Girl, A, 187
Country Girl, The, 144
Court Theatre, the, 87, 105, 115,
1 1 8, 194, 257
Courtneidge, Robert, 177 et seq., 224
Courtney, " Baron," 256
Coveney, Harriet, 55, 64
Covent Garden, 26, 76, 79, 158, 168,
201,202
Cowell, Sam, 254
Cox, Harry, 27
Coyne, Joe, 186
Cryptoconchoidsyphonostomata, 263
Criterion Comedy, 113 et seq.
Criterion Theatre, the, 25, 227, 241
Crook, John, 176
f ruikshank, 124
Crutch and Toothpick, 131
Culverwell, Dr, 114
Curzon, Frank, 149, 227
Cushnle, Therese, 192
Cynic, The, 147
DACRB, Arthur, 22, ^3
Dairymaids, The, 179
Dallas, J. J., 58
Daly, Dan, 72
Daly's Theatre, 184 et seq.. 226
Dana, Henry, 92, 98.
Dance, George, 125, 148, 1 1<>
Dancing Girl, The, 91
" Dancing Quakers," the, 76
D'Anka, Corneille, 27, 29, 30, 104
Danvers, J., 162
Dare, I'livllis. 182
" Darned Mounseer, A." 261
D.irrcll. Maude, 58. 251,
D'Anbans, the, 59, 79
294
INDEX
Davenport, Harry, 73
David Copper field, 193
Davies, Ben, 65
Deacons' music hall, 45, 242, 255
Dearer Than Life, 270
Delysia, Alice, 29
Dentin, 192
Descauzes, 26
Devant, David, 214
Dick Turpin, 158
Dick Whittington, 206
Dickens, Charles, and the drama-
tists, 50; and Menken, 158; and
Astley's, 160, 161
Dicksee, Frank, 206
Didcott, H. J., 39
Digges, West, 86
Dillon, Charles, 145, 146
Diplomacy, 64, 147
Disraeli, 50, 161
Dixie, Henry, 54
Dolaro, Selina, 27, 29, 30, 31, 263
Doll's House, A, 91
Dollar Princess, The, 189
Don Casar de Bazan, 58
Don Giovanni in London, 122
Don Giovanni in Venice, 196
Dorothy, 62 et seq., 176
Douthitt, Wilfrid, 209
Dream Faces, 199
Dreams, 63
Drever, Constance, 188
Drink, 132, 203
Drury Lane, 25, 78, 88, 124, 128,
132, 158, 170, 230
Drury Lane Pantomime, 201 et seq.
Du Barry, Madame, 33
Duck, William, 20
Ducrow, Anthony, 154, 155, 159
Duggan, Maggie, 206
Duke of York's Theatre, 149, 186
Duke's Motto, The, 146
Duke's Theatre, the, 88, 123, 196
Dumas, Alexander, 157
Du Maurier, George, 147
Dunlo, Lady, 204
Dunning, the Sisters, 109
EAGLE TAVERN, the, 192, 193
East London Theatre, 241
East Lynne, 181
Eastlake, Miss, 134
Edward VII., King, 96
Edwardes, George, 41, 46, 54, 59,
63, 70, 105, 125, 177, 178, 184-190,
229
Edwards, George Spencer, 132
Emngham Saloon, the, 81, 211
Egan, Pierce, 120 et seq.
Egan, Pierce, the younger, 121
Egyptian Hall, the, 211
Eldred, Joseph, 37
Elliott, Henry, 143
Elliott, W., 104, 107, 161
Elsie, Lily, 185, 188
Emery, Sam, 20
Emery, Winifred, 238, 271
Empire, the, 241, 243-247, 257
Engelbach, L., 148
English Nell, 38
Entertainer, the, 106
Erminie, 32
Evangeline, 206
Evelyn, Clara, 188
Excelsior, 197
FAIR, W. B., 256
Fairbrother, Sydney, 235
Fairlie, Francis, 75
Falka, 31, 32, 95, 208
Farnie, H. B., 30, 35, 36, 37, 44, 63,
Farren, Nellie, 28, 49, 54, 56, 57,
61, 151, 196, 238, 265
Farren, " Old," 23, 191
Farren, William, 23, 24, 271
Faucit, Helen, 236
Faust, 146, 147, 170
Faust and Marguerite, 207
Faust Up-to-Date, 208
Fawn, James, 202, 203
Fawsett, Amy, 271
Fechter, 145, 146
Feeney, Pat, 254
Fernande, 132
Fernandez, 37, 157
Figaro, The, 260
Fille de Madame Angot, La. See
Madame Angot
Fille du Tambour Major, 29
Finette, 75, 76
Fitzgerald, Percy, 230
Fitzhenry, Miss, 26
Flexmore, 78, 192, 193
Flopp, Lydia, 204
Florentine, The, 170
Flowers and Weeds of Erin, 193
Flying Colours, 56
INDEX
295
Flying Scud, The, 124
Folly Theatre, 31, 41
Foot and his Money, A, 22
For Love and Honour, 199
Formosa, 124, 270
Forrester, Maud, 156
Fortescue, M., 146
Forty Thieves, The. 59, 149, 150,
151. 197. 206, 207
Fourteen Days, 116
Fox, Harry, 255, 256
Fox. Rose, 58, 198, 256
Fragson, H., 208
Frampton and French, 57
Freear, Louie, 149
Freeman, Harry, 240
French, Samuel, 17, 112
1 nth, W. P., 162
Frohman, Charles, 24, 70
Fun, 22
Fun City, the, 211
Fyfe, Hamilton, 174
Gaiety Girl, A, 177
Gaiety Quartet, the, 56
Gaiety Theatre, the, 22, 25, 26, 28,
30, 56 et seq., 62, 76, 89, 150, 184,
190, 241, 263, 266
Gainsborough, Monta, 125
Gallande, Professor, 144
Gamester, The, 124
Gammon, Barclay, 213
Garcia, Edward, 44
Garmoyle, Lord, 146
Garrick, David, 1 19, 230, 237
Garrick Theatre, the, 25, 117
Garvin, J. L., 174
Gattis, the, 19, 132
Gay Parisian, The, 149
Geisha, The, 177, 187
. Adelina, 247
Genevieve de Brabant, 28, 30, 34, 75
Gentleman Jack, 128
Gentleman Joe, 47
George II., 245
<".:' ML, 159,245
George Barn well, 80
George. Marie. 209
German Reeds, the, 213, 266
Gersdorff, 171
Gibbons. Alfred. 178
as, George
Gilbert and Sullivan, 32. 230. 259
Gilbert, Fred, 252
Gilbert, W. S., 59. 76, 118. 144, 146.
147, 194, 231. 259 et seq.
Gilchrist, Connie, 58
Ginnetts, the, 157, 162. 232
Girards, the, 77, 79
Girl from Up There, 186
Gladstone. W. E., 118
Globe Theatre, 20, 31, 98, 99, 147,
227
Glover, James M., 37
Glow-worm newspaper, 19
Glyn, Gertrude, 188
Gondoliers, 32
Gooch, Walter, 132
Good-natur'd Man, The, 144
Gomersal, 155
Goward, Miss, 161
Graham. Cissy, 64
Grand Theatre, 34, 88, 241
Grand Duke, The, 260
Grande Duchesse, La, 26. 29, 76
Grant, Baron, 245
Graves, George, 185, 206
Graydon, J. L., 240, 241, 242, 243
Great City, The, 123
Great Divorce Case, The, 116
Grecian Theatre, the, 90, 192, 193
Greek Slave, A, 177
Green, Paddy, 253
Greene, Evie, 179
Greet, William, 148
Greig, Maggie. Sec Florence St John
Grey, Lennox, 29, 30, 254
Grey, Sylvia, 55
Grierson's Way, 268
Griffen, Ernest, 64
Grigson, Bob, 121
Gros, Henri, 231
Grossmith and Laurillard, i.|->. ~~.\.
243
Grossmith, George, 264
:,ith the Elder, 106
Grossmith, Weedon, 48, 105, 106.
107, 140. 229
Guilbert, Yvette, 198
Gull, Ranger, 173
Gully, Mr, 121
Guy Thome, 173
C, \\ynn, Nell, 38, 241
H
HALLIDAY, ANDREW, 123, 150
Hamlet, 143. 146
Handsome Hernani. 197
296
INDEX
Hansel and Gretel, 171
Happy Land, 118, 194
Hare, John, 26
Harleian Miscellany, 164
Harmsworth, Lady, 174
Harmsworth Press, the, 173, 174
Harris, Augustus, 21, 79, 126, 132,
201, 202
Harris, Augustus, the Elder, 26, 78,
79, 139
Harris, Charles, 79
Harrison, Frederick, 222, 227
Hartmont, 97
Hatton, Joseph, 48
Hawtrey, C. H., no, in, 197
Hay, John Le, 64
Hay don, Benjamin, 210, 216
Haydon, Florence, 140
Haymarket Theatre, 147, 222, 227,
235
Head, Charles, 28, 30, 34
Headless Man, The, 116
Heath, Miss, 131
Hedmondt, E. C., 223
Heenan, J. C., 157
Helmore, Arthur, 96, 108
Henderson, Alexander, 36, 37, 44,
116, 227
Her Majesty's, 79, 197
Herbert, Miss, 26
Herman, Henry, 138, 139
Herring, Paul, 156
Herve, 26, 28
Hewitt, Agnes, 202
Hicks, Seymour, 55, 257
Higgins. See Bellew, J. C. M.
Hill, Jenny, 59
Hill, W. J., 37, no, 112, 119
Hippodrome, the London, 257
His Majesty's Theatre, 146, 151, 162,
223, 241
Hit OY Miss, 26
Hodson, Henrietta, 54
Hodsons, the, 71, 254
Holborn Amphitheatre, 195
Holborn Theatre, 124
Hollingshead, John, 28, 30, 54,
56-60, 76, 89, no, 150, 195-197.
198, 263, 266
Hollins, Redfern, 64
Holloway, James, 158, 159, 160
Holt, Clarence, 88, 125, 126
Honey, George, 150, 271
Honner, Mrs, 53
Honourable Herbert, The, 268
Hood, Basil, 35, 47, 186
Hood, Marion, 55, 64
Home and Beauty, 114
Hope, Antony, 38
Hoskins, the original of, 88
Hot Water, 116
Howard, Bronson, 115
Howson, John, 37
Hudson, " Sir " Geoffrey, 211
Hughes, Annie, 271
Huguenot Captain, The, 75
Humperdinck, 172
Humpty Dumpty, 206
Hundred Years Old, A, 131
Huntley, Grace, 65
Hylton, Millie, 204, 248
I
/ Lub a Lubbly Gal, I do, 91, 95
// Ever There was a Damned Scamp,
194
In Chancery, 60, 90
In Town, 32, 47, 177
Irving, Henry, 20, 139, 142, 146,
155, 177, 229, 239
Irving, H. B., 137, 140, 225, 229,
239
Irving, Laurence, 136, 229, 239
Ivy Hall, 139
Jack and the Beanstalk, 206
Jack Sheppard, 22, 48 et seq. ;
Gaiety burlesque, 54
Jackson, Harry, 203
Jacobi, George, 29
James, David, 18, 22, 271
James, Lithgow, 40
Jeanne Jeanette et Jeanneton, 29
Johnson, M., 261
Jolly Nose, 53
Jonathan Wild, 51
Jones, Henry Arthur, 114, 137 et
seq.
Jones, Sydney, ,177
Juana, 132
Judge and Jury, 88
K
KAHN'S museum, Dr, 114
Kammer spiel, 170
Kean, Edmund, 159
Keeley, Mary Ann, 52, 53
INDEX
Keeley, Robert, 122
Keep it Dark, 199
Kemble, Fanny, 238
Kemble, Henry, 238
Kendals, the, 26, 95, 123, 231, 265
Kcrkcr, Gus, 68
Kerr, Fred, 91
Keys, Nelson, 182
King Carotte, 29
King Comete, 29
King George's Pension Fund, 136
King Kodak, 199
King's Cross Theatre, 65
King's Highway, The, 158
^way Theatre, 224
Kipling, Rudyard, 250
Kiralfys, the, 78, 168
La di Da, 203
Ladies' Pictorial, The, 198
Lady Godiva, 156
Lady Slavey, The, 148, 176
Lamb, Beatrice, 147
Lambert, Florence, 64
Lancaster, John, 72, 224
Lunner, Katti, 199
Larkin, Sophie, 24
Laurillard, Edward, 149, 224
Lauris, the, 79
Laverne, Pattie, 29, 30
Lawton, Frank, 73
Leah Kleschna, 69
Leathes, Edmund, 146
Leclerqs, the, 192
Lecocq. 176, 267
Lederer, George, 69
Ledger, Edward
Lee, Jennie, 28
Lehar. Fr.inx, 183
Leicester House, 246
Leicester Square, 244
ster. the Earls of, 245
Lcighton, Quecnic, 207
Leni 145
Lennard, Horace, 198
Lcno, Dan, 205, 206, 230, 231, 242,
246
Leon, Victor, 184
Leslie, Fa .103
Leslie, Florence. See Florence St
Lester, Gertrude, 188
Lestocq, William, 24
Levenston, Mike, 188
Lever, Sir Ashton, 246
Lever, Walter, 253
Lewis, Clunn. 80
Life in London, 121
Life in Paris, 122
Lights of London, The, 129 et seq.
Lily of Leoville , The, 176
Lilliputian City, the, 218
Lind, Letty, 204
Lingard, Miss, 109
Linkman, The, 190
Linwood, Miss, 245
Little, C. P., 105
Little Bo-Peep, 206
Little Doctor Faust, 197
Little Don Cessar de Dazan, 57,
197
Little Faust, 28
Little Miss Muffet, 20
Little Robin Hood, 197
Litton, Miss, 19, 57, i<,\
Lloyd, Arthur, 181
Lloyd, Marie, 181, 204, 205
Loftus, Marie, 204
Lohr, Marie, 18, 98, 227
Loraine, Henry, 145
Loraine, Robert, 145
Loredan, M., 37
Loseby, Constance, 27, 29, 30. 58,
196, 254
Lost Chord, The, 249
Lost in Londoti.
Love's Sacrifice, 124
Lowe, Robert, 118
Lucas, E. V., 209
Lulu, 196
Lutz, Meyer, 58
Lyceum I _o, 26, 76. 79,
150. 158, 222
M
Mabille in London, 76
186
Macbeth. 8
Maccabe, Frederick. 213
IJB
Leslie, Fred, 29, 31, 43. 55
I, -1... II | . M, 66
Lester, Alfred, 180, 181. 182
McCarthy. J. H.. 146. 162, 163
1 1 . 1 93. 194, 202
M' Don gal I. Sir John. . H
Mackncy, the great. 196
Maclagan. Tom, 28
Maclean, 162
298
INDEX
McLellan, Charles, 68
McLellan, George, 69
McNulty, Jennie, 65
Macready, 141, 237, 238
Madame Angot, La Fille de, 25, 27,
3
Madame Favart, 31, 32, 35, 208
Madame Sans Gene, 178, 182
Maginn, Dr, 86
Magri, Countess, 211, 218
Maid of the Mountains, The, 229
Maid's Tragedy, The, 175
Maison du Mart, Le, 142
Majiltons, the, 77, 149
Malade Imaeinaire, Le, 101
Maiden, B. J., 106
Malone, " Pat," 184
Maltby, Alfred, 118
Man that Broke the Bank at Monte
Carlo, The, 252
Man with the white hat, the, 116
Manchester music halls, 44
Manchester theatres, 177
Manners, J. Hartley. 148
Manning, Cardinal, 117
Mansell, Richard, 25-28
Mansfield, Richard, 264
Manteaux Noirs, Les, 31, 44
Mari a la Campagne, Le, 147
Maria Marten, 80 et seq.
Mario, the sisters, 198
Maritana, 57
Marius, M., 27, 34, 41, 43, 107
Marriage Market, The, 189
Marshall, E., 27, 30
Marston, Westland, 146
Mary Rose, 235
Marylebone Theatre, 162
Mascotte, La, 31, 208
Mask, The, 76
Masks and Faces, 199
Maskelyne and Cook, 212-215
Matinee, the, 214
Matthews, Helen, 208
Matthews, Julia, 26, 27, 29, 30
Matthews, Sant, 91
Maude, Cyril, 194
Maude, Margery, 238
Maudle and Postlethwaite, 147, 154,
155
May, Alice, 29
May, Edna, 68, 69, 186
May, Phil, 40
Mazeppa, 154, 155, 156, 158, 161
Meiningen Company, 170
Melvilles, the. 222, 230
Menken, Adah Isaacs, 154-157
Merchant of Venice, The, 173
Meritt, Paul, 126, 127
Merivale, Herman, 146
Merry Duchess, The, 96
Merry War, The, 29
Merry Widow, 35, 183 et seq.
Message from Mars, 66
Metropolitan Music Hall, 203, 241
Michael and his Lost Angel, 137
Michael Strogoff, 22
Middleman, The, 134
Middlesex Music Hall, the, 176,
208,241, 242, 243
Midsummer Night's Dream, A , 1 70
Mikado, The, 32, 261
Milano, Johnny, 192
Miller, Mizzi, 185
Millett, Maud, 91
Millie Christine, 212
Milner, H. H., 154, 158
Miracle, The, 168, 175
Mirror Theatre, 195
Missing Link, the, 212
Mitton, Jack, 121
Modeska, 132
Mogul Tavern, 240, 241, 242, 243,
255
Monckton, Lionel, 177
Moncrieff, W. T., 51, 122, 162
Montague, Harry, 18, 20, 271
Montrose, the Duchess of, 96
Moody and Sankey, 95
Moore, George, 37
Moore, Mary, 20
Morgan, Wilford, 146
Morocco Bound, 208
Morris, Felix, 107
Morton, Charles, 28, 29, 30, 34, 43,
75, 253. 263
Morton, Hugh. See Charles McLellan
Morton, John Maddison, 123
Morton, Leon, 29
Morton, William, 214
Mosedale, Teddy, 155
Moser, Von, 108
Moss, Sir Edward, 231
Mother Goose, 79
Much Ado about Nothing, 142
Mulholland, J. B., 151
Mummer's Wife, The, 37
Munro, Kate, 27, 30, 37, 96
Murray, Ada, 157
Music Master, The, 72
Musgrove, George, 71, 73
My Nellie's Blue Eyes, 251
INDEX
299
N
NADAB, little, 88
Nadgy, 31. 32
Napoleon I., 155
Nash, Jolly John, 196
Naval Cadets, 31
NellGywnn, 31, 88, 63
Nelly Neil, 186
Nelson, Carrie, 30
Neville, Henry, 51, 145, 146, 229.
264
Neville, John, 51
Nevison, Nick, 158
New Babylon, 88, 123, 126, 127
New Barmaid, The, 149
New Theatre, 226
New York Casino, the, 69
New York Herald, The, 70
Newton, Addie, 271
Nicholls, Harry, 198, 199, 203, 206
Nicholson, Baron, 88, 256
Night Out, A, 119
Niobe all Tears, 147
Norreys, Rose, 91, 105
Northcliffe Press, the, 173, 174
Northcott, Richard, 27
Norton, Frederick, 152, 153
Novelty Theatre, the, 99
Nutt, Commodore, 217
OCCIDENTAL TAVERN, the, 88, 253
Odell, E. J., 37, 55, 123
L'CEil Creve, 26
Offenbach, Jacques, 26, 28. 29, 67,
Oh I Don't, Dolly, 117
Old Guard, The. 31, 32, 46
Old London (Dorothy). 63
Old London (Jack Sheppard), 53
Old Love and the New, The, 132
Old Playgoer, an (Matthew Arnold),
Mi
Old Score, An, 263
Oliver, Benjamin (Conquest), 193
itty, 162
Olivette, 31, 32, 208
Olympia, 168-175, 211,218
Olympic, the, 57, 79. 89, 117. i,
On Change, 107
On the March. 64
One and All, 130
Opera bouffe, 25 et seq.
Opera Comique, the, 30, 264
Opera House, the London, 221
Orpheus in the Haymarhet. 26
Our Boys, 17 et seq.
Oxenford, John, 139, 160
Oxford Music Hall, 28, 29, 30, 45,
78, 207, 241
PAGE, E. V., 199, 203
Paget, Lord Alfred, 44
Paillasse, 145
Palace of Truth, 127
Palace Theatre, the, 27
Palfrey, May, 105
Palladino, Emma, 199
Pandora Theatre, the, 246
Pallenberg, Max, 173
Pantomime Rehearsal, A. 101 ct seq.,
272, 273
Parry, Sefton, 43, 124
Parsee Opera, 225
Parsifal, 172
Parvenu, The, 102
Patience, 32, 127, 264
Paul, Howard, Mr and Mrs, 26, 204,
213, 264
Paulton, Harry, 27, 29, 140, 147
Pauvres de Paris, Les, 124
Pavilion Music Hall, 241, 249, 256
Pavilion Theatre, Mile End, 48,
81, 86, 132
Payne family, 75
Payne, Frederick, 169, 170, 171
Payne, George Adney, 231
Pearce, Lady (Carrie Coote), 202
Peg o' my Heart, 148
Penley, W. S., 21, 31, 95. 9&, 97.
99, 110,225,264
Penny Miscellany, the, 81
Pepita, 32
Pepper, Professor, 213
Percy's Reliques, 81
Pcrichole. La. 29, 263
Perrault, 202
Peter the Great, 136, 245
Pettie, Edna. See Edna May
Pettit, Henry, 129, 194
Phclps, Samuel, 23, 139
Phcnyl, Dick, 87. 90
Philharmonic Theatre, the, 28, 30,
Phillips, F. C., 75
Phillips. Watts. 75, 3
300
INDEX
Phoites, the, 77
Pinafore, H.M.S., 32, 264
Pinero, A. W., 60, 87, 90, 92
Pink Dominoes, 116, 117
Pinkie and the Fairies, 153
Pirates of Penzance, The, 32, 264
Pitt, George Dibdin, 158
Planche, J. R., 26, 150
Planquette, 36, 37, 63
Playhouse, the. 43
Plowden, F. F., 194
Polstead Fair, 83 et seq.
Ponsonby, Claud, 102
Ponsonby, Eustace, 102, 273
Poor Girl, The, 121
Pop Goes the Weasel, 192
Pope, Mrs, 161
Pope, William, 164, 165
Pott. See Fragson
Poule aux (Eufs d'Or, La, 29
Pounds, Courtice, 153
Poupte, La, 32
Power, Nellie, 203, 204
Powles. See Vesta Tilly
Pretty Perfumercss, The, 29
Prince's Theatre, 148, 260, 262
Prince's Theatre, Manchester, 177
Prince of Wales, the (Edward VII.),
24, 30, 34, 63
Prince of Wales's Theatre, the, 24,
32, 63, 109, 147, 148
Princess Ida, 32
Princess Pauline, 218
Princess of Trebizonde, 28, 29
Princess's Theatre, 75, 132 et seq.,
203, 207, 270
Prinsep, Anthony, 227
Private Secretary, The, 95, 108 et seq.
Prodigal Daughter, A , 269
Profligate, The, 87
" Prudes on the Prowl," 244
Prowse, Geoffrey, 265
Psycho, 215
Punch, 22, 147
Puss in Boots, 204
Pygmalion and Galatea, 127, 147
Q
Queen of my Heart, 62, 63
R
Racing, 194
Randall, Billy, 196
Randall's Thumb, 194
Ranken, Phyllis, 73
Rawlston, Zelraa, 248
Re Rebecca, 194
Read, John, 252, 254
Reade, Charles, 21, 203
Reece, Robert, 76, 150, 196
Reeds, German, the, 102, 266
Reinhardt, 168, 175
Rents, theatrical, 219 et seq.
Reverend Robert Spalding, the,
1 08
Rhodes (of the Coal Hole), 88,
325
Richards, Cicely, 24
Richard III., 159
Richardson's show, 155
Richmond, the Duke of, 163
Rignolds, the, 233, 234
Rip Van Winkle, 31, 208, 218
Ripper, Jack the, 129
Road to Ruin, The, 144
Robbing Roy, 197
Robert the Devil, 263
Roberts, Arthur, 31, 44 ct seq., 79,
202, 203, 246, 255
Roberts, R. A., 158
Robertson, J. Forbes, 132
Robertson, Wybrow, 19
Robinson Crusoe, 206
Robson, Frederick, 71, 193
Rocket, The, 60
Roebuck, Disney, 57
Rogues and Vagabonds, 130, 135
Roi Garotte, Le, 29
Rolyat, Dan, 180, 182
Romany Rye, The, 130, 135
Rookwood, 49
Rorke, Mary, 119
Roselle, Amy, 18, 22, 23
Roselle, Percy, 23
Rosemary, 114
Rough Diamond, The, 148
Rouse, " Brayvo," 192, 193
Rowe, George Fawcett, 126
Rowton, Walter, 106
Royal Albert Music Hall, 253
Royal Music Hall, the, 241, 242
Royalty Theatre, 96, 97, 162, 263
Royce, E. W., 37, 56, 57, 58, 60,
151. 197
Ruddigore, 32, 260
Ruddy George, 260
Rudersdorf, Madame, 264
Rudge family, the, 204
Ryley and Barnum, 76
INDEX
301
SADLER'S WELLS THEATRE, 122,
242
St Clair, Annie, 30
St George's Hall, 213
St James's Theatre, 26, 76
St John, Florence, 25, 27, 31, 34,
35, 36. 38 et seq., 43, 178
St Martin's-in-the-Fields. 55
Sala, G. A., 81, 120, 233
Salome, 170
San Toy, 177, 187
Sanger's Circus, 85, 171, 232
Santley, Kate, 27, 29, 30, 79, 96,
157, 202
Sara, Mdlle, 75
Saratoga, 115
Sardanapalus, 124, 125
Sass, Edward, 140
Saunders, Charlotte, 150, 162
Saunders, E. G., 25
Savage Club, the, 149
Savoy Hotel, 231
Savoy Theatre, 225, 259
Schneider, Hortense, 26, 76
School for Scandal, The, 23, 199
Scott, Clement, 64, 244
Serious Family, The, 147
Shadwell, Thomas, 146
Shaftesbury Theatre, the, 71, 73,
105, 179, 182, 224
Shakespeare, Germans and, 170, 172
Shaw, Bernard, 170
Shaw, Carr, 65
Shaw the Lifeguardsman, 121
She Stoops to Conquer, 179
She Wandered down the Mountain-
side, 97
Shelley, Sir Percy, 101, 102
Shcppard, Jack, 162
Sheridan, Amy, 156
Shine, J. L., no
Shirley, A., 81, 82
Siamese twins, the, 212
Siddons, Mrs Scott, 237
Sign of the Cross, The, 134, 140
Simon Dale, 38
Sims, J. R.,90, 129 et seq., 242
Skctchley, Arthur, 213
Sleep Song, the, 30
Sleeping Beauty, The, 206
Sloman, Charles, 88
im Sing Poo, 218
Smiti 213
Smith. E. T., 76. 156
Smith, O., 53
Smithson, Florence, 182
Soho Square, 33
Soldene, Emily, 26-30, 34
Solomon, Edward, 54, 162. 176
Sothern, Lytton, 119
Soutar, Farren, 238
South London Music Hall, 256
Spielman, the, 173
Spiers & Pond, 116, 227
Sprake, Herbert, 231, 232
Spring, Tom, 121
Squire's Daughter, The, 63
Stand me a Cab Fare, Duckie, 45
Standard, Pimlico, 241
Standing, Herbert, 119
Stead. W. T., 173
Stephens, Granny, 1 19
Stephens, H. P., 54, 162
Stephenson, B. C., 62, 66, 142
Stern, Ernest, 171, 172
Stern, Leon, 174
Stewart, Nellie, 207
Stoll, Oswald, 25, 231
Storey, Fred, 79, 202
Stoyle, Jimmie, 29
Strand Theatre, 19, 31, 57, 89, 147.
149, 227
Strange, Frederick, 195
Strangeways Prison, 108
Stratton, Charles, Sherwood. See
Tom Thumb
Stratton, Eugene, 95
Streets of London, The, 123, 194
String of Pearls, The, Si
Strong Men, The, 69
Sullivan, Gilbert and, 32, 259 et seq.
Sullivan, Arthur, 176, 231
Sullivan, Barry, 124
Sullivan, Fred, 263
Sullivan, James, 72
Sunday Times. The, 84
Surrey Theatre, 51
Suzanne, 31
Swanboroughs, the, 57, 150
Sweeney Todd, 80 et seq.
Sweet Lavender, do, 87 et seq.
Swinburne, A., 157
i ONI, 197
Talbot, Howard, 177
Talfourd, Frank, 150
Tangier Tavern, the, 166
302
INDEX
Tapping, Mrs A. B., 235, 236
Tattersalls, 121
Tate, Nahum, 146
Taylor, T. P., 162
Tell me, Mary, how to Woo Thee,
254
Tempest, Marie, 65
Tempest, The, 173, 266
Tempter The, 137
Temss, Ellaline, 79, 105, 271
Terriss, William, 271
Terry, Edward, 56, 57, 60, 89, 90,
91, 151, 197. 199
Terry, Ellen, 142
Terry's Theatre, 87, 88, 89, 92,
93. 105, 199, 253
Thackeray, W. M., 26, 88, 120
Theatre Royal, Manchester, 177
Thomas, Beach, 174
Thomas, Brandon, 91, 94, 95, 97,
105, 107, 273
Thompson, A. M., 179-180
Thompson, Lydia, 207
Thome, Thomas, 18, 268, 271
Thornton, Frank, 266
Thorpe, Courtenay, 107
Thumb Tom, 211, 216, 217, 218
Thurtell, Jack, 121
Tich, Little, 205
Tilkins. See Ivan Caryll
Tilley, Vesta, 240, 247, 248
Times, The, 60, 160
Tinted Venus, The, 147
Tiny Town, 211
Tom and Jerry, 51, 120 et seq.
Tom Cribbs, 121
Tom Jones, 179
Tommy make Room for your Uncle,
256
To-Night' s the Night, 117
Toole, J. L., 28, 196, 238, 263
Toole's Theatre, 105, 260
Tosti, Paolo, 152
Tree, Beerbohm, 35, 92, 96, 108, IOQ,
no, 140, 148, 151, 224, 228, 239
Trial by Jury, 96, 263, 265
Trocadero Music Hall, 25
Trouhanowa, 173
Turpin, Dick, 49, 158, 159
Twain, Mark, 96
Two-headed Nightingale, The, 212
Two Lovely Black Eyes, 249, 250,
251, 252
Two Roses, 19, 20, 270, 271
Two Thorns, 269
Tyburn, 165-166
U
Uncle Sam, 73
Under the Clock, 257
Utopia Limited, 260
Valentine and Orson, 79, 201
Vaudeville Theatre, the, 18, 19, 20,
24, 203
Vaughan, Kate, 56, 57, 59, 61, 151,
190 et seq.
Vaughan, Susie, 195
Venice, 29
Venne, Lottie, 118
Verne, Jules, 22
Vernon, Harriet, 204
Vert-Vert, 27
Vesey, Clara, 29
Vezin, Herman, 147
Victor, M. A., 90
Victoria Palace, 241
Victoria Theatre, the, 49, 57, 124,
158
Vie, La, 31, 44
Village Blacksmith, The, 257
Vokeses, the, 64, 77, 78, 79, 102.
103, 201, 202
Volmoeller, Carl, 168, 171
Voltaire, 154
Voyage a la Lune, La, 29
W
WADMAN, TILLY, 55, 204
Wagner, 172
Waller, Lewis, 146
Wallet, W. F., 159
Wallis, Bertram, 209
Wallis, Ellen Lancaster, 72, 224
Walpole, Horace, 162
Waltz Dream, The, 189
Wanderer in London, A, 209
War and the theatre, 219
Warde, D'Auban and, 59
Warfield, Dave, 72
Warner, Charles, 17, 18, 22
Warren, Lavinia, 217
Warren, Minnie, 217
Waterloo, 158
Waters, Billy, 123
Webb, Dr, 88
Webster, Ben, 145, 269
Wedding March, The, 194
INDEX
303
Wehlen, Emmy, 188
Welch, James, 96
Welchman, Harry, 182
We'll run 'em in, 30
Wesner, Ella, 247
West London Theatre, the, 122
Weston's Music Hall, 242
When it was Dark, 173
When Knights were Bold. 96
White, James, 226
Wicked World. The, 118
Widdicomb, 161
Wife, The, 124
Wigan, Horace, 57
Wild Oats, 144
Wilde, Oscar, 147, 148, 170
Willard, E. S., 134, 139, 140
Williams, Arthur, 64, 65, 66
Williams, Fred, 255
Willis's Rooms, 121
Wilmot. Charles, 88, 93, 125
Wilson, Lardie, 59
Wimperis, Arthur, 181
Winter Queen, the, 245
Winter's Tale, A, 173
Wiry Sal, 75
Wises, the, 78
Woman in Red, The. 57
Wonder, The, 124
Wootwell, Tom, 77
Wortley, Mrs Stuart, 263
Wright, Mrs Frederick, 49
Wyndham, Charles, 114, 115, 116,
119. 131, 226, 228. 238, 269
Wyndham, Lady. 269
Wyndham 's Theatre, 115, 226. 227
XIT, 211
Yankee at the Court of King A rth ur. A ,
96
Yardley, William, 54
Yates, Edmund, 133
Yeoman of the Guard, The, 32
Yorke, T. D., 37
ZAZEL, 59
Hibbert, Henry George
A playgoer's memories
L6H55
PLEASE DO NOT REMOVE
CARDS OR SLIPS FROM THIS POCKET
UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO LIBRARY
