This Birmingham bill is 204 years old. Yes, I know it isn't dated, but its vintage is easily discerned. One of the artists billed on it died in 1822 and 12 June was a Tuesday in 1821.
However, this affiche took my eye for several reasons.
Why does a rope-walker/dancer get the larger part of the bill over the performance of the hugely popular Guy Mannering? A few weeks earlier he had got a very yawnsome reception at Bristol. This enigmatic Mr Wilson would continue his act for some fifteen years, his reviews got better, and he returned to Birmingham a number of times, also to Bath, Cheltenham and environs, and reached his peak at Vauxhall Gardens .. His performance menu reads like a fun routine ... I assume he didn't fall off his rope in dramatic circumstances which would have allowed him to make the faits divers columns, sop I know no more about him ...
Secondly. Why does the bill contain no reference to the encadrement? No manager. No proprietor. No musical conductor ... Well, the theatre's proprietor does apparently appear herein, but only because he liked to go on in supporting roles from time to time ..
Mr Richard Collier. Concerning whom I know nowt more.
The manager was to be much, much more consequent. His name was ... Alfred Bunn. Yes, 'the poet Bunn'. Later to be of Drury Lane and The Bohemian Girl. Maybe he knew what he was up to, not attaching his name to a 'danseur à la corde'. But maybe he was wise to stand a little apart ... things got a bit hairy up in Birmingham round about this time.
So, what about the Guy Mannering cast? This is Bunn's company for the season. There are names in there that are decidedly not negligible. And some, which mean nothing to me, but which seem to have been more than respectable.
The standout is Mrs Waylett, here in the early stages of her grand career. And the final stages of her unfortunate marriage.
Harriet Waylett, née Cooke (b 7 February 1797) was from Bath. She had played at the local theatres from her teens as Miss Cooke, but in 1819 (17 July) she committed the folly of marrying one John Providence Waylett. In Coventry. So I suppose she was engaged there.. In 1821, the couple were hired by Bunn for Birmingham and disaster struck. Mr Waylett was put up as Shakespeare's Richard (2 or 3?) and found himself hissed and booed and ridiculed ... Mrs Waylett, on the other hand, was very much appreciated, and after her performance as Lucy Bertram she was engaged for London's Adelphi Theatre. Without Mr Waylett. And at the beginning of thirty years as 'one of the sweetest and best of English ballad singers'. Without Mr Waylett.
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| Mrs Waylett |
Then there is Mr [James] Thorne. He, too, would go on to a most successful career as a performer, including nearly a decade in rich company and good roles under Arnold at the English Opera House in the Strand. He seems to have been a wide-ranging baritone of charm ('light, elegant and tasteful', 'considerable versatility'), capable of taking both tenor and bass roles ('sang cleverly .. adroitly avoided difficulties') -- indeed, I see him on one occasion singing the roles of both Henry Phillips and Joseph Wood in one opera! His performance career was in its early days in 1821, although he had sung at Drury Lane alongside Braham, and at the Ancient Music and Choral Fund since his first steps in 1817 and been on the Birminham books since 1820. He was to be the first English Guglielmo in Cosi fan tutte, Kassova in Der Vampyr and Masetto in The Libertine amongst a host of roles in London in the season, and at Edinburgh, Birmingham, Liverpool, Bath or Glasgow between times. Of his personal life I have found little, save that his name was James and that he wed Hannah Maria Cushing, harpist and organist of Bury's Octagon Chapel in 1821.
A sad tale is that of Joseph Francis Higman (b 1790; d Maiden Lane, July 1822). Mr Higman 'of Covent Garden and Drury Lane' was the happy possessor of a 'deep bass voice'. A shoo-in for a performance of 'The Wolf' and the role of Gipsy Gabriel. Alas, not for long ..
Then there is Joseph Mallinson (b Norfolk c 1777; d Weston, Bath 30 September 1853). Mr Mallinson began in the theatre as a teenager on the Norwich circuit, but in 1804 he moved to the Bath and Bristol Theatres where he became a fixture, much appreciated for his comic talents (Ralph in Lock and Key, Robin in The Waterman &c) and, in particular, his way with a comic song ('Miss Levi, Miss Abrahams and Miss Moses'). He appeared round the country (Hull, Brighton, Birmingham &c) and put in the occasional appearance in London -- from the Haymarket Theatre to Vauxhall Gardens -- but returning each time to Bath. He is billed here as 'his first appearance for five years'.
Mrs T[homas] Hill (b Portsmouth c 1793; d London 30 May 1848) was born Harriet Maria Kelly daughter of Portsmouth theatre manager Henry Kelly. Although primarily a light comic actress, she studied singing with Henry Bishop and amongst a host of roles -- notably at the Haymarket Theatre where she was engaged for over a decade, and where she created the role of Phoebe in Paul Pry -- she was seen in such musical pieces as Love in a Village (Lucinda), John of Paris (Olivia), The Marriage of Figaro (Susanna), No Song, No Supper (Louisa), Clari (Ninetta), Lionel and Clarissa (Jenny), The Mountaineers (Zorayda), Rosina (William). When, in the off-season, she visited the larger provincial houses she was wont to interpolate such as 'Bid me discourse', 'Cherry Ripe', 'The Lover's Mistake' or 'Buy a Broom' into the proceedings. She also replaced Miss Paton as Polly in The Beggar's Opera at the Haymarket in 1824, and in 1828 repeated her Julia Mannering at Cheltenham. In the 1840s she was active in the Dublin theatre.
Elsewhere, my searches have been sabotaged by names. Mr Mathews (or Matthews) 'of Covent Garden'? Which one? Mr Butler? Surely not the one who played Hamlet and Othello and ... the Popes? Again, which ones? Master Saunders is 'of Bath'. He dances. And has since he was three years old. 'The most astonishing dancer of his age in the kingdom'. Oh he dances on a tightrope. At Astleys. Oh .. there were THREE Master Saunderses, Master T and Master S[amuel Deshayes] (d 1898) .. and Master G! .. and one calls himself 'Edouard' then 'junior' .. and there is a Miss as well 'on the slack wire' at the Olympic! They are visible up to 1834 .. and in 1841 he returned at the Pavilion .. I wonder what he did in Guy Mannering!
I can follow these folk for a few years but .. then it gets harder!
Our Mr Butler was one of the early representatives of Emery's role of Yorkshireman Dandie Dinmont at Drury Lane (October 1819) alongside Braham where he made a considerable success. The London press averred that he was 'from the Birmingham Theatre .. a completely successful debut'. Another said rightly that he had played 'one season at the Haymarket' (1817, Sheepface in The Village Lawyer, from the Theatre Royal, York). He was 'loudly applauded in the Highland dance'.
In that same Birmingham season The Marriage of Figaro was produced with Mallinson as Figaro, Thorne as Fiorello, Mrs Hill as Cherubino, Mrs Waylett as Susanna, Butler as Antonio .. When they did Rob Roy Thorne was Osbaldistone, Butler is Dougal, Higman is Major Galbraith, Mallison is Nicol Jarvie, Mathews is Rashleigh. In 1823, in The Slave Thorne is Captain Clifton, Mrs Waylett is Zelinda, Butler is another Yorkshireman, Sam Sharpset ...
Well bingo! Persistence pays. George Blyth[[e] Butler (b Yorkshire 1795; d Cumberland Row, Newcastle 24 November 1838). Son of the Samuel Butler of the Richmond Theatre, brother of actor Samuel William Butler .. comedian .. lies in Jesmond Old Cemetery .. thank you Find-a-Grave ...
But here, in the season's prospectus, she is said to be 'of Drury Lane'. Sigh, 'Mrs Pope of Drury Lane' died in 1818 aged 75 ... You see the problem?
Well, that's been a jolly little exercise. But it still leaves me wondering why the funambulist got the bigger part of this curious playbill ...
On to another!
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