THE DRAMA—LEGITIMATE AND OTHERWISE.
THE tercentenary of Shakespeare in ’64 suggested an experience that many
of us were anxious to participate in. That we were likely to be
successful was by no means certain, for numerous meetings, held at the
Café de l’Europe, Haymarket—where motions innumerable and brandy _ad
libitum_ were proposed and carried—had decided that an event so strictly
dramatic should not be diluted by outside association, but rather that
scene shifters, stage carpenters, actors, everything and everybody
strictly “legit.” should have the preference of guzzling and swilling to
the memory of the immortal poet. But if our claims were weak, our
advocates were strong, and so it came to pass that on the eventful
evening we found ourselves awaiting the feast in the banqueting room of
the Freemason’s Tavern.
That the thing was to be unique we were not long in discovering, as Ben
Webster began grace by “For what we are about to receive may the spirit
of Shakespeare hover over us.”
Whether it was Shakespeare’s spirit or the more powerful libations
included in the dinner ticket must be left to greater dramatic
authorities; suffice that long before the speeches began, practical jokes
were in full blast, and eventually developed into a free fight.
It appears that some scene shifters with voracious appetites were sending
again and again for a slice more ’am, till wags of a higher grade, who
acted as croupiers, worn out and disgusted, piled plates with meats,
custards, oranges, and mustard till the blood of every carpenter rose as
one man, and dishes began to fly right, centre, and left. Even the
waiters joined in the tournament, and one, in the act of placing a plate
before me, yelled out, “Wait till I give this — his grub, and then I’ll
let you know.” “Damn it,” whispered one of our party, “this isn’t
Shakespearian, surely! For God’s sake let us clear out.” But “clearing
out” was by no means so easy, for at that moment two or three repulsive
ruffians in leather coats and rabbit-skin caps came upon the scene,
whilst one, scowling in strictly melodramatic style, confronted us with
“Well, what’s the matter with _you_?” But we managed to slip out without
giving the desired explanation, and so ended the tercentenary and the
spirit Ben Webster had invoked.
People nowadays would hardly realise that theatregoers in those long-ago
days could wade through alleys and side streets by no means safe after
dark to visit the (then) Prince of Wales’s in a slum off the Tottenham
Court Road. With an excellent company, however, and with houris since
translated to the peerage and knightage, the little house was nightly
crammed, and white ties by the score blocked the thoroughfare in the
vicinity of the modest stage door as resolutely as in later years they
besieged the Philharmonic and the Gaiety.
Valentine Baker at the time was running the show, or a material portion
of it, and much of the profits of his wife’s soap-boiling industry, it
was said, found their way into the coffers of the unpretentious little
temple in the slum. A wealthy cabinet maker, also in the vicinity, whose
profits permitted the luxury of a four-in-hand, might usually be seen
worshipping at the shrine, and a tag-rag and bobtail of less wealthy but
aspiring young bloods fought and hustled for one glance, one sign of
recognition, from the bevy beyond the footlights.
When Valentine Baker began casting sheep’s eyes at the demure maiden
reading the _Family Herald_ in a South-Western compartment, he little
realised that the price he was paying might have been commuted elsewhere
by the judicious expenditure of a five-pound note. Twenty thousand in
hard cash, the command of a great regiment, and social annihilation—for
what? And when Mr. Justice Brett began his charge to the jury by “a man
we looked to to protect our women and children,” there was not an Army
man present (and the Croydon Court House was crammed with them) that did
not internally vow that henceforth, be it in a first-class or a
third-class compartment, be it Piccadilly Circus or the British Museum,
woman should be his constant care, and, if necessary, any tadpole that
lawfully pertained to her.
The rumour came like a thunderbolt, and in every Army club the whispered
communication ran: “Valentine Baker is arrested, by Gad!”
No man at this time had such a universal personality—the colonel of the
crackest of all crack regiments; the admittedly best cavalry leader of
the day; the patron of the drama, and in intimate touch with the Prince
of Wales’s Theatre, then under the management of Marie Wilton, since
developed into a pillar of Holy Church—the thing seemed incredible, and
curiosity ran high to gaze upon the houri that had been so fatally
misread by this experienced veteran.
The crowds that surrounded the Court House made access impossible; to
hope for admission was the aspiration of a lunatic, when “Come this way,
my lord”—as my companion was recognised—reached our ears, and we found
ourselves under an open window, ten feet from the ground, at the back of
the court.
“I’ll stand next the wall,” continued our guide, “and you get on my
shoulders,” and then an acrobatic performance took place that would have
insured an engagement at any music-hall.
The sequel is matter of history.
Years after—in ’94—I met him in Cairo, an altered, broken man, in daily
expectation of being appointed Commander-in-Chief of the Egyptian Army.
But Nemesis had not done with him yet—prudery, hypocrisy,
blue-stockingism were still rampant, and a telegram from London vetoed
the intended appointment.
The official explanation was that a “cashiered man” could not command
full-pay British officers with which the Egyptian Army swarmed, whilst
the universal opinion was that a brave man was being hounded to his death
under the cloak of that charity that flourished in its prime during the
days of the Inquisition.
Next year he died in Egypt—broken in health and broken in heart—and those
that knew his brilliant attainments, and the heights they would assuredly
have led to, agreed that—like Napoleon—he should have died years before
at the head of his men.
The Strand Theatre also was a highly popular resort, run exclusively by
the Swanborough family and their numerous sisters, cousins, and aunts.
To “The Old Lady,” rightly or wrongly, was attributed every _malaprop_
that ingenious wits invented, and in later years, when the Doré Gallery
and the Criterion Restaurant simultaneously came into existence, she was
reputed to have expressed intense admiration of the Doré masterpiece,
“Christ leaving the Criterium.”
A pothouse—pure and simple—across the Strand was a favourite
after-theatre resort of this (then) brightest of companies, and in a
specially reserved room might nightly be seen sweet Nelly Bromley, young
as ever, despite her youthful brood of dukes and duchesses and his Grace
of Beaufort; Eleanor Bufton, Fanny Josephs, Fanny Hughes, and a host of
others, all charming, clever, and young, and, alas! all passed away.
The proprietor of this unpretentious hostelry was a pimply, fly-blown
individual, who before you had been five minutes in his company told you
that _he_ was the rightful Duke of Norfolk, who by some legal jugglery
had been choused out of his birthright; he, too, has long been swept
away, and so the present peer remains unmolested in his title.
Passing through the Strand not long since, I was attracted by the new
Tube station, and entering its portals for “auld lang syne” I was
distressed, but not surprised, to find nothing of the happy hum that once
characterised the transformed spot. For here stood the little Strand
Theatre of the sixties in all the glory of its original popularity before
it was improved (?) and modernised, only to find it had become out of the
perspective, and so to be handed over to eternal obliteration.
The old Strand may surely claim to be the root of the theatrical
genealogical tree, for from its original stock (company) sprang every
sprig that struck root elsewhere to became famous either through
theatrical enterprise, matrimonial enterprise, or any of the lucrative
channels that commend themselves to commercial talent.
For the phalanx that once worked as a whole, would according to present
custom, be split into a dozen “one-part” companies, with the necessary
embroidery of Bodega men, motor-cum-masher women, and a sprinkling of
earnest artistes by way of cohesion.
A few years later the family grouping that originally characterised the
Strand was intruded upon by one H. B. Farnie, whose forte was the
adaptation of opera-bouffe. Unquestionably an adept in this particular
line, the man was a libertine of a pronounced character, with the result
that the chorus at the Strand and the Opera Comique was the very
daintiest conceivable. If a houri yielded to this Blue Beard’s
blandishments, her advancement was assured, and she was fitted to minor
parts; if his overtures fell on deaf ears, nothing was too bad for her,
and her lot was not a successful one. Occasionally, as a consequence,
the hum-drum routine of a rehearsal was enlivened by such unrehearsed
incidents as the appearance of an irate brother, and, on one occasion, an
exasperated fishmonger from the Theobald’s Road (the combination sounds
boisterous), burst in at a critical period of a comic duet and belaboured
the unhappy impresario to within an inch of his life.
These cases are, happily, rare at the present day, although, if rumour is
correct, a Hebrew of dramatic tastes, who, a few years ago, developed
into theatre owner, and staged his own pieces, could tell of a similar
experience which practically led to his abandonment of the active pursuit
of the drama.
When the fair Lardy Wilson, whom we last heard of at the Surrey, had
risen into prominence by reason of her exalted connection, she joined the
old Philharmonic, at Islington, in the zenith of its glory; so privileged
indeed had this darling of Alfred become that, appearing in the “green
room” on one occasion with an infant swaddled in purple and fine linen,
the manager, band conductor, principals—male and female—and the chorus
_en bloc_, are said to have bowed down and worshipped, as was only meet
and proper and to be expected of a “loyal and dutiful” people.
“Wiry Sal” was also a delightful member of the company, and soon obtained
European fame by being able to kick higher, in a graceful, abandoned way,
than any exponent of the art before or since.
Pretty little Camille Dubois, who eventually developed into a Stanhope,
was also at this delightful house. Her father at the time was conductor
at the Opera Comique, and on one occasion having congratulated him on the
execution of an excruciating _morceau_ that I was aware had emanated from
his inspired brain, I expressed a desire to procure a copy.
“Ach, mein Gott!” he replied, “it is a gavotte in F.”
Gavottes in F are, happily, rare inspirations!
For although burlesque lent itself to the display of a bevy of beautiful
choristers, mashing had not then attained its present barefaced
dimensions, and the cab outside and the calf (just) inside were the
exception, not the rule, in those jovial days.
But when Ada and Lizzie—as sometimes occurred—were sisters, it often
happened that some system was necessary to insure a properly balanced
larder, for from a conversation once overheard, two hams had come from
the guardsman and the lordling, whereas the smallest forethought would
have insured otherwise.
But the belle of the show was one Laura, who, discovered in the purlieus
of Islington, developed into the rage of London, and her beautiful face
was to be seen on Easter eggs, Egyptian cigarettes, and at the picture
shops, as Connie Gilchrist, the Countess of Lonsdale, and other beauties
figured at a later day.
Her personality attracted—as may be assumed—all the front rank mashers,
and Harry Tyrwhitt, Douglas Gordon, and Jimmy Douglas were nightly
imploring D’Albertson and Hitchins to present them to the goddess.
But this fatal beauty led to a row, and the jealous swain who was
responsible for the fair Laura’s well-being was not long in bringing
matters to an issue.
It was on Ash Wednesday, when our national hypocrisy—since taken other
shapes—closed the theatres, with the exception of the Alhambra, that the
fair chorister decided to “visit her parents.” Nothing loth to encourage
such filial piety, her inamorato put her into a cab, and then—with an eye
to business—judiciously followed.
The sequel was a sad disillusionment, for getting out at the stage door,
she proceeded towards the Embankment, and there by easy
stages—accompanied by an admirer—the pair proceeded to a private box at
the Alhambra.
The rest is briefly told; a thundering knock at the box door, shouts of
“Hush!” from all parts of the house, the orchestra stopped, old Jacobi
standing in his stirrups, and an ignominious exit for all concerned.
Later the sweet girl went on tour with one of Alec Henderson’s companies,
and met a bagman she eventually married.
The bagman has since developed into one of the largest shopkeepers in
Knightsbridge, and so good came out of evil, and the course “true love”
usually runs in marrying an Italian waiter and living on macaroni was
diverted, and everything a real “loidy” should have became hers for life.
And the development of the fair creature’s life was frequently under my
observation. Beginning with a preference for a “steak and a glass of
stout,” she soon developed into an authority on champagne; instead of
worsted gloves—or no gloves—nothing but Dumont’s mauve mousquetaires
would satisfy her, and so blasée did she become during her nightly visits
to Romano’s that she could not sum up sufficient energy to remove her
sixteen-franc gloves when picking an artichoke. One marvels at the true
origin of these phenomena when under observation during the transition
state from gutter to Debrett, for although all of us have seen the
mothers, no human eye has ever seen the male progenitor of any of these
extraordinary beings, who toil not neither do they spin, yet rise to the
highest positions, have their babies kissed by the Kaiser, and all by
sheer superficial excellence.
Yet another face arises before me, and sweet Grace O—, resisting every
blandishment of Jew and Gentile, stands prominently out in the simple
attire of a modest maiden, amid the sables and baubles by which she was
surrounded. No adorers waited for her, although the bombardment by
letter and overture was incessant; smirky acting-managers enlisted
against her, reminded her that no stalls were booked by her _clientèle_,
parcels at the stage door remained as they were left, and nightly the
sweet girl trudged across Waterloo Bridge to her humble abode at
Kennington, whilst half a dozen broughams only awaited the chance of
flicking her to a _cabinet particulier_ at the Café Riche or Kettner’s.
Often, as she told me at a later period, she entered her hovel tired and
hungry with nothing better than a herring and a crust with which to
fortify herself for the monotonous routine of next day and every day, the
lot then, and now, of many a tender plant in uncongenial soil.
But every created thing has its breaking point—the balloon overflated
will eventually burst, and the egg pressed too hard will assuredly break;
and sweet Grace, no exception to the unalterable law of Nature, like a
lily before the hurricane, bent before the assault that assailed her on
every side.
It was like an ironclad charging an outrigger, when men of the Farnie
type entered the lists against an honest and attractive chorister, and
the sequel of short duration in Ashley Place was told me by the unhappy
girl. Gold at this stage was lavished upon her, and a miniature brougham
and tiger—intended as a surprise—was scornfully ignored as it waited for
her at the Royalty, and was eventually on sale—as unused as on the day it
left its builders—in Long Acre. “I can endure this gilded cage so long
as no one knows it, but the shame of the brougham! I would rather have
dropped than enter it.” So spoke the woman, and within a month she
walked out of the palatial establishment to revert to her humble life.
It was a perky Jew, enormously rich, with great back-door theatrical
influence, that sought to shape this phenomenal disposition into a regard
for his uncongenial charms. But manly beauty of such matured and
pronounced types, with its Malacca canes and vulgar jewellery—like olives
and a love for babies—are acquired tastes, and not the baits to allure
the “Graces” of this sordid world, and years after, when chance again
threw me across her path, our heroine was the happy wife of a worthy City
clerk, and Ashley Place and the Jew and the brougham had long since been
forgotten like the incidents of a hideous nightmare.
This is no overdrawn fairy tale, and what existed then exists now, at
least in one popular resort, and two sisters with youth, good looks, and
stage experience now “resting,” could tell how the only accomplishment of
which they were deficient was their inability to fill a few stalls—on
terms.
In later years the infant phenomenon became the craze, and Topsey, of the
Royalty, and Connie, of the music-halls, and a cloud of imitators all bid
for recognition. Some—like Esther—had the golden sceptre held out, and
“came and sat beside the king,” whilst others less fortunate fulfilled
their natural destiny and became the wives of the local tobacconist or
greengrocer, and many of them would now be shocked if asked the number of
yards between the pond and the Hampstead Fever Hospital, or the
sensations of dancing to a hurdy-gurdy on the boulevards of Camden Town.
And so history is made, and pedigrees traced to “de” something—who came
over with the Conqueror—with here and there a stiffening from a Chicago
pork butchery, and it only remains for you and me, my brother snobs, to
pray that whatever trials the Fates may have in store for us, we may not
be bereft of our old nobility.
The recent death of the once-popular Chief of the Fire Brigade, Eyre
Shaw, recalls many stirring scenes that lit up the West End in the
long-ago sixties, when theatres bore a considerable share of the
conflagrations that partially or entirely destroyed some of our most
notable playhouses.
It was in ’65 that the old Surrey was in flames, to be replaced later on
by the present structure, more familiar to the present generation as
associated with the début of such popular artistes as Lardy Wilson, Nelly
Moon, Val Reece (Lady Meux of the 20th century), Rose Mandeville, and
others under the management of Bill Holland, and the distinguished
patronage of names too sacred to mention save with bated breath and in
reverential tones.
Three years later the Oxford Music Hall was burned down, but those caves
of harmony were less pretentious in those days, and so the conflagration,
except as a sight, did not provoke much interest. But a blaze that
occurred in December, ’67, roused all London, and as a “spectacle”
surpassed anything that had ever been depicted on its stage, and put in
the shade the Guy Fawkes celebrations of the previous month.
In that memorable year Her Majesty’s Theatre, without any apparent rhyme
or reason, burst into flame, and despite herculean efforts was soon a
heap of cinders. For the construction, as may be supposed, was wood and
old, and those chiefly interested were probably gainers by the drastic
accident, except perhaps Mapleson, who was said to have lost £12,000, and
Madame Tietjens, £2,000. But Tod Heatly, the ground landlord, could
hardly have regretted it, for it opened up possibilities of improving the
site which, after many years, culminated in the present establishment,
with its profitable addenda of an hotel with its “lardy-da” luncheon and
supper rooms.
In those remote days the Metropolitan Board of Works was the controlling
authority, and bone counters which emanated from them passed the holders
within the cordon on any of these interesting occasions.
Eyre Shaw, too, about this time was appointed chief officer, and being an
enthusiastic patron of the Gaiety (then only a precocious infant with
every promise of its present development) little wonder that the bone
counters were in considerable evidence amongst the present-day old ladies
who then represented the Connies and Dollies and Lizzies of burlesque.
Contemplating the still-smouldering ruins, how complete appeared the
obliteration of many notable incidents. Here Mario—approaching
seventy—was acclaimed to the echo by a gushing house, after having been
hissed off the stage in Paris for mumbling what he once used to sing;
here Giulini thrilled the world with the purest tenor ever heard, and
died in the madhouse in the zenith of his fame; here later, Moody and
Sankey bellowed in solo and in duet, and stopped the traffic by the eager
crowds that sought admission (free) to bellow in the chorus; here, too,
sweet little Chiomi essayed to make her début in _Lucia_ and failed; and
here Lord Dudley, Carpenter, Vandeleur-Lee, Goodenough, and a host long
since swept into the universal dust-bin, beamed nightly on Tietjens and
Fanchelli with expressions supposed to denote familiarity with the text;
here under its dismal porticoes sights of distress and
starvation—forgotten in slumber—were nightly to be met with, as painful
as anything that ever appealed to De Quincey outside the Oxford Street
Pantheon, and here old Leader, prince of Bohemians and managing director
of the Alhambra in the zenith of its pranky days, had a box office till
he dropped from old age; here on one occasion on the son of one of the
celebrated Irish Army agents being presented to him, the Royal George
patronisingly greeted him with, “Oh, indeed, a son of ‘Borough and
Armit,’” and received the explanatory reply: “No, sir, only of Armit;”
and on the ghosts of all these departed memories not one stone now stands
upon another to bridge, as it were, the present with the glorious past.
In these latter days, a conflagration such as this would, of course, be
impossible, as witness the blaze not long since in Holborn. But then
that was a _fire proof_ construction.