Marion Terry

  The St. James's Theatre, King Street, London

 Sir George Alexander (1858—1918)

An extract from The Illustrated and Dramatic News - Saturday 7th February 1891

The new management of the St. James’s Theatre.

Mr. Alexander is fortunate to have so charming and thoroughly wholesome a production as Sunlight and Shadow, with its attractions unexhausted and ready for transfer intact to a new theatre. The labour and anxiety incident to such a move as that just accomplished by the young manager are quite enough without the added responsibilities of a new play; so, it was much better to defer the rehearsing ‘The Idler’ until after the rest of the work has been carried out. What this work was may be judged from the fact that the St. James’s has been fitted with a new stage by Mr. White, has been lighted throughout with electricity, has been warmed with stoves placed in all parts of the house, and what is by no means less important, has been refurnished and made draught proof by Messrs. Oetzmann. The theatre is thus made as comfortable as it is handsome, and it is altogether a far more pleasant place of entertainment than it has ever been since John Braham, the great tenor, who built it some 55 years ago.

Auditorium and Proscenium of the St. James's Theatre (1902)

From ‘The Idol of the Ladies’ by W. Macqueen Pope.

The St. James’s Theatre was the ideal setting for Sir George Alexander; it had an atmosphere to house his brilliant and successful management. As he transferred from the Avenue Theatre, his first step was to make the theatre more comfortable, so he installed electric light, which was a great innovation. The seating was re-upholstered, and the walls were repainted in warmer and softer tones. The backstage area was fully carpeted to reduce noise during scene changes and dressing rooms were renovated.

From the very start Mr. Alexander impressed his views, his methods and his personality on his theatre and it became like himself.

The new box office manager became a character too and always wore a top hat while on duty. His assistant was called in true theatrical fashion, De Courcy. Even the tickets were different. They were not of paper but of pasteboard and had something of the appearance of a railway ticket.

The housekeeper, who kept the place like a new pin, knew every patron and their tastes, especially Royalty, for whose visits she kept a special tea service with a solid silver tea and coffee pot. On one occasion, being told that her Royal Highness the Princess Royal (the Duchess of Fife) was coming to a matinee, and that a nice tea should be served, she replied, ‘Rightly speaking, sir, Her Royal Highness does not partake of tea - she prefers coffee.’ That, again, was true St. James’s. In her black dress and gold chains, she pervaded the theatre, and nothing escaped her eagle eye.

The staff that Alexander surrounded himself with stayed with him loyally for his entire 28 years there until his death. Gilbert Miller, the successful American theatre producer, began his career on the staff of the St. James’s Theatre and then took over its management when Alexander died in 1918 casting the future film star Claude Rains in his first production who himself had begun life as a call boy with Herbert Beerbohm Tree at the Haymarket Theatre.

Everything about his time was about politeness and his method of treating his guests the audience is shown in this extract from one of his programmes:

‘Mr. George Alexander would respectfully request those ladies who frequent the St. James’s Theatre intent on viewing the performance to recollect the similar purpose in those who sit behind them. If therefore every large hat was left in the cloakroom (for which there is no charge) the lady so doing would confer a great benefit on her immediate neighbours.’

It is feared that the appeal fell on stony ground. Some ladies, after someone from the pit had yelled out ‘Take that hat off’ were reduced to pinning the hat to the back of the seat in front of them with their hatpins which could be dangerous affairs with silver or gold hilts like daggers. Frequent were the loud squeaks of pain when one of those pins penetrated the back of the occupant in front and profuse the apologies that followed.

Politeness even extended to the refusal of applications for free seats. The manager would not say to Arnold, when handing him a stamped and addressed envelope, 'regret this one' - the usual managerial formula for turning down an application and posting a printed form whereby 'Sir George Alexander regrets that due to public demand, he is unable to comply with your request at the moment.' No, he would say, ‘Send him Box C’. This was polite fiction, because there was no Box C in the theatre.

Arnold understood what to do, But if, because it was near the end of a run, there happened to be room for a bona fide member of the profession, and the request was granted, then you were sent, not the usual ticket stamped ‘Complimentary’ but a special ticket, a paper one, larger in size than the one sold for cash, showing clearly what it was, placing the recipient apart from the cash customers, and carrying instructions to the effect that you must wear evening dress, or you would not be admitted. It stated in large type, impossible to overlook, 'Evening Dress Compulsory’. Alexander was not going to have the tone of his stalls or dress circle let down by a non-paying guest. Nor did he desire to let his paying guests know that some were in ‘on the nod’. But it mattered little, for in Edwardian days nobody would have dreamed of entering the stalls or circle unsuitably attired.

It was probably a desire to inculcate his own good manners into the late arriving stallites, whose noisy entrances so often disturbed the house, which caused Alexander to ‘ring up the curtain’ on The Second Mrs Tanqueray at the odd hour of 8.10pm. If so, it was unsuccessful, for nothing will make some playgoers punctual!

Despite all this politeness and social conformity, Alexander’s management was a highly commercial one. He had many plays written for him and gave many chances to young actors and actresses. He taught them their jobs in the same way that Dame Ellen Terry had coached him on stagecraft throughout his time at the Lyceum under Sir Henry Irving. Much of her guidance had been onstage during performances where she shocked him with improvisations to keep him on his toes and to be sure he was listening intently through every minute. She would drop a handkerchief to see if he could pick it up in character and not miss a beat or change a move to surprise him. A hard set of tasks for a young actor but ones she said he coped with brilliantly.

He was an expert in casting, discovering and risking everything on the then unknown Mrs Patrick Campbell and later the talented Henry Ainley, who was the incarnation of manly beauty.

During his 28 years in management, cut short by his early death from consumption brought on by overwork during the First World War, he presented 82 plays, 7 of which were by Sir Arthur Wing Pinero and two by Oscar Wilde. By then the Victorian and Edwardian age of the actor-manager was coming to an end as the world picked itself up from the horrors of war and a changing population waking up to a new era heralding the 1920’s. 

Generic programme cover for the theatre

Business Manager Robert V. Shone (1895)

Hesketh Pearson writes:

The most continuously successful actor-manager on the stage of my time throughout his tenancy of twenty-seven years at the St. James’s Theatre, the most fashionable playhouse in London. The more expensive seats were occupied by Society with a capital ‘S’, the less expensive seats by those who longed to be in Society, the least expensive ones by those who wished to see what Society looked like. In such circumstances it is not to be expected that the drama served up at the St. James’s Theatre was of the most exalted kind.

Most of the plays dealt with life as lived by the upper classes, and peers of the realm were as common onstage as they were in the stalls. Alexander catered for their dramatic taste as much as the Savoy Hotel catered for their gastronomic taste.

In a typical St. James’s play the humorous characters were delightfully playful, the serious characters charmingly sentimental, and the plot savoured of scandal without being too truthful. Adultery was touched on and inevitably touched up; theft was made thrilling and murder romance.

George Alexander himself was ideally suited to the parts that he played and the drama he produced: he was a polished but uninspired actor; he had a perfect sense of what his audiences wanted because it was exactly what he wanted; he was handsome is a rather expressionless way; his voice was genteel and admirably modulated and his movements were as graceful as they were decorous. He was so well dressed that men would often study his clothes before ordering their own. He had an enormous and loyal following and was the perfect matinee idol of his day. If he was not in one of his productions, the box office takings would drop considerably.

Judy Leech collection

A.E.W. Mason continues:

Mr. George Alexander, who, having tried his hand successfully as a manager at the Avenue Theatre until his box office manager fled to Mexico with £700 of box office takings, now took on the challenge on a larger scale and against far heavier odds at the St. James's Theatre, King Street, St. James’s- a very fashionable side of town but on the outskirts of the main theatre district. He took with him several of his previous casts including Miss Marion Terry, Miss Maud Millett, Mr. Nutcombe Gould and Mr. Ben Webster who then formed the nucleus of a new company—afterwards swelled, as occasion might demand, by the addition of Mrs. Patrick Campbell, Misses Fay Davis, Winifred Emery, Lily Hanbury, Ellis Jeffreys, Gertrude Kingston, Rose Leclercq, Evelyn Millard, Julia Neilson, Juliette Nesville, Amy Roselle, Irene and Violet Vanbrugh ; Messrs. Allan Aynesworth, Arthur Bourchier, H. V. Esmond, James Fernandez, H. B. Irving, Cyril Maude, John Mason, Edward Righton, E. M. Robson, Vane Tempest, Fred Terry and Herbert Waring—which could, in modern comedy, drama or tragedy, hold its own against any in the world. The theatre, too, was thoroughly overhauled. Ironically, aged 16 in 1874, he had performed there in a charity performance for the Royal Hospital for Consumption, an illness he was to die from too early in 1918 from overwork.

However, with great energy for this new adventure he installed electric light, decorated the auditorium with warm tints, and re-upholstered the seating.

It was indeed to a new theatre, rising Phoenix-like out of the ashes of the old, that Mr. Alexander bid his patrons welcome on January 31st, I891, when the following programme was presented:

Elisabeth Kumm collection

DRAMA

ST. JAMES'S THEATRE.

MR. ALEXANDER is fortunate to have so charming and thoroughly wholesome a production as Sunlight and Shadow, with its attractions unexhausted and ready for transfer intact to his new theatre... 

Apart from the convenience of the arrangement, the transfer of Mr. Carton's play is quite justified by the degree of favour with which the public continues to regard the piece; for even though its hundredth representation has been reached, there must still be many playgoers anxious to make the acquaintance of so typical and pretty a specimen of the idyllic home-grown English comedy, which smells as it were of lavender, and has all the varying charms of the summer day spent in a country village. One must grant a playwright his choice of plot and subject, or else one would be inclined to quarrel with Mr Carton for the touch of melodrama imported in the introduction of Mark Denzil's outcast wife, and her attempted but abortive theft of the bank notes. One cannot help fancying that it would have been quite safe to leave the existence of the unhappy Janet Felton to the imagination, and would have avoided the one jarring note in the harmony. But this is the only blot, and after all it is a slight one. The general impression produced, whether by the "sunlight" of Maud Latimer's girlish gaiety or by the "shadow" of Helen Latimer's passing sorrow and George Addis's sore trial—this is wholly satisfactory. Not since the time of Two Roses have we listened to brighter and more natural dialogue as spoken between sisters and lovers, and fathers and friends and in his graver moments—as in the really fine scene between Helen and her crippled worshipper—Mr. Carton attains a depth and sincerity of pathos such as were beyond Mr. Albery altogether. Much no doubt this episode owes to its exceptionally beautiful interpretation by Mr. Alexander and especially by Miss Marion Terry. We remember few things upon the stage more touching in absolute truth to woman's nature than Miss Terry's study of the gentle self-sacrificing Helen's distress when, broken-hearted herself, she is asked by her poor deformed friend for the kind of love which she knows she can never really give again, but which she cannot refuse lest the meaning of her refusal should be misunderstood. This is a noble piece of pathetic acting on the part alike of actor and of actress. In admirable contrast with the tender sweetness of the one sister is the sunny brightness of the other as embodied by Miss Maude Millett. The very thoughtlessness of the younger girl seems one of her charms, and the whole impersonation, with its saucy fun and its occasional indications of true albeit superficial credit, shows the popular young actress quite at her best. Mr. Nutcombe Gould perhaps is a shade too refined in speech for the country practitioner, but his Dr. Latimer is none the less a capital sketch of character, whilst the only fault of Mr. Yorke Stephens's Denzil and of Mr. Webster's Bamfield is a slight tendency to drag the action. On the whole Mr. Carton is as fortunate in his interpreters as are they in the matter supplied them for interpretation.

The novelty in the programme is the little piece which brings it to a close. This is a one-act comedy by Mr. A. C. Calmour called The Gay Lothario, and written in the somewhat archaic manner generally affected by this young playwright. The Gay Lothario seems to owe its motive to the Spanish El Desden contre el Desden, best known perhaps on our stage through the medium of the late Dr. Westland Marston's Donna Diana. In this case it is Sir Harry Lovell, an eighteenth century lady killer, who being bent upon asking the hand of the beautiful heiress, Amanda Goldacre, discovers from her maid Letty that she means to play with him disdainfully as might a cat with a mouse, encouraging him at first only to make his final rejection appear the more disastrous. Amanda's reason for this heartless project is her belief that Sir Harry is about to propose for her only in fulfilment of a wager which he has laid in his capacity of deliberate lady killer. She has no chance, however, of carrying through her scheme, inasmuch as Sir Harry's long expected profession proves to be merely one of complete indifference, expressed with as much courtesy as the case will allow. Amanda's enraged indignation grows more and more violent until she learns that her careless courtier does, at any rate, care enough for her to fight a duel about her good name—a duel which, unlike most of those fashionable in Bath in the eighteenth century, is fought, not with swords, but pistols. Sir Harry soon returns uninjured and perfectly ready for the proposed reconciliation. There is not very much in it all, and the lady is allowed too little chance of self-defence. But there is plenty of spirit in the conduct of the dialogue as well as ample chance of distinction for both the chief performers. These are Mr. George Alexander and Miss Maude Millett, who while throwing all possible animation into their simulation of scornful indifference, are both, perhaps, a little too free and easy of bearing to suggest the typical beau and belle of bygone Bath. In this respect, however, the actress is more to blame than the actor, for her tone and method are altogether modern, while his are only fitfully so. In spite of this flaw the performance is an extremely pleasant one, the players took their parts admirably, and careful sketches of the inevitable domestics are supplied by Mr. Webster and Miss Graves. The luck, therefore, of Mr. Calmour in getting his pieces well played follows him as steadily as ever.

The Illustrated Sporting and Dramatic News (London), Saturday, 7 February 1891, p.719

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George Alexander as 'George Addis'

Harvard University, Houghton Library

Alexander as 'George Addis' & Marion Terry as 'Helen Latimer' 

National Portrait Gallery, London

Maude Millett

Elisabeth Kumm collection

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The Idler

(C. Haddon Chambers)

First performance was on 26 February 1891 and ran until 17 July; second season began 30 September and concluded on 4 November 1891 for a total of 173 performances– Scenery by Walter Hann, Walter Johnstone & Joseph Harker – Furniture by Frank Giles and Co. of High St., Kensington

(George Alexander’s first new production as manager of the St. James.)

(Revived in 1895 on 4 until 10 July for 6 performances and 1897 on 30 November for 1 matinee performance.) 

(playscript at https://archive.org/details/idlerplayinfoura00cham )

National Library of Australia, Canberra

Charles Haddon Chambers (22 April 1860 - 28 March 1921) - Australian-born playwright

The Idler was a traditional drawing room melodrama of that period including ‘asides’ to the audience plus a ‘trick’ or stage convention to bring down the curtain at the interval. The duel, the bouquet and the fan were all stock pieces of mechanism and Haddon Chambers employed them all. The public received the play enthusiastically but the critics, as one might suspect, were divided.

A London critic, Mr. William Archer scornfully declared that "From the literary point of view, the play ranks no higher than the most ephemeral 'railway reading.' It belongs to the Hugh-Conway-cum-Fergus-Hume, not to the Bret-Harte-cum-Rudyard-Kipling, order of fiction." Archer was a writer of melodrama himself but found it very hard to endure with difficulty melodrama in other writers. Other critics like those of H.D.Traill, Stephen Coleridge, Lady Martin and Edmund Yates, found in its fresh and nervous dialogue, a good deal of human nature and a very moving conclusion. The general consensus was that Alexander had played an extremely difficult part with tact and force. It ran for a total of 173 performances.

Mrs Langtry refused to appear in it and may have regretted her decision. As a result, Mr. George Alexander and Miss Marion Terry suddenly found themselves the toast of the town with a popularity which those artists have never before experienced in London and in the company of such excellence.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

An extremely brilliant assembly filled the St. James's Theatre the other night at the debut of "The Idler." Lord Londesborough, with his two daughters, occupied the royal box, and Lady Dorothy Nevill, Miss Hare, and Mr. and Mrs. Arthur Lewis were among the spectators. The evening was also conspicuous as a comprehensive Australian reunion, for all the principal Australian journalists and men of affairs in London were present in full force to witness their compatriot's success. Mr. C. Haddon Chambers, who is singularly boyish-looking for his years, was born in Australia, and during his early life was engaged in commercial pursuits, subsequently forsaking these to go "up the country" as a stock-rider. Some little time after his marriage he came to England, and wrote "Captain Swift," and then "The Idler," which latter was originally entitled "The Bouquet," and expressly designed for Mrs. Langtry. It is said, however, that Mrs. Langtry was unwilling to produce the piece, as she did not consider the part of the heroine sufficiently important.

The Illustrated London News, Saturday, 7 March 1891, p.303

Mander & Mitchenson Theatre collection, University of Bristol

George Alexander as 'Mark Cross' with Lady Monckton as 'Mrs. Cross'

V&A Museum, London

Alexander as 'Mark Cross' with Herbert Waring as 'Sir John Harding, M.P.'

V&A Museum, London

The Idler

ST. JAMES'S THEATRE. IT is a curious chance that almost simultaneously with Mrs. Langtry's not too promising production of Lady Barter, there should have been scored an unmistakable success with The Idler, a play which Mrs. Langtry had accepted some time ago, and for the non-production of which she paid a substantial penalty. On the face of it, it looks as though the lady had made a mistake in asserting her feminine privilege of changing her mind, and yet she was probably quite right in hesitating over Mr. Haddon Chambers's play, clever though that play undoubtedly is. In the first place the dramatic interest of The Idler which, by the way, was to have been called The Bouquet, in reference to one of its most striking episodes rests almost entirely with its masculine characters, their motives and their actions. In the second place it owes much of what seems likely to prove a most popular triumph to the powerful and admirably balanced acting of players whom Mrs. Langtry had not called in to her assistance. With interpretation a shade less skilful than Mr. Alexander's, the title-part would not only lose sympathy, but would become actually repulsive. The graphic point of the scenes between the three men, Mark Cross, Sir John Harding, and Simeon Strong, in Acts 2 and 4, depends very largely upon the tact and quiet force of the performance in which Mr. Alexander is so admirably seconded by Mr. Waring and Mr. James Mason, the latter an American comedian with a fresh individuality of style which is extremely welcome. It would, however, be in the last degree unfair to the young playwright to suggest that The Idler has little intrinsic merit of its own. The play has, to begin with, the saving virtue and what a virtue it is in these days of dreary moralising on the stage of a strong interesting story, such as makes nine out of ten of its hearers keenly excited concerning each of its coming developments. It has dialogue which, if without any special literary quality, has at least the advantage of being terse and appropriate. It has situations which, although they are in some instances arrived at by familiar methods, are none the less striking when they are reached. In its essentials the play is a melodrama in its manner and surroundings; it is a drawing-room piece. It is none the worse, however, but rather, as it seems to us, the better for this combination of styles, and for following deliberately the track laid down by the late Sir Charles Young in that skilful drama, Jim the Penman, and by its own author in Captain Swift. The only mistake in this connection is the hint of a backwoods duel, without seconds, in a man's Piccadilly chambers, though even this incongruity is overlooked by spectators, who draw their breath quickly as they watch to see whether the wished-for explanation will come before the revolvers go off. Graver artistic defects are perhaps the obvious reminiscences of well-known plays like The School for Scandal, and the perfunctory nature of light comedy "relief," which has the air of being written in to order. Here, again, however, Mr. Chambers's good luck in the matter of interpretation befriends and saves him. Mr. Nutcombe Gould and Miss Gertrude Kingston are, it is true, hardly able to conceal the fact that they are superfluities; the part, indeed, played by the lady—that of a widow scheming for a second marriage might with advantage be excised bodily. But Miss Maude Millett catches with such delightful spirit the humour of her subordinate part that her comic scene with Mr. Mason goes with one long shout of appreciative laughter, though, as a matter of fact, it delays dangerously the very serious interest which it interrupts. The plot of The Idler hinges upon the sudden temptation to an act of almost incredible baseness undergone by a man by no means wholly base but left by the circumstances of a loafing life defenceless against the suggestions of unworthy intrigue. Ingeniously contrived accident, not unassisted by what the author calls “the long arm of coincidence," places Mark Cross in a position to offer Lady Harding her husband's immunity from a menacing peril at the price of her own honour. Now, Mark was in love with Lady Harding before her marriage, but by reason of his own secret and unhappy marriage had gone away without declaring his passion. On his return he finds her the affectionate wife of an honourable man menaced by the terrible punishment of a youthful folly; a drunken frolic out in the Golden Valley, where Sir John shot a mining comrade, whose brother, Simeon Strong, now vows vengeance for a murder which was really only manslaughter. Over Strong Mark Cross has sufficient hold to induce him to stay his avenging hand, and one of the most interesting passages in the play is that in which this hold is exerted. Other powerful episodes are those of the signal given by Lady Harding in the dropping of her bouquet—that she consents to her former lover's terrible terms for saving her husband, and of the evening visit which accordingly she pays to his rooms. The finest sympathetic touches of the drama are those whereby Lady Harding's tender womanly appeal to Mark's better nature induces him to forego his evil purpose, and to let her depart in peace. Here Miss Marion Terry's pure and gentle pathos, tearful, yet not unduly lachrymose, produces a convincing effect, while Mr. Alexander on his side has let us see that Mark, ignoble though he is in reckless passion, might yet be quite conceivably moved by pleading such as Lady Harding's. At this juncture, a new but more conventional turn is given to the romance by making Sir John discover his wife's compromising visit, give way to unreasoning yet not unreasonable jealousy, and propose a duel in outrage with his wife's supposed betrayer. Happily, the dramatic interest is sustained better than the tone of the story; the interruption of the duel by Simeon Strong is contrived in a very telling manner, and the lonely remorse in which the sympathetic villain is left to expiate his base design ends the play with as picturesque effect as need be wished. Altogether, The Idler, if not a perfect, is, at any rate, a very clever piece of work, and its probable success will be thoroughly well deserved. Mr. Alexander has, we think, never acted before with such sustained force and such tactful ease as in the very difficult and risky part of Mark Cross, whilst his winning grace of manner has seldom been of more value. Mr. Mason is a comedian from whose combined sense of fun and of almost tragic earnestness great things may fairly be looked for, and Mr. Waring as Sir John grapples firmly with a not very thankful task. To Miss Terry's charming performance reference has already been made, as also to Miss Millett's bright rendering of a damsel whose pretty impertinences are, so far as the author is concerned, decidedly overdrawn. Lady Monckton gives her wonted distinction and significance to the small part of Mark's mother, and Mr. Nutcombe Gould helps to complete a cast of singularly level excellence. The mounting of the piece is perfect in taste and suitability, being handsome without extravagance, and perfectly natural in its detailed illustration of the dress and furniture and appointments belonging to the fashionable life of to-day.

The Illustrated Sporting and Dramatic News (London), Saturday, 7 March 1891, p.879

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Marion Terry as 'Lady Harding' & George Alexander as 'Mark Cross'

Elisabeth Kumm collection

Marion Terry as 'Lady Harding' & John Mason as 'Simeon Strong'

National Portrait Galley, London

Gertrude Kingston as 'Mrs. Glynn-Stanmore'

V&A Museum, London

George Alexander as 'Mark Cross' & Lady Monckton as 'Mrs Cross'

 V&A Museum, London

 OUR CAPTIOUS CRITIC

"THE IDLER."

The central idea of The Idler is certainly not a new one. It has been utilised by all the great dramatists in turn—Shakespeare, Victor Hugo, Sardou, and—if I remember rightly—Simms and Petit! Measure for Measure, Marion Delorme, La Tosca—to go no further—are variations of the same resource as that upon which Mr. Chambers' play is founded. Indeed, from first to last, the stage owes a great deal to this device of bargaining for the sacrifice of a woman's honour in exchange for a man's life. Nor has the theme been neglected by the writers of unacted fiction. From the old Italian novelists down, almost every tale-teller has given us at least one version; while the historians, too, have found the notion useful, and branded us an Angelo or a Scarpia some politician whom they wished to make wicked indeed. However, notwithstanding the familiarity of the subject of The Idler, the piece has good qualities. The construction, for instance, is, in the main, admirable, and the plot is—as regards the principals, at all events—simple and interesting. It is not so exciting as it might have been had some of those leading personages been a little more thorough. At the critical points—at the climax of incident—the villain abjures his villainy and the avenger foregoes his vengeance all too readily. The author brings about situations which would have had veritable intensity. But exactly where the emotion should have been strongest the edge is taken off. There is not sufficient force—to be on terms with the rest of the piece—in the conditions under which Mark Cross abandons his claim upon Lady Harding and Simeon Strong relinquishes his cherished hope of bringing her husband to the gallows. The result is that the audience, wound up by what has gone before almost to melodramatic pitch, finds itself of a sudden letdown in a lump amidst the simpler methods of comedy. Comedy is an excellent thing in its way, but it comes in at the wrong time when it takes the vigour out of melodrama in this wise. The effect here is that with a decidedly sensational plot there is from first to last no really sensational episode. Nevertheless, the story and the acting, which if not always quite on the lines of the story, take hold of the audience, and full houses testify to the fact that The Idler is at least an entertaining play. The dialogue is not ambitious, but if it gives us little in the sense of epigram, it also avoids extravagance; it is perhaps even too subdued in style, where the passion comes in. The plot is soon told. In the old days Mark Cross, although a married man, has adored Miss Merryweather, and her manner has encouraged him to believe that his regard was reciprocated. He returns from America, Mrs. Cross having died meanwhile, to learn that the heroine whom he hoped to find still free is now the devoted wife of his former comrade, Sir John Harding. It was in the mining regions of the Far West that Cross and Harding were associated, and there in a drunken row the baronet (Gentleman Jack they called him) has shot a man. Cross having, now that it is too late, declared his love to Lady Harding, and she having told him that her former feeling for him was one of liking merely, is filled with a great hatred of her more fortunate husband. Simeon Strong, of the United States, a brother of the miner who was shot, has sworn to bring to justice the man who caused his death. In vain the baronet protests that the shooting was unintentional. Cross first, and afterwards Strong with Cross's corroboration, accuse him of homicide with intent. Sir John, who is now an M.P. with the prospect of an Under-Secretaryship, is threatened with arrest. But he will not disappear, as Cross would wish him to. He will stand his trial, if his accusers do not believe his word.

The danger of her husband's position is communicated to Lady Harding by Cross, and her terror made the most of. Then he proposes the bargain. If she will give herself for Sir John—if she will come to the villain's rooms and stay there—the prosecution shall not go on. The signal that she accepts his offer is to be the dropping of her bouquet at the close of a reception that evening—a device by no means novel. After a struggle Lady Harding at length drops the bouquet, but with the mental reservation that having first saved her husband, she will then save herself. Amongst other things in his eventful past, Mark Cross has rescued Simeon Strong from death. In a scene which is ingenious, but too ingenious to be harmonious in this particular play, the villain utilises this fact to make Strong write a letter renouncing the vengeance of his life. When Lady Harding arrives, Cross has performed his part of the compact, and it is for her to fulfil hers. At first it appears almost as though the villain were sufficiently in earnest to listen to nothing, but the persuasion of the intended victim produces rapidly the desired repentance, and, as it seems to me, in a manner far too unemphatic for so emphatic a situation, the episode is closed. The discovery of Lady Harding in Cross’s rooms by her husband, for whom she has risked so much, and who, refusing to listen to any explanation, repudiates her there and then, brings down the curtain effectively on the third act. It must be remembered in excuse for Sir John that he does not give the same importance that Cross and Lady Harding do to the charge of murder which Strong holds over his head. Perhaps if he did the piece would be all the better; for the audience in such a matter is not likely to feel more anxiety than the person chiefly interested. In the fourth act Sir John enters in a fury with a couple of revolvers, and he and Cross are about to fight a duel muzzle to muzzle when Strong intervenes. The duel goes for little, and the rest is reconciliation. By way of comic relief—all the foregoing is serious—there are in and out of the play an elderly General Merryweather, and his daughter Kate. The General has twice married already, and wishes to marry again. There are passages of no great originality bearing out this idea, between the General and the two widows, the mother of Mark Cross and a Mrs. Glynn-Stanmore—a marrying woman. The General's gushing daughter, Kate, is a marrying girl, and she sets her cap at Simeon Strong, the American millionaire, whose words are few, and whose manner is deliberate. Mr. Mason (his first appearance in London) is excellent in this part; I must wait to know how he would be in another. Miss Maud Millett overacts the character of Kate until some of her tricks become tiresome. Mr. Nutcombe Gould can hardly be blamed for the weakness of the General's part, which is, indeed, rather silly. Miss Gertrude Kingston does well with the slight opportunities afforded by the widow, Stanmore.

Lady Monckton, as Cross's mother, has a stronger character, and gives an excellent performance. In her principal scene—that in which she visits her son in his rooms and tries to elicit the secret of his altered nature—for it seems, although the play does not show it, that he must have been nice at one time—she is a very natural mother. Mr. Herbert Waring as Sir John Harding is consistent. Miss Marion Terry is charming, and—to the height of the situations—forceful and pathetic as Lady Harding. Mr. George Alexander gives, as usual, a finished performance as Mark Cross. But I fear that he wants to be at the same time both a villain and an object of sympathy, and, as it is difficult to serve two masters, I could wish that he might give the villain a little more swing. The scenery and mounting are liberal. The grand old furniture of “the idler's" rooms is, indeed, more than liberal. For a man of no occupation and no prospects he is prodigiously well located. Messrs. Oetzmann could not afford to set up every dramatic villain in so handsome a way.

[Caricatures by Alfred Bryan]

The Illustrated Sporting And Dramatic News, (London), 11 March 1891, p.28

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

ST. JAMES'S THEATRE.

Fresh from the triumphs of the first tour which he has undertaken as manager Mr. George Alexander returned to the St. James's on Wednesday evening to begin his second season. He brought with him no actual novelty, although Mr. Frith's Molière, which appeared in the programme, had been given only on one previous occasion in town. The pièce de resistance  was, of course, The Idler, which, as one of the most interesting drawing-room dramas known to the contemporary stage, may well prove equal to a still further extended run. It is unnecessary again to point out the many marked merits, and the few defects of Mr. Haddon Chambers's capital play. As on the first night, the audience on Wednesday was interested from the moment the story was fairly started, and was kept on the tiptoe of excitement until the very fall of the curtain. Nor is it necessary to repeat our recognition of the extent to which Mr. Alexander's personal share in the performance—his admirable study of a new, thoroughly unstagey type of villain—contributes to the freshness, the force, and the finish of the production. Suffice it to say that Mark Cross remains as plausible and as suggestive a creation as ever, and strikes the keynote of absolute naturalness for the whole piece. Miss Marion Terry, in her delightfully womanly embodiment of Lady Harding, Lady Monckton, with her tactful firmness as Mark's mother, as well as Mr. Waring, Mr. Nutcombe Gould, and Miss Gertrude Kingston, all reappear, whilst Mr. Lackaye again does his best to replace Mr. Mason as the American avenger. The one new impersonation is that of Kate Merryweather, by Miss Lily Hanbury, a promising young actress who has, no doubt, an exceptionally difficult task in following so happily placed a predecessor as Miss Maud Millett. Miss Hanbury's touch is a little heavy for light comedy, and though she gives full significance to her lines, her pertness is rather lacking in that charm of girlishness for which so much is forgiven.

The performance of Molière, which brings the evening to a most successful close, has gained greatly in ease and point since it was last under notice. The play is taken more briskly than before; the death-scene is abbreviated, and Mr. Alexander has gained the weight which formerly seemed wanting in his clever impersonation.

The Illustrated Sporting And Dramatic News, (London), 3 October 1891, p.26

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

The Scenes

Act I - At Sir John Harding's Kensington Palace Gardens (scenery by Walter Hann) - JCW Scene Book 10 - Theatre Heritage Australia Act II - At Mrs. Cross' (scenery by Walter Johnstone) - JCW Scene Book 10 - Theatre Heritage Australia

Acts III & IV - Mark Cross' Rooms in Piccadilly (scenery by Joseph Harker) - JCW Scene Book 10 - Theatre Heritage Australia

SCENE FROM "THE IDLER" AT THE ST. JAMES'S THEATRE - The Illustrated London News, 7 March 1891, p.316

Sources:

W. Macqueen-Pope, Carriages at Eleven: The Story of the Edwardian Theatre [Robert Hale & Company, London: 1947 - reprinted: 1972]

 A.E.W. Mason, Sir George Alexander and the St. James' Theatre [Macmillan & Co., London: 1935] 

Hesketh Pearson, The Actor Managers [Methuen & Co., London: 1950]

J.P. Wearing, The London Stage 1890-1899 : a calendar of productions, performers, and personnel, 2nd Edition [Lanham : Rowman & Littlefield: 2013] 

Acknowledgements:

With grateful thanks to the curator and staff of the University of Bristol Theatre Collection for their assistance in providing the St. James's theatre programmes. 

With thanks also to Rob Morrison for his assistance in the preparation of this article.

On the 17 november 1906Meynell, Gunn & Varna’s New English Comedy Company commenced a short season at the Palace with the three-act farcical comedy The Little Strangerby Michael Morton. With the play’s withdrawal on 7 December, W. Arundel Orchard’s comic opera The Emperorwas revived for a single night on Saturday, 8 December.

The theatre remained dark for a fortnight pending the ‘first appearance’ in Australia of comedian Harry Macdona in The New Boyon 22 December 1906.

Written by Arthur Law, this three-act farce had been seen in Australia during 1894 with Ralph Roberts as Archibald Rennick. Since its first production in London that same year, with Weedon Grossmith in the title role, it had enjoyed much success throughout the UK and America.

John Cosgrove, c.1910, who was a member of the Macdona company and Harry Macdona’s brother. Photographer unknown.

State Library of New South Wales, Sydney

Weedon Grossmith who created the role of Archibald Rennick in The New Boy, 1894. Photo by Hills & Saunders.

National Portrait Gallery, London.

In addition to Macdona, who played the eponymous ‘new boy’, the second husband of Mrs. Bolder, who somewhat younger (and smaller in stature) than his wife, is mistakenly believed to be her son. For various reasons, he is prepared to go along with the assumption and is enrolled at a local school. In reviewing the play, the Sydney Morning Herald reported:

A gentleman whose name was announced as Mr. Harry Macdona took the part of Archibald Rennick, the new boy, and Miss Vera Remee was Mrs. Rennick. Miss Remee may not have all the arts and graces of a highly finished actress, but she carried herself through her part with more than credit. She was natural, enunciation was clear, and distinct, and she was not in the least stagey. Mr. Macdona, on the other hand, was not a thorough success. He was boisterously rollicking throughout, and though he was expected to do a good deal of fooling, he did some of it too well.¹

As the Herald alludes, the claim in the ads that Macdona was a ‘distinguished English comedian … known throughout the length and breadth of the United Kingdom as the Greatest Laughter Producer of the modern stage’, ² seems to have little validity. The only acting Macdona on the UK stage during the early 1900s (as listed in theatrical journals/directories of the period) seems to be Charles Macdona, an Irishman, who would go on to establish the Macdona Players and become a champion of George Bernard Shaw. A small mention of the 1906/07 Palace season in the UK-theatre journal The Era, refers to Harry Macdona as a ‘Sydney comedian’.³ Indeed, closer investigation suggests he was none other than Tom Cosgrove, a local actor, whose brother John Cosgrove was also a member of the company. It is not clear why he changed his name as over the following few decades he can be spotted performing under both names.

Harry Macdona and company in a scene from The New Boy, 1907. Photo taken by Albert E. Gregory during the company’s season in Bathurst, NSW.

Bathurst City Library

Nevertheless, despite some lukewarm reviews of opening night, The New Boywas not a complete failure. The Bulletin noted for example: ‘At Sydney Palace Harry Cosgrove Macdona continues to give sparkle to the comedy of The New Boy. The Boy is having quite a run, and the people who a few weeks ago were merely good amateurs are now getting a professional touch in the quality of their performances.’⁴

On the 12 January, the company produced Jane, and on the 28 January, Dr. Bill, both farcical comedies that had been performed back in 1890 by the Brough-Boucicault Comedy Company.

‘Ned Kelly Shoots Fitzpatrick’: scene from The Story of the Kelly Gang, 1906

National Library of Australia, Canberra

‘Capture of Ned Kelly’: scene from The Story of the Kelly Gang, 1906

National Library of Australia, Canberra

With the departure of Macdona and co., concert and film promoters J. & N. Tait returned with the film The Story of the Kelly Gang which screened from 9–23 February 1907. The film, described by the promoters as ‘one of the most realistic types of cinematography yet placed before the public’⁵ had created a sensation in Melbourne where is ran for seven weeks. It had also just completed a two-and-a-half-week season in Adelaide. Now it was Sydney’s turn. Running for just over an hour (film historians continue to debate claims that it was the world’s first feature film⁶), it occupied the second half of a two-part entertainment, with the crowded house displaying ‘considerable impatience’ during the first part.⁷ Indeed, audiences were not disappointed in the main event, cheering and clapping at its conclusion. Yet despite the crowds who flocked to the Palace, the season was limited to only a fortnight, closing on 23 February.

On the 20 and 21 March, the Bank of New South Wales Dramatic Society presented The Brixton Burglary(another comedy made popular in Australia by the Brough Comedy Company in the 1890s).

Herbert Flemming as Captain Mowbray in Mrs. Gorringe’s Necklace, 1907. Photo by Johnstone, O’Shannessy and Co.

Hat Archive

Miss Gordon Lee as Vicky Jardine in Mrs. Gorringe’s Necklace, 1906. Photo by Tuttle & Co., Hobart.

Author’s collection

On Saturday, 23 March 1907, Herbert Flemming’s company commenced a six-week season. In partnership with Robert Brough, Flemming had been joint manager of the Brough-Flemming Company, and in early 1906 following Robert Brough’s death, had taken over the reins of the organisation. Still operating as the Brough-Flemming Company they opened their season at the Palace with the first Sydney production of Mrs. Gorringe’s Necklace, a four-act comedy by Henry Hubert Davies, which the company had premiered in Adelaide in September 1906. With this piece they were making their reappearance in Sydney after a twelve-month absence. The company had just returned from a tour of New Zealand with Florence Brough (née Trevelyan) (Mrs. Robert Brough) as leading lady. The tour had been a huge undertaking emotionally and mentally for Mrs. Brough and as her health was still fragile following her husband’s death, she withdrew from the Sydney season. Her absence necessitated a complete change of personnel among the female cast. Newcomer Madeline Meredith stepped into the role of Mrs. Gorringe, while Beatrice Day (the original Mrs. Gorringe), now played Isabel, one of Mrs. Jardine’s daughters (previously played by Kate Gair). Miss Gordon Lee continued as Vicky Jardine, her other daughter. Robert Brough’s sister Bessie Major made a welcome return, taking on the role of Mrs. Jardine, originally performed by Mrs. Brough.

When Mrs. Gorringe’s Necklacewas first performed at Wyndham’s Theatre in London in 1903, the title character was considered the lead role, with Mary Moore as Mrs. Gorringe and Charles Wyndham as Captain Mowbray (played in Australia by Herbert Flemming). Under Flemming’s direction, Mrs. Jardine was considered the principal female role as the personality of Mrs. Gorringe (whose necklace is stolen at Mrs. Jardine’s house-party) is considered a silly and flighty character, whereas Mrs. Jardine is more grounded and sensible—and admirably better suited to the persona of Florence Brough.

An interesting aside concerning Madeline Meredith who played Mrs. Gorringe in Sydney. Born Madeline Constance Tudway in 1873, she was the only daughter of Charles Clement Tudway and Lady Edith Nelson (daughter of Lord Horatio Nelson)—and consequently a member of the British peerage. But rather than follow family tradition, she decided to pursue a career on the stage, making her debut in 1892. She came to Australia in 1906 as a member of the Julius Knight-Maud Jeffries company (and was with them during their 1906 Palace season) and since that time had been playing second leads with the Meynell-Gunn company at the Criterion Theatre.

A scene from Dr. Wake’s Patient, Act III, with Mrs. Brough as the Countess of St. Olbyn (right), 1906. In Sydney the role was played by Madeline Meredith. Photo by Talma & Co., Sydney and Melbourne.

State Library Victoria, Melbourne

Miss Meredith’s performance in the Brough-Flemming Company’s next piece, a revival of Dr. Wake’s Patienton 6 April 1907, was much anticipated. Would she be as good as Mrs. Brough in the role of the Countess of St. Olbyn? Perhaps breeding would help. As noted by The Australian Star: ‘Her conception of the part was excellent, and she was equal to every emergency called for in the representation of the haughty and altogether selfish countess.’⁸ Other roles were filled by Herbert Flemming as Farmer Wake (his original role), with Carter Pickford as Dr. Wake, Beatrice Day as Lady Geronia, Bessie Major as Mrs. Wake, and Mary Milward as Mrs. Murdoch.

Scene from the London production of Peter’s Mother with Marion Terry and A.E. Matthews, 1906. Photo by Ellis & Walery, London.

Victoria & Albert Museum, London

Beatrice Day, c.1906. Photo by Alice Mills, Melbourne.

National Library of Australia, Canberra

The following Saturday, 13 April 1907, Peter’s Mother was presented for the first time in Australia. Mrs. Henry de la Pasteur’s three-act comedy had just closed in London after 149 performances, with Marion Terry (sister of Ellen Terry) as Lady Mary Crewys. Sydneysiders hoped that Mrs. Brough would make her reappearance, but she did not, and the role was played by Beatrice Day. Carter Pickford played her son, Peter, with Bessie Major as Lady Belstone, Herbert Flemming as John Crewys QC, and Miss Gordon Lee as Sarah Hewell.

Peter’s Mother was performed for a fortnight, and on the 27 April, another new play was given its Sydney premiere: What Would a Gentleman Do?

Cartoon by an unknown artist. This was published in The New Zealand Mail, 13 February 1907, during the Brough-Flemming Comedy Company’s recent tour.

A comedy by Gilbert Dayle, this play had brief run at the Apollo Theatre in London during September 1902. Prior this, under the title The Man from Australia, it had been seen at the Princess Theatre in Llandudno (Wales) the previous April. As What Would a Gentleman Do?,it had its first Australian outing in Perth in August 1906 with Herbert Flemming as Dickie Hook—the man from Australia—a wealthy but unsophisticated young Australian in England, who with the aid of The Complete Gentlemanattempts to understand the manners and customs of polished society. Other roles were played by Florence Brough (Agatha Kederby), Beatrice Day (Madge Kederby) and Emma Temple (Dolly Banter).

For the first Sydney performance Gregan McMahon now played the young would-be gentleman. Audiences sympathised with poor Dickie as his attempts at assimilation failed and he grappled with the problem of ‘What would a gentleman do?’. A complete change to the female roles saw Beatrice Day as Dolly Banter, Bessie Major as Agatha Kederby and Miss Gordon Lee as Madge Kederby. The curtain-raiser In Honour Bound by Sydney Grundy was also performed with Beatrice Day and Herbert Flemming as Sir George and Lady Carlyon.

Beatrice Day as Susan Throssel in Quality Street, 1906. Photo by Alice Mills, Melbourne.

Author’s collection

Henry Irving as Dr. Primrose and Ellen Terry as Olivia in Irving’s 1885 revival of The Vicar of Wakefield. Photo by Window & Grove, London.

Victoria & Albert Museum, London.

Two revivals followed, The Walls of Jericho (11–14 May) and Quality Street (15–17 May) with Beatrice Day playing leads in each of these plays. The season closed with the first Australian production of Olivia, a play by W.G. Wills, based on The Vicar of Wakefield, and first performed in London in March 1878 with Hermann Vezin as Dr. Primrose and Ellen Terry as Olivia. A 1885 revival saw Henry Irving as the vicar with Ellen Terry again as Olivia. In Sydney, the play was directed by H.W. Varna (previously associated with the Meynell, Gunn and Varna company), who was said to be using a copy of Irving’s original script containing his marginal notes and directions.⁹ As Olivia, Beatrice Day was commended for her finished performance as the pretty muslin-clad heroine, supported by Herbert Flemming as Dr. Primrose.

With the close of the season on 31 May, Herbert Flemming re-badged the company as the Herbert Flemming Comedy Company and headed north for a tour of Queensland. Although his company would play one more season in Sydney during 1908, Herbert Flemming sadly died in October 1908, aged just 52.

The following evening, Saturday, 1 June, saw a change of pace with Charles Holloway’s company. Their opening piece was the melodrama The Coal King by Ernest Martin and Fewlass Llewellyn for the first time in Sydney. This play had first been performed at the Elephant and Castle in London in October 1904 and had enjoyed a successful provincial career. The first Australian production had been given at the Theatre Royal in Hobart by Holloway’s company in November 1906.

Beatrice Holloway and Mabel Russell as Dick and Wally, the title characters in the melodrama of Two Little Vagabonds. From The Theatre (Sydney), September 1906. Theatre Heritage Australia.

Charles Holloway’s company excelled at melodrama, and The Coal King was true to form. Tom Roberts, the son and heir of a mining magnate is brought up in humble circumstances, having been swapped at birth with his foster mother’s real son. Working in the colliery Tom has risen to the position of mine-manager. He is love with the village schoolmistress, Grace Shirley, which earns the enmity of Walter Harford, the fake heir, who is cruel and vindictive. Tom manages to avoid being accused of a crime he didn’t commit and a mine collapse to win the hand of Grace and his rightful position as the real son of the mine owner. Beatrice Holloway played Grace, with Robert Inman as the hero and Godfrey Cass as the villain.

The 1860 Irish drama The Colleen Bawn by Dion Boucicault followed on 15 June for six nights only, with John P. O’Neill as Myles-Na-Coppaleen (with songs) and Beatrice Holloway as Eily O’Connor.

The final seven nights of the season saw a revival of Two Little Vagabonds with Beatrice Holloway reprising her original role as Dick, one of ‘little vagabonds’. The other, Wally, was played by Mabel Russell.

On Monday, 1 July 1907 the Empire Pictures Co., under the direction of Edwin Geach, commenced a season of films presenting for the first time in Sydney scenes of ‘Bonnie Scotland’ and ‘Dear Ould Ireland’. On 15 July, they were supplanted by ‘Canada As It Is’ and ‘Magnificent Naval Display’ (depicting a torpedo-destroyer and submarine flotilla attack).

Florence Baines as Mary Ellen Thompson in Miss Lancashire Ltd., c.1907

National Library of Australia, Canberra

Poster for The Yellow Peril, Palace Theatre, Sydney, 5 October 1907

National Library of Australia, Canberra

On Saturday, 3 August 1907, music hall artiste Florence Baines made her first appearance in Australia. Accompanied by a company of fifteen English artists, she opened in an original musical play entitled Miss Lancashire Limited. This was performed with success throughout the English provinces during 1905 with Baines as Mary Ellen Thompson, a Lancashire parlourmaid who changes places with an heiress. The farce, written by Sydney Sydney, (yes! this was his name) was liberally interspersed with songs and ditties to demonstrate Florence Baines’ talent as an entertainer, including her popular ‘Laughing Song’. A lady of generous proportions, she was a larger-than-life figure, and her magnetic performance style earned her the title ‘the girl who set London laughing’. She proved one of the most popular attractions at the Palace in recent years.

Miss Lancashire Ltd. played to capacity audiences at the Palace until 1 October 1907—an extraordinary 59 performances!¹⁰ Florence Baines and her ‘Laughing Song’ continued to keep Australia and New Zealand in stitches until July 1909 when she returned to England.

The following Saturday, 5 October 1907, saw the production of a new drama in four acts called The Yellow Perilby Alfred Newcomb. Being presented for the first time by Charles W. Taylor’s New English and Australian Dramatic Organisation, the play was described as the ‘only DRAMA on a CHINESE SUBJECT ever written for the ENGLISH STAGE’, replete with magnificent Chinese costumes and scenic effects.¹¹ According to news reports, the play’s author was a New Zealander who had spent ’22 active years in the Far East’ and was therefore an authority on the ‘Chinese question’ and the perils of inter-marriage, the theme of the play.¹² Laura Roberts played the heroine Vera Montgomery, who becomes the unhappy wife of a Chinese potentate, the Marquis Lo-Feng-Sao (Harry Diver).

Unfortunately for Taylor and his company, The Yellow Peril did not ‘catch on’ in Sydney and it was abruptly withdrawn on 15 October. As a result, the theatre was plunged into darkness.

It was re-opened for a special ‘Irish Night’ organised by Dr. Charles W. MacCarthy on Saturday, 2 November 1907. The evening was dedicated to a certain Mrs. Kevin Izod O’Doherty, an Irish woman whose story of hardship and survival earned her the sobriquet ‘Eva of The Nation’. Andrew Mack who had just concluded a successful season at the Criterion Theatre gave his services as did ‘The Australian Queen of Irish Song’ Marie Narelle who contributed to a largely amateur program of songs and monologues.

On Saturday, 9 November 1907, Carter, the Great Magician, assisted by Miss Abigail Price, made his first appearance in Australia, presenting a program of Magic, Mirth and Mystery.

To be continued

Endnotes

1. Sydney Morning Herald, 24 December 1906, p.3

2. Advertisement, Sydney Morning Herald, 12 December 1906, p.2

3. The Era, 2 February 1907, p.13

4. The Bulletin, 10 January 1907, p.8

5. Advertisement, The Daily Telegraph, 9 February 1907, p.2

6. See Graham Shirley & Sally Jackson, ‘The Story of the Kelly Gang: Restoring the world’s first feature’, n.d.; Ina Bertrand & William D. Routt, The Picture That Will Live Forever: The Story of the Kelly Gang, 2007.

7. The Australian Star, 11 February 1907, p.2. Henry William Varna (1865–1935) was an American-born, British educated theatre producer. In 1897 he joined Herbert Beerbohm Tree’s company at Her Majesty’s Theatre in London as stage manager. In this capacity he travelled to Australia to oversee the staging of Tree’s production of The Darling of the Gods with Julius Knight and Maud Jeffries. He next teamed with Meynell and Gunn and oversaw the production of The Little Stranger. During 1908, with Herbert Flemming’s Company he produced The Mummy and the Humming Bird. Settling in Australia he was subsequently associated with actor-manager Allan Wilkie and in later years ran his own dramatic school in Sydney and was a prominent member of the Actors’ Association.

8. The Australian Star, 8 April 1907, p.2

9. The Daily Telegraph, 4 May 1907, p.19

10. Advertisement, The Daily Telegraph, 1 October 1907, p.2

11. Advertisement, Sydney Morning Herald, 30 September 1907, p.2

12. The West Coast Times, 19 March 1907, p.3

References

Allardyce Nicoll, English Drama 1900–1930: The beginnings of the modern period, Cambridge University Press, 1973

Ina Bertrand & William D. Routt, The Picture That Will Live Forever: The Story of the Kelly Gang, ATOM, 2007, https://books.google.com.au/books?id=H-elDgAAQBAJ

Graham Shirley & Sally Jackson, ‘The Story of the Kelly Gang: Restoring the world’s first feature’, National Film & Sound Archive, n.d., https://www.nfsa.gov.au/latest/story-kelly-gang

J.P. Wearing, The London Stage, 1900–1909: A calendar of productions, performers, and personnel, 2nd edition, Rowman & Littlefield, 2014

Newspapers

The Australian Star (Sydney), The Bulletin (Sydney), The Daily Telegraph (Sydney), The Era (London), The New Zealand Mail (Wellington), The Sydney Morning Herald, The West Coat Times (Hokitika)

Papers Past, http://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz

Trove, https://trove.nla.gov.au/

Pictures

Bathurst City Library, Bathurst, NSW

HAT

National Library of Australia, Canberra

National Portrait Gallery, London

State Library of New South Wales, Sydney

State Library Victoria, Melbourne

Victoria & Albert Museum, London

With thanks to

John S. Clark, Judy Leech, Rob Morrison, Les Tod