Punch and Judy Exhibition at Worthing Museum

Today the sun finally came out for more than a couple of hours so LibraryGirl and I made our way down the town to enjoy the sunshine and do some research at the central Library. We went into the library and found ourselves directed to Worthing Museum to view a specific display. Whilst at the museum we decided to have look at the current Punch and Judy exhibition celebrating 350 years of Mr Punch and his adventures.

Punch and Judy shows have gone through a lot of changes and evolved due to different circumstances and this was very well displayed at the Worthing Museum. It offered timelines, contexts and all manner of items to interact with. You could even put on your own Punch and Judy show. At the time we went to the exhibit it was very quiet with only one family visiting it but the children were enjoying themselves learning about Mr Punch's history and how it fits in with Worthing's own history. That was the one overall message I got from the exhibit, despite the age and tradition of Punch and Judy, that the history of Worthing, because it is a seaside town, and the history of Punch is intertwined.

As I have already mentioned Mr Punch has evolved and as you can see in the video posted up above his original tale has changed over the years and most of the performers, or Professors, have taken out the child killing, the women beating, police officer attacking, executioner hangings and Devil chasing and inserted more up to date references and more child friendly material. Despite these changes to the plot Punch and Judy remains popular and I reckon this is because Mr Punch has always been, and will always be, a naughty man who manages to escape in the cheekiest ways possible. The exhibition is really good and if you are in the West Sussex area and you want to while away an hour and have a coffee or lunch Worthing has some great cafes, Wrights in Warwick street being one of them, excellent beaches and gardens, a true theatrical pedigree and of course the Museum. It is free entry to the Museum although they are asking for people to donate both to the upkeep of the Museum and to help house their currently homeless collection of Teddy Bears. I cannot recommend Worthing Museum enough, it was a great visit and I look forward to the next exhibition they put on.

Tomorrow is the May Fayre in Covent Garden, there they will celebrate the 350 years of Punch and Judy with performances, stalls, workshops, folk music and dancing. It all starts with a Grand Procession at 11am so if you are in the London area and like puppetry or you remember seeing a Punch and Judy stall when you were younger and want to be nostalgic it is well worth a look at. I have watched several performances on youtube of acts from years past at the May Fayre and the standard is very high. However my favourite video I have watched is by the Storybox Theatre company and it is their performer Rod Burnett performing the traditional, and I mean traditional, English Punch and Judy show in Spanish. You may be worried that if you don't speak Spanish it will be hard to understand and you won't be able to enjoy it but Punch and Judy is an extension of Pantomime and therefore language is the least important part of it, the most important is of course the action.

It is well worth sitting through the whole 40 minutes and before you ask my fave bit is with the sausage maker... its slapstick comedy at its most pure.

Let me know, what is your favourite part of a Punch and Judy show?

Have a great weekend.

Xtofer 

12th of May 1903 a new play at the Wyndham's and 1906 'Raffles' at the Comedy

On the night of the 12th May in 1903 'Mrs. Gorringe's Necklace' was produced at the Wyndham's Theatre in London's West End. The play was a piece by Hubert Henry Davies who was a frequent collaborator with Charles Wyndham, owner of the Wyndham's Theatre, having already written the hit play 'Cousin Kate' for Wyndham the previous year. The play was well recieved and the audience apparently enjoyed it although one critic, for the New York Times, did say that the main plotline of 'Who stole Mrs Gorringe's Necklace?' detracted from the fun and entertaining relationships being played out on stage. The critic said:

'Mrs Gorringe and her friends are all delightful people, their character is excellent fun, and it is a pity they can't be allowed to go on talking about nothing in particular without the story of the stolen necklace handicapping their charming conversation'

It seems that the play's amiable characters and obvious charm was good enough to still be sold and published today. It did have at least one major stage revival in 1919 when Sir Charles Wyndham revived it at the Criterion Theatre, London.

On this date in 1906 the play 'Raffles' was produced at the Comedy Theatre, London. Raffles is a play based on the stories of the roughish character AJ Raffles written by the author E.W Hornung. Gerald du Maurier, father of the author Daphne du Maurier, played the titular character in the successful run. It ran for 351 performances and ended in early 1907. Raffles has since been adapted for the screen, mainly in the early to mid 20th century, for television and most famously as a BBC World service radio series which ran from 1985 until 1993.

Starlight Express is back... tonight is opening night!

Last week I mentioned on this blog how much the Andrew Lloyd Webber show 'Starlight Express' means to me and how it fuelled my love for the theatre. Well this morning whilst watching BBC Breakfast, hello Auntie Beeb, they announced that a brand new touring production is opening tonight at the New Wimbledon Theatre in London!

'I'm just the fastest thing you'll ever see... that streak of lightning you just missed was me'

This of course got me excited because I love this show, whats not to love about a show where people whizz around in amazing costumes singing great little ditties about what type of trains they are and how they will win the grand race. It is exciting and vibrant and I really would like tickets to see the tour. I think it will be interesting to see it in its new form, as it differs from its original London production. After all you cannot have a race track built into every theatre so for the races, which were a massive part of the London productions, are now going to be done with a 3D race effect. Last time it toured my sister did see it with the, then quite new, race footage instead of live races and said that it lacked something. I think that given the unique style and novelty value of a musical on roller skates I could forgive it for not featuring the same production values of the West End version.

(Your favourite train musical with added celebrity Gardener)

To find out more information about this production and this tour please go to this link here.

The next twelve months are beginning to look expensive regarding productions I want to see what with Sweeney Todd, Book of Mormon next year (more on that later) and now this tour of Starlight Express. Here's hoping it tours to Brighton with reasonable ticket prices.

On this date in 1818 the Old Vic opens and in 1847 George Grossmith is born

In 1818 James King and Daniel Dunn founded the Royal Coburg Theatre in Waterloo, London. The theatre would go on to become the Old Vic. The Royal Coburg was named after Princess Charlotte of Wales and her husband Leopold the 1st of Belgium, who was then called Prince Leopold of Saxe-Coburg, as they were the Royal patrons of the venue. It was not a patent theatre so was unable to show serious drama, although in 1824 Edmund Kean played six Shakespeare plays in six nights, but gained further patronage from the Royals with Queen Victoria's mother the Duchess of Kent taking her to see an operetta at the Theatre before she ascended the throne. During the 20th century the theatre went from strength to strength, first under the management of Lilian Bayliss and then during the war with stars Ralph Richardson and Laurence Olivier. The Old Vic company became the pinnacle of theatrical excellence in the UK and in 1963 was turned into the National Theatre company under Olivier. The National Theatre remained at The Old Vic until the new building was opened on the South Bank in 1974. Currently the artistic director of the Old Vic is Kevin Spacey. The Old Vic continues to go from strength to strength nearly 200 years from its opening. Today the Old Vic legacy goes across two more venues, the recently opened Old Vic tunnels and the Bristol Old Vic (an offshoot of the original).

On the 11th of May 1847 George Grossmith was born. Grossmith lived in Islington as a child with his mother and father, who was a journalist, and his two siblings Emily and Weedon. George's career began around 1864 when he started premiering skits and songs at private parties. Soon he was doing a music hall act touring different parts of the country writing his own sketches and working either on his own or with his father. It was during his time of touring his comedy sketches that Gilbert and Sullivan had been impressed by him. Having seen him perform the two theatrical impresarios invited him to play the lead in their production 'The Sorcerer' despite the apprehensions of their backers. However Grossmith was an enormous success in the role and went on to create nine back to back lead roles for D'Oyly Carte and Gilbert and Sullivan. In 1889 Grossmith parted ways with Gilbert and Sullivan to resume his piano playing tours which were, despite his immense popularity, more financially rewarding than his theatre work. In 1892 with his aforementioned brother Weedon he wrote the satirical novel, first published in editions of Punch magazine, 'The Diary of a Nobody' which still stands today as a great classic of Victorian literature. Grossmith died at the age of 64 in Folkestone. His legacy lives on as his style impacted hugely on the songs he was given to sing by Gilbert and Sullivan and the songs he is famous for singing are the centrepieces of many of the writers operettas. Sadly even though Grossmith was alive during the time of wax cylinders and early recording equipment, there are no known recordings of his voice.

Book Review: A Chronicle of Small Beer

'A Chronicle of Small Beer' covers the theatrical life of a young woman who at 18 decided to pursue her dreams of being on the stage. Winifred Dolan was born in 1867, she was the niece of Alfred Austin the Poet Laureate of England after the death of Lord Tennyson, quickly showed a natural ability for performance and a passion for the theatre. From a young age she attended the theatre in Leeds seeing all the big stars touring the provinces, it inspired her to train for the stage herself.  Her career began when she joined the company of the Margate Theatre Royal in 1891and began learning her trade, she was able to move up in late 1891 to the St James's Theatre, London. Dolan's career would generally consist of mainly understudy parts but gained popularity both with her peers and the audiences and reviewers of the time. It was unfortuanate for her that she never broke out and became a leading lady but she got to do many great things in her 13 year career on the stage. I won't list them here because really you need to read the book. Her memoir  is an honest and frank appraisal of theatre at the time and her own talents mixed with some choice gossip and tales of the stars of the time. It is a fantastic little book which gives an insiders view of the London theatres of the 1890s. I really enjoyed reading it, it is a treasure trove of stories and with only 120 pages its not too long so makes for a nice light read. It was published by the STR, of whom I am a member, and continues their long run of printing interesting and varied titles on the subject of the Theatre. Rating this book out of 5 I would give it a 4.5 because I can see myself revisiting this title again and again.

If this book would interest you, and trust me if you want to read about the Victorian Theatre from a first hand account this book WILL interest you, then please purchase it straight from the STR at this link here.

May the 10th 1849 the Astor Place Riot happens in New York New York

The year is 1849 and in New York City a new star is taking back the American stage from the European Actor/Managers who run the American Theatre. The new star was Edwin Forrest who had dragged himself up from a poor background in Philadelphia to tour internationally as an actor of great note. He had the great luck to be carving out a niche for himself with the support of many American writers who promoted him as superior to all the British stars treading the USA's boards. At the time of the riots Forrest was friends with William Macready who was touring the USA with his company in a production of 'Macbeth'. Forrest's friends in the media who were catching the current anti-british zeitgeist started promoting a 'Who is the better actor?' discussion. The columns of American papers were filled with pro-Forrest articles and denigrated Macready which led to public statements being made by each performer against the other. Macready was representing the upper classes of the New York elite who were known to be anglophiles, whereas Forrest was from the gutter. He had begun his New York career at the Bowery Theatre, where the manager was known to try out unknown American playwrights, plays and performers, which fed into the Pro-America sentiments of the day. The two men could not have come from two more different worlds and when the tensions that had been bubbling under the surface came to boiling point a political aspect was truly on show. Macready was engaged to perform as Macbeth at the Astor Place Theatre, a theatre where not all social classes were welcome, so Forrest played Macbeth at the Bowery. It was clear that this was now about the rich versus the poor. After fans and supporters of Forrest crashed a performance at the Astor and heckled Macready off the stage it became obvious something would happen. Macready made ready to leave America but having been convinced to stay and complete his tour by notable New Yorkers, the stage was set. Politicians from Tammany Hall went around on the 10th of May with flyers asking the question 'Shall Americans or English rule this city?' and contained information on where to congregate to protest against the English influence. By the evening of the 10th 10,000 people had congregated in Astor Place, bad feelings were rife, a mob started hurling stones at the Astor Theatre and later when the violence and disruption increased the city militia was called out. They soon stopped firing just into the air and started firing into the crowd. At the end of the riot 25 were dead and over 120 were injured. It remains to this day one of the darkest days in the history of the American Theatre.

Just a Small One: The Wynd Theatre Melrose Scotland

Today's 'Just A Small One' is the Wynd Melrose in Melrose, Scotland. It has 90 seats and is designed to be used by small touring theatre companies, dance troupes and musical groups. It also has facilities that allows it to be used as a conference centre.

Now looking at their website and current shows it does not show anything apart from shows from last year. So if anyone knows if the theatre has shut down or not please let me know. However I hope it has not shut down because small venues like these really provide an important service to communities. To find out more please click here.

9th of May: 2 playwrights and 1 Actor/Manager were born...

John Brougham was born in Dublin on the 9th of May 1814. After his Father passed away he moved in with his Uncle who sent him to Dublin University where he studied the classics and joined an amateur theatrical group. In 1830 at the age of 16 having dropped out of University, finding himself starving in London and being turned down by the Navy he was determined to become a professional actor. Having a contact in the industry, Madame Vestris who ran the Olympic theatre, he found himself working at the Tottenham Theatre. Within a year he had his first play, a burlesque, performed at the Tottenham. He moved onto working with Boucicault on 'London Assurance' and found much success with his low comic roles. In 1842 he moved to the United States where his career went from strength to strength. Brougham wrote over 120 plays in his lifetime and gained the nickname 'The American Aristophanes' for the amount of works he created. He died in 1880 in New York City.

On this day in 1860 the great J.M Barrie was born in Kirriemuir, Scotland. Barrie wrote over 30 stories and poems and also 9 plays, the most famous of which is Peter Pan which is still performed today. The rights to Peter Pan and Wendy were left by JM Barrie to Great Ormond Street so that they could gain money from any production or publication of the work. This is Barrie's lasting legacy, that and his character Peter Pan. Since Pan's debut in 1904 there has been approx 18 film productions based on his story and providing Great Ormond Street with income. Every year in the UK there are numerous amateur productions of Peter Pan and the professional theatre has taken the original play and morphed it into a Pantomime. Its a well loved tale and continues to grow in popularity every year. Barrie was also an activist against the censorship of the theatre by protesting against the Lord Chamberlain in both 1909 and 1911. Barrie was so well loved, as were his stories, that he was invited to meet the then Duke of York and his daughters Elizabeth and Margaret, the Duke of York would go on to become King George the VI and the young Elizabeth would grow up to become our current monarch HRH Queen Elizabeth the II. Barrie died in 1937 aged 77, he is buried in his hometown of Kirriemuir, Scotland.

Born in 1874 Lillian Baylis was a woman who greatly impacted upon modern day theatre. Her management of the 'Old Vic' in the early 20th century was the impetus for the generation of performers who would fight hard to eventually bring us our own National Theatre and her management of Sadlers Wells was the start of both the ENO and the Royal Ballet Company. Baylis came from a performance background, both her parents were musicians in the concert party scene and she was raised to be a musician. In 1912 at the age of 38 Baylis became manager of the 'Old Vic' where the list of actors who worked for her reads as a who's who of the English stage in the 20th century; Olivier, Gielgud, Ashcroft, Richardson, Redgrave and Guinness are just some of the few thespians she inspired and worked with. Baylis passed away in 1937 at the age of 63 and since then her groundwork has continued to grow and bear fruit, the Old Vic is now the premiere theatre in London, bar the National, and the Sadlers Wells continues to innovate and teach us all where dance can and will take us.

Blog Update: Mobile Readers

Hello to all my readers, this blog has been going for nearly two years and admittedly there are somethings that can be construed as old fashioned about my blog. Chief among these has been the fact that there has until today been no attempt on my part to make it easy for anyone who uses their phone to browse the net to read this blog. I have finally addressed this problem and have created a template for mobile browsing. It is the first step for me in making this blog more accessible for everyone.

As ever thank you all for reading headtheatre.blogspot.com

Xtofer

8/5 1777 School For Scandal Opens at Drury Lane and more

On the 8th of May 1777 'School for Scandal' by Sheridan opens to enormous acclaim at the Theatre Royal Drury Lane. It was a great success and for the next 300 years it would prove to be an incredibly popular piece, in fact its last West End revival was last year at the Barbican theatre, it was a staple in rep theatres nationwide during reps peak and is now studied extensively as part of the UK's National Curriculum.

There is a production of the show from 1959, not 1965 as said on youtube, starring a young Joan Plowright available to view online. Now bear in mind this is NOT a film, it is a filmed live performance and as such it is very theatrical and anything can and does happen. So to watch this performance click here for part 1.



Coming Soon: Are Kindle titles a rip off? £6.83 for Grief Lessons...

I love my Kindle, without a doubt it is the best gadget I own, having a massive library crammed onto a handheld computer which I can access at any point is excellent. However the only problem I have with it is the prices of books for the Kindle.

When the Kindle first came out there was a lot of speculation on whether or not the prices of books would be cheaper if you downloaded them in digital form instead of purchasing a hard copy. So when it was released and there was a plethora of free or dirt cheap titles for the gadget those of us who purchased it rejoiced, for ours was the green choice and the cheaper choice to give us our literary fix. It wasn't long before it became obvious that this was something that was going to be short lived as publishing houses began panicking about their profits and so, soon, we ended up seeing books going for more in the Kindle store than they were brand new, in paperback, on the normal Amazon store. Now you are probably asking yourself 'Why is Xtofer talking about this? It has nothing to do with Theatre.' You would be correct, well- in a way you are, but one of my most regular columns in the earlier days of this blog was to review upcoming books and in wanting to revive that column I decided to have a look at upcoming Kindle titles too. What I saw shocked me for amongst the standard actor biography fayre I also found a couple of titles which irked me. One was a collection of Restoration comedies and the other was 'Grief Lessons: Four plays by Euripides.'

Knock Knock!

Who's there?

Euripides

Euripides who?

Euripides trousers you mend a these trousers....

Ha, ha, ha... no you're right its not funny and neither is charging £6.83 for a collection of plays you could probably get off the internet FOR FREE from a website such as this... click here for works by Euripides.

My problem with this is that the £6.83 is actually the discounted price, its Digital Print price is actually £9.54. What is this for? Euripides' work is in the public domain, even if the publishing company that is publishing this book purchased the rights from Euripides himself they must have made more in the past 2000 years than the paltry amount they would have paid him. I understand that there is VAT on the title, ok fine, but what am I paying for if I am going for the digital copy? The two extra essays in the book? Yet the paperback is available new for £3.14, so its cheaper to use a chunk of tree, shipping, storage and all the other costs involved with a physical product than to send a digital copy. It makes no sense at all.

I am sure that the poet Anne Carson is wonderful with her translation and use of verse to get Euripides' work across. I am positive that for people studying Euripides the paperback version with the two essays will be handy but for me the cost of the digital copy annoys me. My advice to anyone looking for classics on Kindle, do not buy them and always check this site here which has over 36000 titles available for free.



7/5/1663 Charles the II is on the throne so lets party and open the Drury Lane Theatre!

Three years after the Restoration which gave King Charles II his throne and the Puritans, who had shut down all the theatres, were removed from their positions of power, the Theatre Royal, Bridges Street, was built. It was not until later that it would be known as Theatre Royal, Drury Lane. It was 1663 and London was at the height of its post Puritan debauchery, the banned plays were popular again and the King himself commanded performances to be put on to the delight of people all over the capital. The era gave us the still popular Restoration comedy genre which is typified by their bawdy and sexual content. The first production shown at the theatre was 'The Humorous Luietenant' by John Fletcher, a play that was debuted less than 50 years before by the last of Shakespeare's theatre company. The great diarist Samuel Pepys wrote a review of both the theatre and the production from the opening night, you can find the diary year 1663 on this page here, and was critical of the building. The building survived the Great Fire of 1666 but the previous year had been shut down due to an outbreak of the plague. After surviving the fire the theatre thrived once again until it burned down in 1672. Its replacement, the second Theatre Royal, Drury Lane, was built in 1674 and would remain for another 120 years.

On this date in 1680 Susanna Centlivre aka Susanna Carroll was born. Carroll is known to have been a contemporary of Aphra Behn and only a step behind her as the 'Second Woman of the English Stage.' It is believed that Carroll joined the Drury Lane Theatre in 1700 and in that first year the theatre produced her play 'The Perjur'd Husband' which was a risque tragedy. It was a hit which made her reputation as both a writer and an actor. Carroll wrote 19 plays and numerous poems and pressed through her writing the need for equality between men and women. She died in 1723 from a prolonged illness, she is buried in The Actors' Church, Covent Garden, London. 

May the 6th William Shakespeare becomes part proprietor of the Blackfriars Theatre... or does he?

(The Blackfriars Theatre London)

The daily feature on this blog is an 'On this day in Theatrical History' and it is time I revealed my sources for finding these historical goodies. I am using the 10th edition of the 'Who's Who in the Theatre' which was printed in 1947. I mention this only because the information it has given me seems to have been wrong. It claims that on the 6th of May 1589 William Shakespeare entered into part proprietorship of the Blackfriars Theatre. We now know this to be incorrect as many scholars refer to Shakespeare's time in the 1580s as his 'lost' years, in fact the only time Shakespeare turns up after his twins' baptisms in 1585 is in 1592 when he is referred to as a playwright in London. Sources show that in 1599 the Globe was constructed for the use of the Lord Chamberlain's men, this could have led to the confusion for the authors of 'Who's Who'. The Blackfriars Theatre was not purchased for the King's Men, Shakespeare and his partners' Theatre Company, until August 1608 when Richard Burbage took back the lease on the building from a Henry Evans. So the information provided in my sourcebook is about 20 years off but thats why I enjoy using it. It gives me the opportunity to check the dates and information provided, to educate myself and share what I have learned with all of you.

The site of the Blackfriars Theatre has had two more performance spaces built on it since the times of Shakespeare. Once as the Second Blackfriars Theatre, you can see programmes from performances there if you click on this link... here, and the second time as the Mermaid Theatre which is currently going through a rocky patch regarding its future as a theatre space. You can find more info about the Mermaid at this link here.

Also I found an interesting link to an American site in Staunton, Virginia. It is the site of the American Shakespeare Centre where they have a full size, fully functional replica theatre of the Blackfriars Playhouse. To find out more about their replica theatre and the sterling work they do in America then please click here.

Coincidentally it is Shakespeare season on the BBC right now. Have you been watching?

Click here for more information and to find out what's on.