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.

Misleading Theatre Posters: I'm looking at you Wyndhams Theatre

This week a story broke that the Wyndhams Theatre in London had put some qoute from a review of 'Shawshank Redemption' on the posters for the live show which had actually been about the film not the play. This of course is a massive problem as it can be seen as false advertising, no scratch that, it IS false advertising. When you factor in that the qoute taken was from a review of the stage show which just happened to point out that the film was better than the play. Ok I can understand that its not a great idea to put up an advert saying that the film is better than the live experience but blatantly using something that isn't about your product is low.

I think this is an appalling thing to do, after all spinning a review is pretty easy and you would think that a renowned theatre like the Wyndham would have a press officer who would know how to make the best of a bad situation. The fact that the local Trading Standards office has got involved shows how much of a snafu this is as the legal situation is on the side of any official office that wishes to take action.

Then again its sort of worked itself out this situation as Shawshank Redemption shuts today thanks to bad ticket sales of this very mediocre show.