Theatre Royal, Adelphi Seasonal Digest for 1847-1848 Ed. Gayle Harris

Theatre Royal, Adelphi Seasonal Digest for 1847-1848
Ed. Gayle Harris

The season was notable for the apparent absence of new attractions based upon or taken directly from French sources. What the motives of the Adelphi management were in taking this reverse tack are unrecorded; events later in the season suggest that filling the bills with works by British authors was not happenstance.

Moreover, although new pieces were frequently offered, they were withdrawn quickly if they failed to please. Five well-established productions were presented frequently: This House to be Sold, a musical extravaganza by Joseph S. Coyne, with 87 performances, Harvest Home, by Thomas Parry with 83 performances, How to Settle Accounts with Your Laundress, a farce by Coyne, with 75 productions, Our National Defences, another Coyne farce, and Pearl of the Ocean, a burlesque by Charles Selby.

Plans for enlarging or rebuilding the Adelphi were delayed, and it was not until the end of the summer season that the Adelphi Company moved to the Haymarket Theatre.

While the Adelphi carried through one more season with apparently wild success, its front-of-the-house personnel were not universally admired. Over only the pseudonym "A Voice from the Side-Wing," the Theatrical Times of 2 October 1847 (pp. 309-310) carried a scathing description of what Adelphi patrons endured.

The box-keepers were noted for their "incivility and excessive disobliging propensities," and the "proceedings in the upper box lobby, the saloon, and the slips, were such as would have disgraced a three penny Casino." Noting that Adelphi box-keepers historically bore a reputation for discourtesy, the writer noted that of late they had developed a scheme of charging an undercover fee for late seating in the back boxes. "Now, obtaining a gratuity for every seat once during the night ought to be sufficient, one would imagine, to satisfy the most rapacious and cormorantly inclined box-keeper; but not so with the Adelphi sharks." At the end of the second piece of the evening, when many left the theatre, late comers would be admitted to the brief remainder of the program, but only upon payment of the full fee, plus gratuity for the box-keeper.

The writer then went on to list other "extortions." Patrons arriving too late to get an immediate seat were cajoled into paying a fee to obtain the first seat available. Once the fee was safely in the box-keeper's possession, the unlucky patron was forgotten. In addition, finally, Adelphi theatre-goers were expected to pay sixpence for the bill of the evening. While admitting that Manager Webster generally deserved the praise he enjoyed as a result of his management of the Haymarket, he was urged to attend to matters at the Adelphi: "The greater the education, respectability, and standing in society of the individual who holds the office of director, the greater the blame that attaches to him for countenancing the continuance of such abuses in the theatre." However, if Manager Webster had succeeded in ridding his little theatre of French influence, the question was by no means settled in other London theatres. An unsigned article entitled "Foreign Dramatic Invasion" appeared in the Sunday Times of June 4, 1848, and boldly attacked Queen Victoria and the aristocracy, which followed her example for patronizing the French theatre, as well as her representative, the Lord Chamberlain, who licensed French productions.

Reaction was swift. On Monday, 12 June 1848, an agitated British crowd assembled at Drury Lane for the Theatre Historique production of "The Count of Monte Cristo." As the Sunday Times reported:

The opponents were tolerably peaceable during the performance of "God Save the Queen" by the orchestra; but the raising of the curtain was the signal for unloosing the pent-up indignation of the anti-foreign party, who hooted, hissed, whistled, and groaned in the most discordant chorus, amidst which the cheers and plaudits of the French supporters were vigorously sustained (18 June 1848, p. 3).

Another, although somewhat milder, demonstration occurred on Wednesday evening, 14 June; and by announcement in the newspapers of Sunday, 18 June, the Theatre Historique announced that its final performance would take place on the following Monday and Wednesday. Upon this announcement, British partisans proclaimed total victory in routing the foreign invaders. It was rumored that Mathews and Manager Webster himself paid the rioters, and posted bail for those who were arrested.

This season was the first to include a regularly scheduled series of matinee performances. Professor Hermann's magic show began on 14 February and continued until March 3, 1848.

GH

Theatre Royal, Adelphi Seasonal Digest for 1848-1849

Ed. Gayle Harris

As usual, the Theatrical Times praised the decorations:

The decorations are very elegant and tasteful, and reflect great credit on Mr. Sang, who executed them from designs by Digby Wyatt ... it is an imitation of the royal French theatres in use during the reigns of Louis XIV and his successor. There is also a very beautiful curtain, representing a promenade in the gardens of the royal residence. The general colour of the house is buff, with occasional blue and green tints; the lining and fittings of the boxes are of rich crimson. The dome represents the blue sky, intercepted by a light trellised frame, interwoven with flowers, and divided into compartments; the panels of the boxes are made to correspond with the dome, the whole forming a scene of great beauty and elegance ... In a word, the entire proceedings deserve the greatest praise.

Manager Webster continued to provide the fare to which Adelphi audiences were accustomed. The season's long running pieces were a burlesque, The Enchanted Isle, with 93 performances, Slasher and Crasher, a farce with 82 performances, and another burlesque, Devil's Violin, which was presented 65 times.

Throughout most of the season, when new productions were mounted, they were by English authors, or, at the very worst, plagiarized from Shakespeare. Memory of the anti-French revolt of the previous season, however, may have waned, for in May of 1849, the very successful Devil's Violin--a burlesque of a French ballet--was introduced, and was soon followed in July by Webster's Royal Red Book, a translation of a French piece, which had been presented the previous year at the St. James's Theatre.

On 3 February 1849, an article in The Theatrical Times provided evidence that all was yet not well with London theatres in general, and with Webster's theatres in particular. Nominating Webster as the most eminent manager in London, the anonymous author offered the challenge, "Let us ask him, in the first place, when he has ever striven to cleanse the Augean impurities of the theatre; or whether he has not always tolerated them for the sake of filthy lucre. To encourage, or even to permit, the resort of prostitutes to a theatre, with a view to ply their polluted trade, what is it but to make the theatre a kind of brothel?" Further, there was still the problem of extortionate practices in seating arrangements. A ticket at the box office was only the first step; one then was expected to bribe the "surly janitors" who held the keys to the boxes. Finally, Webster's preference for the spurious over the legitimate drama was seen as a clear effort to line his pockets: "[He] has done more to comply with the vicious taste of an unsound portion of the public, in defiance of the rational and moral claims of the better part of the community, than any manager living." The writer concluded with a plea that Webster pursue a "right course," and with a threat that "if otherwise, we shall lament the defection of one who might prove such an able assistant in the cause of the legitimate drama."

GH