London at the End of the Century:A Book of Gossip
a Beckett, Arthur William
1900
THE HOUSE IN THE THEATRE.
When I commenced this chapter, I had every intention of dealing with the art of public speaking generally-parliamentary, municipal, and social-but | |
237 | I find that I have already exhausted my patience in touching upon the first branch of the subject. However, that I may get away from the Theatre Royal, , to the Theatre Royal, Haymarket, and (old) Prince of Wales's I refer to two pieces that contained speeches supposed to be delivered by candidates for parliamentary honours. The first was a play at in which Mr. Charles Mathews took part. He acted as an agent, and Buckstone was in the cast. The old Haymarket company supplied the remainder of the . I fancy that Buckstone was the fugleman of a band of voters whose opinions were emphasised with bludgeons. They were called and existed long before the days of the Nottingham scandals. If my memory does not play me false, the piece was called . Then there was a piece by Mark Lemon called, strangely enough, , and of course Tom Robertson's . In the last I first saw Sir Squire Bancroft, who played Sydney Daryll long before his charming wife had changed her name from Wilton to Bancroft. No one noticed the Squire's in those distant days, but then the popular actor had yet to play Captain Hawtree in . I remember the effect of the speech at the end of spoken Bancroft's voice was accepted as pathetic, without a trace of the that was |
238 | its chief characteristic when he appeared as the extra-heavy dragoon, and the oration with thunders of applause. Time has thinned the old cast. Clarke and Dewar have joined the majority, but we still have the Bancrofts and Hare. must have been produced some thirty years ago, and (written if I am not wrong by Tom Taylor) a decade or two earlier. Of the cast of the last I fancy none remain-the last to go were Mrs. Charles Mathews and Mr. Henry Howe. |
