V.—Ipswich Theatre
Boz, on his travels, with his strong theatrical taste, was sure to have gone to the little theatre in Tacket Street, now a Salvation Army meeting-house. It is the same building, though much altered and pulled about, as that in which David Garrick made his first appearance on the stage, as Mr. Lyddal, about 150 years ago. I have before me now a number of Ipswich play bills, dated in the year 1838, just after the conclusion of “Pickwick,” and which, most appropriately, seem to record little but Boz’s own work. Pickwick, Oliver, Nickleby, and others, are the Bill of Fare, and it may be conceived that audiences would attend to see their own Great White Horse, and the spinster lady in her curl papers, and Mr. Nupkins, the Mayor, brought on the boards. These old strips of tissue paper have a strange interest; they reflect the old-fashioned theatre and audiences; and the Pickwickian names of the characters, so close after the original appearance, have a greater reality. Here, for instance, is a programme for Mr. Gill’s benefit, on
January 19, 1839, when we had “The Pickwickians at half-price.” This was “a comic drama, in three acts, exhibiting the life and manners of the present day, entitled—
“Pickwick, or the sayings and doings of Sam Weller!”
Adapted expressly for this Theatre from the celebrated Pickwick Papers,
by Boz!“The present drama of Pickwick has been honoured by crowded houses, and greeted by shouts of laughter and reiterated peals of applause upon every representation, and has been acknowledged by the public Press to be the only successful adaptation.
The Illustrations designed and executed by popular Phiz-es.
The new music by Mr. Pindar. The quadrilles under the direction of Mr. Harrison.”
All the characters are given.
“Mr. Pickwick,” founder of the Club, and travelling the counties of Essex and Suffolk in pursuit of knowledge.
“Snodgrass,” a leetle bit of a poet.
“Winkle,” a corresponding member also; and a something of a sportsman.
“Job Trotter,” thin plant o’ ooman natur; something between a servant and a friend to Jingle; a kind of perambulating hydraulic.
“Joe,” a fat boy, addicted to cold pudding and snoring.
“Miss Rachel Wardle,” in love with Jingle or anybody else that will have her.
“Emily” was appropriately represented in such a Theatre, by Miss Garrick.
The scenes are laid at first at the Red Lion, Colchester, close by which is Manor Farm, where a ball is given, and, of course, “the Pickwickian Quadrilles!” are danced “as performed at the Nobility’s Balls.” (I have these quadrilles, with Mr. Pickwick, on the title.) Then comes the White Hart, and “How they make sausages!” displayed in large type. The scene is then shifted to the Angel, at Bury, and the double-bedded room with its “horrible dilemma,” and
“Scene of Night Caps!”
It will be noticed that there is nothing of the Great White Horse in the very town. The reason was that the proprietor was disgusted
by the unflattering account given of his Inn and must have objected. It winds up with the Fleet scenes, where Mr. Weller, senr.,
“Arrests his own Offspring.”
That this notion of the Great White Horse being sulky and hostile is the true one is patent from another bill, December 10, 1843, some four years later, when the proprietor allowed his Inn to be introduced. The piece was called—
“Boots at the White Horse.”
“Now acting in London with extraordinary success.” This was, of course, our old friend “Boots at the Swan,” which Frank Robson, later, made his own. As Boz had nothing to do with it, there could be no objection. Barnaby Rudge, however, was the piece of resistance. On another occasion, January, 1840, came Mr. J. Russell, with his vocal entertainment, “Russell’s Recollections” and “A Portrait from the Pickwick Gallery.” “Have you seen him? Alphabetical Distinctions. A sample of Mister Sam Weller’s Descriptive Powers.”
Some adaptation or other of Dickens seems to have been always the standing dish. The old Ipswich Theatre is certainly an interesting one, and Garrick and Boz are names to conjure with.