A FAMOUS WIGMAKER'S FAMOUS ALBUM.
SOME INTERESTING THEATRICAL AUTOGRAPHS.
By Gavin Macdonald.
Mr. William Clarkson, of Wellington Street, where the wigs come from, is almost as well known to the general public as the stars of the theatrical and musical professions who frequent his establishment.
In the whole of London, I doubt if you could find a more interesting place to spend an afternoon than the Wellington Street wig shop. And, if you are to any extent a hero worshipper of stage players, it is here you will find them, free, unconventional, Bohemian fellows all, with the strait lace of the footlights gone.
Clarkson's is a sort of theatrical Rotten Row, where all the professional world is wont to meet, and mix reminiscences and general chit-chat of the stage with orders for wigs and make-ups.
The shop itself is hardly less remarkable than the business carried on within it. It has a touch of the last century about it, with its low-pitched ceilings and curious anterooms.
From the former hang hundreds of grotesque pantomime and fancy-dress masks, scarcely clearing the heads of the customers. In glass cases around the walls of shop and anterooms are wigs and disguises and costumes of every description, an empire's ransom in paste jewels, and the serving of an army corps in stage weapons.
Almost any morning in the theatrical season you will find three or four well-known faces among the crowd in the establishment. It is a convenient meeting-place for one thing, and it teems with familiar faces and opportunities for friendly chats for another.
