Bohemian Days in Fleet Street

by William Mackay

The management opened their theatre with an opera-bouffe entitled “Vert Vert,” translated from the French by Henry Herman, who afterwards made a reputation for himself as the author of “The Silver King.” The attack made on the opera by Vanity Fair was fierce, scathing, unsparing. The writer was especially nasty about the ladies of the chorus, whom he said could neither act, sing, nor dance, but who, he supposed, were exhibited before the public because “there are some rich young men about town, and several old ones, who devote their time and energies to the discovery and encouragement of dramatic talent in good-looking young women.” That was the gravamen of the charge—that and an allusion to a dance called the “Riperelle.” Serjeant Ballantine was for the plaintiff, and Mr. John Day (afterwards Mr. Justice Day) was for the defendant.

The interest of the occasion centred greatly in the cross-examination of Mr. Thomas Gibson Bowles, subsequently the representative of King’s Lynn, and the beloved “Tommy” of the House of Commons. Ballantine, of course, could see nothing wrong in anything theatrical, and contrived by maladroit questions to let “Tommy” get in some answers which Day dare not have elicited in chief. In particular he made the mistake of cross-examining him about the “Riperelle.” “It is the cancan in its essential part,” explained Bowles. Ballantine, rushing on his fate, pressed the witness. “Tell us,” he thundered, “in what the indecency of the dance consists.” Stroking his blonde cavalry moustache, and smiling pleasantly, Bowles replied, with great distinctiveness and amid a dead silence: “The ‘Riperelle’ is an illustration by gesture of the act of —” But the conclusion of the sentence is scarcely of a kind to be repeated here. It won the case. The jury found for the defendant without leaving the box. Mr. Fairlie soon after his theatrical experiences resumed his proper name of Philips, read for the Bar, was called, and in 1890 I happened to be with him in settling a case of newspaper libel in which he was engaged for the plaintiff. Mr. F. C. Philips has furthermore made a reputation for himself as a writer of excellent fiction. His “As in a Looking-Glass” has gone through many editions, and is to this day, I understand, “asked for” at Mudie’s.

That sort of criticism, however, is no longer in vogue, which for some reasons, I think, is rather a pity. And one of them is that theatre-goers have ceased to accept dramatic criticisms as being in any way a guide to the theatre. Bad plays are so frequently treated with respectful notices, and the public reading the criticisms have been so frequently deceived, that this department of a newspaper’s literary contents has become negligible. The most frank and most business-like method would be to drop all pretence at criticism, and simply “report” each new play. It will come to that.

A well-known barrister who wrote criticisms on plays was Sir Douglas Straight. He had not then received the honour of knighthood. He was the inseparable companion of Montagu Williams, represented the licensed victuallers in the House of Commons, and wrote his dramatic criticisms in the Sporting Times.

It would be impossible to give a complete list of the dramatic critics who exercised their craft during the couple of decades that comprise my experience of the front of the house. But as a suitable conclusion to this chapter on a gay art I shall endeavour to call up the appearance of the approaches and auditorium of a leading theatre on the production of an important work. In an attempt to visualize the scene, some figures will present themselves that, without this aid to memory, might—to my lasting regret—be overlooked. I shall not attempt to recall any particular play. But I shall select what I shall suppose to be a typical first night at the Lyceum Theatre at the beginning of the eighties. One proceeds along the Strand leisurely and in chastened mood. The tail of the pittites is struggling out of the covered passage that leads to the pit entrance. That passage, by the way, had been nicknamed by a witty policeman the “Cowshed,” in honour of certain elderly ladies who used to pervade that part of the Strand, and who were accustomed to take shelter in this recess. Turning out of the Strand into Wellington Street, one sees the long line of cabs and carriages discharging their occupants between the classic pillars which stand before the Lyceum portico. There are as yet no motors—no taxi-cabs—in this procession. Somehow those panting vehicles would not have harmonized with the sentiments of a Lyceum audience. We cross the threshold. On the right is the box-office, and through the aperture you see the benign and reverend face of Mr. Joseph Hurst, placid, gold-spectacled, serene. The vestibule is spacious, heavily carpeted, and from it an immensely wide flight of steps, covered in soft, thick stair-carpets, leads to the back of the circle. On each side of this stairway stand little boys in Eton suits. They are infant vergers in this temple of art; for Irving has disestablished the female programme-seller—she was perhaps a too frivolous person—and has installed these youths in clean collars and short jackets to conduct the patrons to their seats, and to see each one provided with a bill of the play. The lights are subdued. The arriving visitors do not indulge in the laughter and gay, irresponsible chatter of people entering a house of opera-bouffe. Here is more serious business, be assured. Our voices, as we advance to the foot of the stairs, are subdued, like the lights. The moving crowd has more the aspect of a congregation than of a theatrical audience.

At the top of the stairs stands a tall man in a reddish beard. He is in evening-dress, but wears no decoration of any kind. Yet he is there to receive this distinguished throng. There is a gracious bow to each as he passes, and to some an extended hand and a sedate greeting given in a rich Dublin brogue. For the gentleman in the red beard is Mr Bram Stoker, the business man, chief bottle-holder and Boswell, of the Lyceum manager. Bram is one of your genuine hero-worshippers. He abandoned a big berth under the Dublin Corporation to follow the fortunes of the Chief. He makes much of his hero’s friends on the Press, and does his best to conciliate his detractors. He manages Irving’s finances—as far as the manager will permit their supervision. And he writes the Chief’s after-dinner speeches and his lectures on Shakespeare and the musical glasses. As he smiles on us now, he little foresees what the future holds for Irving and himself. No gloomy anticipations intrude as we pass the well-pleased priest of the vestibule. The Irving regime is for all time, and the “wing of friendship shall never moult a feather.” Alas for the futility of human foresight! Poor Bram has himself now gone to solve the great mystery.

At last we have reached our stalls—you and I—and have time to look about us. The attendant acolyte has provided us with programmes. There is a subdued air of expectancy abroad. Conversation is carried on in decorous accents. There is no laughter. Even the deep bass of Jo Knight is tempered to the occasion. The orchestra files in. Mr. Hamilton Clarke takes his place above the tuneful choir. The popular parts of the house are crammed. The seasoned playgoers who have fought their way through the “Cowshed” to the front row of the pit point out to each other the eminent persons as they proceed to their stalls. They are not always infallible in their identification—these quidnuncs of the pit. Mr. Moy Thomas is confidently pointed out as Sir Garnet Wolseley. “Looks diff’rent in his uniform, don’t he?” observes the lady recipient of the information. I have heard them point out Lennox Browne as the Duke of Argyll, Sir Francis Jeune as Lord Leighton, and Mr. Hume Williams as Mr. Walter of Printing-House Square—a gentleman rarely seen at these functions, and one whose name, one would imagine, would hardly be known to the public of the pit. These illuminating asides were always delivered with the utmost confidence. And upon one such occasion I was overjoyed to hear myself identified and accepted as Cardinal Manning—an ecclesiastic to whom the theatre was anathema, whose priests were forbidden the playhouse, although, strangely enough, they were left free to patronize the music-halls.

On these first nights at the Lyceum the occupants of the stalls and boxes the gathering is representative of various strata of Society. High finance and high philanthropy are there in the person of the Baroness Burdett-Coutts, who was long and generally supposed to have financed the Lyceum. This has now been officially contradicted by the authorized biography. All I can say is, that the Baroness might have done worse with her money. Sir George Lewis, eyeglass duly adjusted, stands surveying the house and nodding to his many acquaintances. On hearing of the death of Sir George an old friend of his spoke of him as having gone to learn “the great Secret.” “They will find,” said a lady, “that it is no secret from Sir George.” The higher branch of the profession is represented by Sir Edward Clarke, always looking fierce, and always feeling much the reverse, his short, square figure and “Dundreary” whiskers savouring much of the “City” which he loves, and in which he began life. Frank Lockwood, towering, genial, and majestic, does not permit his natural humour to become abated even in this grave gathering. Mr. Watts-Dunton, brisk and beady-eyed, busies himself with his playbill, and makes no pretence of hearing the remarks which Mr. Percy Fitzgerald passes on to him. Clement Scott, self-conscious and upheld by a sense of the importance of the occasion—and of his own—divests himself of his fur coat, and settles himself in his stall, assuming an expression of the deepest melancholy. Edmund Yates—evidently bored by, and sceptical concerning, the pervading air of gravity—discusses mere World-ly matters with his accomplished critic, Dutton Cook. Oscar Wilde, seated beside his pretty wife, preserves the cynical smile which characterizes him. Joseph Hatton—one of Irving’s most devoted literary henchmen—beams, like another Mr. Fezziwig, “one vast, substantial smile.” Knight is accompanied by a lady of great personal attractions—of a classic beauty, one might have said. It is the accomplished pluralist’s daughter. Frank Marshall, of the leonine head, looks as though he were anticipating one of the great moments of his life. And so he is. His admiration of Irving is sincere and whole-hearted. In his view Irving can do no wrong. Charles Dunphy, of the Morning Post, seated next to Howe, of the abhorred Morning Advertiser, takes a mental note of the Society persons who are present, and inquires after the health, I hope, of Howe’s father. For Howe is the son of the veteran actor of that name, now a member of the Irving company, and the son is present to sit in judgment of his parent. It is—to quote a phrase of Labouchere’s, in his speech to the jury in a famous libel case—a reversal of the old Scriptural legend: “Instead of Abraham offering up Isaac, we are presented with the spectacle of Isaac offering up Abraham.”

On these first nights at the Lyceum there are a great many persons present whom one never sees on other occasions or at other theatres. If Bram Stoker had his way, they would not be sitting here and now. Mr. Stoker’s eye is ever on the main chance, and he resents the sort of dead-head out of whom you cannot get even a newspaper paragraph. But Irving has his way in all these matters, and the presence of this unproductive contingent testifies to a trait only too rare both in men and managers. Princely in his hospitalities, generous to a fault, Irving was above all capable of a lasting gratitude. These dead-heads were the recurring evidence of this sentiment. They were those who had been kind to him in early days, those who had faith in him when, as yet, the public had not accepted him. These he never forgot. And it is one of the little circumstances in his career as manager which I like most to remember. For, truth to tell, there are some of them that I would quite willingly forget.

Byron Webber, burly and black-bearded, appears rather restive under the restraint of the Lyceum auditorium. Tom Catling’s genial smile indicates that no amount of exterior depression can affect a spirit tuned to gentle enjoyment wherever two or three of his fellow-creatures are gathered together. Among the others who are constitutionally incapable of assuming the grave expression suitable to the occasion are Bendall the bland; Chance Newton, the Aristarchus cum Autolycus of the stalls; Burnand, beaming beatific—of Punch. . . . But the orchestra has ceased, and the curtain is going up.