CHAPTER III

Am engaged at Astley’s. The curious history of the theatre. Sanger’s odd expedient against fire. I am a soldier for one night in “Fair Rosamond.” Recreation at the “Bower Saloon.” I play the part of a monk. The monks’ revenge on an obnoxious actor. A fight with “Richard III.” Am pitched into the orchestra. I join Adams’ Circus in Yorkshire. I make Marwood, the hangman, laugh. Am an unsatisfactory witness in a police court case.

Sometime during 1873 I came to London and obtained an engagement at Astley’s. Astley’s was not the old circus of Ducrow and other “Ring” celebrities, but the transformed building, at least so far as the outside walls were concerned, of Mr. Dion Boucicault, who in 1863 rebuilt it with very highflown notions. He proposed to call the new theatre the “Westminster” and to devote it to the “legitimate” drama. The project came to grief hopelessly. The public refused to recognise the “Westminster,” which wasn’t in Westminster but in Lambeth. Astley’s it always had been and Astley’s it was to remain to the end of its days. The “legitimate” fled--to use the words of old Ducrow on one occasion--the “cackle” was “cut,” and horses came into their own once more. But they did not reign supreme, for that eccentric showman E. T. Smith, who was always out for something “original,” tried the experiment in 1865 of combining a circus with opera! It was of course an utter failure.

Then Sanger’s had their home there for a time, and during 1872 Lord George Sanger (who by the way laid the foundation of his fortune in a penny show with “Maria Martin”) took the place on a lease from Mr. Batty and transmogrified the interior, opening with a pantomime at Christmas 1872. Mr. Boucicault’s experiment had completely spoilt the theatre for circus purposes and Lord George Sanger restored the ring, re-arranged and re-decorated the auditorium, and “Astley’s” was almost itself again, but with a difference. There was now a stage as well as a ring.

Sanger’s did not forget to set forth the glories of the new home with the old name. “No; Astley’s not gone to dust and ashes”--ran one advertisement affectionately. “We have come to the rescue--we have spent a fortune to restore the dear old place”--and this was no more than the sober truth. A singular contrivance to satisfy the public that Astley’s would not be burnt down was the novel idea of turning the gas pipes into water pipes should there be any necessity for the transformation! “In case of emergency,” ran the announcement, “any person by turning a lever will be able to convert the whole of the gas jets into water outlets.” Lord George, however, did not reckon with his elephants. One of the huge beasts broke loose the day before the opening of the theatre, smashed a water main which supplied the gas-water pipes, and ruined the act

* * * * *

Missing text in the printed source.

* * * * *

drop! The fashion of the day in circus titles--“William the Conqueror and the pretty white horse with the golden hoof”--was fairly well indicated by the title of the piece which formed the principal attraction.

But before a year was out Lord George Sanger discovered that his own name was quite as good for the public as was Astley’s, and certainly more gratifying to himself. In the late autumn of 1873 he announced with a great flourish of trumpets the production of Mr. Akhurst’s spectacular play, “Fair Rosamond, or the Days of the Plantagenets.” Stories of the feudal times had apparently caught on with the public. Lord George Sanger was not one to hide his light under a bushel and he gave evidence of this in the following advertisement: “Sanger’s Grand National Amphitheatre. Late Astley’s. The proprietors do publicly challenge the entire profession to equal the exciting and effective scene of the Battle of Bridgenorth. Fifty trained horses in the great fight.”

As for the spectacle itself, to go over the list fairly takes one’s breath away. Here it is:

“The Landing of King Henry at Portsmouth, the Grand Procession at Winchester, Coronation in Westminster Abbey, the Great Battle of Bridgenorth, the Great Scene Morning after the Battle, the Bower at Woodstock, the Cloisters of Canterbury Cathedral, Interior of Canterbury Cathedral, Assassination of A’Beckett--with four other grand tableaux.”

The names read beautifully and it seems almost a shame to spoil the effect by relating, as I shall shortly have to do, an inglorious episode in which I took part.

The play was produced on November 1st, 1873, and preceded the Christmas pantomime. It was at Astley’s in this very “Fair Rosamond” that, not discouraged by my failure at Royston’s mumming booth, I made my second attempt to become a great actor. The play came on after the circus business, in which I had a share, was over. For arena purposes half the stage, which was adaptable, was removed, and restored when the drama came on. I had to play the part of a soldier, together with three others. We all wore beautiful armour. The words we had to say did not want much study. They comprised two only, “To Canterbury,” in reply to our Captain’s question, “Where goest thou?” uttered with all the haughtiness demanded by melodrama.

I was only a little chap at this time and my suit of armour had been made for a man quite six feet high. I’m not sure that I looked a very noble warrior; at all events the audience didn’t think so, and the gallery and the pit yelled at me. Again, I was a failure at serious acting and my second essay lasted one night only. Somehow I had the knack of always doing something wrong, and I fancy I often involved my three companions into scrapes, and unfortunately one of the actors named Lee made matters worse by telling tales of our misdoings to the stage manager. Lee was really a fine actor and I daresay our blunderings were a real source of annoyance to him.

Practically, so far as acting was concerned, we were given the sack, but this didn’t quell the dramatic ardour which possessed us, and we found solace, after our circus business was over, in visits to the “Bower” in Stangate, not far from Astley’s.

The “Bower”--its full name was the “Bower Saloon,” but no one ever thought of calling it so--was then falling into decay, but it was still struggling to maintain its reputation as the only rival to the “Vic” as a home of gory melodramas. Whatever the “Bower” may have looked like in its best days, it had now become grimy and shabby, and the audience was of the rowdiest. It probably would not hold many more than some 500 people. “Sweeney Todd” and “bluggy” plays of a like lurid character formed the staple bill of fare, and we were able to revel in gore comfortably seated in the royal box, for which we paid twopence a piece.

If I’d known as much about the “Bower” at that time as I’ve learned since I should probably have looked upon it with more interest and respect. It was in Stangate--a somewhat slummy street, swept away, I think, for the approaches of St. Thomas Hospital, and in Stangate close to the “Bower” once lived the father of the great Grimaldi. Mr. H. G. Hibbert in his “A Playgoer’s Memories” reminds us that that erratic genius, Robson, commenced his career at the “Bower,” and further points out a curious if remote connection between the “Bower” and the “Belle of New York.” Musgrove, who produced this American musical play in London and made a fortune out of it, married a relative of the once popular Irish comedian George Hodson, one of whose daughters was Miss Henrietta Hodson, who became the wife of Mr. Labouchere. George Hodson was at one time the manager of the “Bower” and thus supplied the chain which linked this sordid place of amusement with the bright and brilliant “Belle.”

Our studies of the drama as it was presented at the “Bower” were eventually discovered, and the Astley manager expressed his displeasure--why, I couldn’t understand, unless he thought the spectacle of murders (it was the murders which we really went to see) were corrupting our taste. Anyway he stalked into the “Bower” one night, and spotting us, enquired sternly what we were doing there. Our excuse that as we were not wanted on the Astley stage we had come to pick up what we could of acting at the “Bower” was not considered satisfactory, and we were bundled back to Astley’s and given another chance as monks.

Now Mr. Lee played “Fair Rosamond’s” father, and he had a fine tragic scene of which he made the most, especially in his death scene, where he was supposed to be shot through the heart by an arrow on the battlefield. Having a number of trained horses on the establishment it was not to be supposed a chance of producing a realistic effect would be lost sight of, so a whole batch of “gees” were brought on the stage and represented the dead and dying.

Our duty as monks was to pick up the body of Rosamond’s father, place it on a bier and carry the latter round the battlefield among the defunct quadrupeds. We were longing to get our own back on Lee, and one night as we were doing the usual mournful promenade to slow music one of the horses started kicking. Mr. Lee suspected the monks were at the bottom of the “certain liveliness,” and I’m afraid he wasn’t far wrong.

But this was only the preliminary to our plot. Before the next performance one of the handles attached to the bier was half sawn through, and it only wanted a little jerk to bring about a catastrophe. Sure enough that catastrophe arrived. Down fell the body; the audience yelled with delight and shouted for him to die again, much to Mr. Lee’s disgust, because he knew full well that it was not his fine acting they wanted to see, but merely the collapse of the corpse. Another row with the stage manager followed, with the result that the monks were unfrocked and not allowed again to figure in “Fair Rosamond.”

I was then tried as a Lancashire soldier in Richard III. I had to fight the King, who of course was mounted on “White Surrey.” The horse that played the part was a very vicious brute, and when I saw him put his ears back and show his teeth I made sure he was going for me. I retreated, and backing a little too much, fell over the footlights on to a fiddler. That did it. I was fished out of the orchestra a very discomfited warrior, and this was the end of my acting career at Astley’s.

My connection with Astley’s abruptly terminating (I never appeared there again) I joined Adams’ Circus, well-known in those days in the various towns of Yorkshire. Off and on I was a member of Adams’ Company for a considerable time, and strictly speaking, the episodes I am about to relate did not take place until some years after my first engagement, but as I shall not have occasion to refer to Adams again, I insert them here.

We were at Leeds, the circus being stationed in Cudbright Street. Charles Peace had just been condemned, and Armley gaol, to which he had been consigned after his trial, being just outside Leeds, nothing else but the murderer and his extraordinary career was being talked about.

On this particular night Mr. Adams and I, after the performance, looked in at one of the hotels, and while we were there a gentleman sitting close by recognised Mr. Adams, and said he:

“I saw your show to-night and I knew you again. You were riding that beautiful Arab.”

Mr. Adams said that was so, and the stranger went on:

“Who was that funny cuss who had some fits and performed on the high stilts?”

Mr. Adams, pointing to me, said that I was the individual.

“I’m very pleased,” was the rejoinder; “You made me laugh.”

He handed me his card, which I didn’t bother about, as cards were often forced upon me, but thrust it into my pocket. That night I stuck it with others on the mantelpiece in my room and went to bed. In the morning I looked at the card, and something like a shudder went over me when my eyes fell on the inscription “Marwood, Executioner.” That very morning he executed Peace. It may sound absurd, but I could not eat any breakfast, nor could I get the man out of my mind for weeks, for I had shaken hands with him!

By way of contrast to this gruesome memory I recall an odd incident which happened when Adams’ Circus was at Bradford. The circus stood on the ground where is now the Midland Station, and I lived up the hill and every night had to pass the “Ring of Bells,” where open house was kept, and where I was a welcome visitor. One night I looked in while a fearful row was going on between the landlord and a customer, a tailor. The row was terminated in summary fashion by the landlord kicking the tailor out of the house. The tailor retaliated by obtaining a summons for assault, and I found myself subpœnaed as a witness.

While we were waiting for the case to come off, and the time hanging heavy on our hands, plaintiff, defendant and witness went to the nearest hostelry. I became an object of special interest to both sides, and they stood treat very liberally. The result was that when we got back to the court and the case was called I was feeling unusually fit.

What happened was something like this. After the parties told their stories, which of course represented the affair in totally different lights, I was told to stand in front of the magistrate, which I did.

“What have you got to say about this case?” asked his worship.

“Nothing,” said I.

“Well, what are you doing here then?”

“I don’t know,” was all I could think of saying.

Case dismissed!

But the witness hadn’t finished distinguishing himself. As I was leaving the court I was passing a form on which two or three policemen were sitting. I needn’t say that I fell over this form and that the policemen fell with me. But nothing came of it--they knew who I was.

By the way, it may be of interest at the present time to note that those were days of amazing prosperity among the coal miners. Champagne was such a common drink that at Barnsley it was known as “colliers’ pop.” It was at Barnsley that I was invited to go down a coal mine. With my usual want of thought it never occurred to me that about the last costume one would select for such a visit was a light summer suit and hat to match. I needn’t say that when I reappeared after my ramble down among the coals I looked fit to go to a funeral.

[Illustration: The best friend I ever had in the Theatrical Profession]