Consuming Passions: Leisure and Pleasure in Victorian Britain

by Judith Flanders

  JUPITER: I will not, I say.

  Turn up the table; take the cards away.

  Let’s have some music. Hermes, where’s Apollo?

  MERCURY: Gone to the Glee-club at the Cat and Swallow.

  JUPITER: Deuce take the fellow; where is Bacchus now?

  MERCURY: He’s at the Punch Bowl, drunk as David’s sow.

  JUPITER: Where’s Mars?

  MERCURY: He’s gone to drill.

  JUPITER: Where’s Juno, pray?

  MERCURY: She’s in the laundry, sir; it’s washing day.42

  A summary of Planché’s The Island of Jewels (1849) can stand as representative of the type of production that was to prove so popular. Princess Laidronetta is rejected by her family because she is saddled with the curse of ugliness by the malevolent Fairy Magotine. When a green serpent begs her for help, she is magically transported by a fairy boat to a rocky cavern with her friend Fidelia (played by Mme Vestris). The cavern is then transformed into a palace made of jewels, and jewel soldiers appear bearing Emerald inside a litter. From inside, Emerald asks Laidronetta to marry him, warning her that she must not look at him before the wedding in order to break Magotine’s spells over them both. She agrees, and a ‘crystal proscenium’ appears for the ballet of Cupid and Psyche. But, as in all the best fairy tales, Laidronetta succumbs to temptation and takes a peek at Emerald, who, she discovers to her horror, is the green serpent. The entire set vanishes in a violent storm, out of which Magotine appears, to take Laidronetta prisoner for seven years. After much backing and forthing over a series of impossible tasks, the good fairy Benevolentia finally appears, helps Laidronetta perform the tasks, and transforms Emerald back into the prince he had been before Magotine cast her evil spell. The scene is equally transformed, to a Fairy Garden, where Emerald is once again surrounded by his court. Magotine is banished to hell, Laidronetta’s family are remorseful (especially as she is no longer ugly), and the great transformation scene, ‘The Brilliant Discovery of the Crown Jewels in the Palm of Success’, takes place. All this is interspersed with songs, dances, jokes about current concerns, including the ‘Railway King’ and card sharps, and sideswipes at other plays being performed in London.43

  It is scarcely surprising from the above two long descriptions that when David Copperfield first went to the theatre, a pantomime at Covent Garden, he came away overwhelmed by the ‘mingled reality and mystery of the whole show, the influence upon me of the poetry, the lights, the music, the company, the smooth stupendous changes of glittering and brilliant scenery, [which] were so dazzling, and opened up such illimitable regions of delight, that when I came out into the rainy street, at twelve o’clock at night, I felt as if I had come from the clouds’.44 This ‘glittering and brilliant scenery’ that Dickens wrote so feelingly about had long been overseen by artists of some substantial reputation, such as David Roberts and Clarkson Stanfield, or was the work of theatrical set-painting dynasties like the Grieve family, who designed for Charles Kemble, Charles Kean, W. C. Macready, Grimaldi, Mme Vestris and more, over careers that spanned many of the innovations of the nineteenth century.45

  For new technology was changing the appearance of the theatrical flat, making stage design one of the most quickly evolving developments in theatre. The magic lantern had been in use in the theatre since the beginning of the century, but until the 1830s the oil lamps produced only a weakish light, and it was hard to create images that could be seen clearly, with enough definition, at a distance. On p. 255 we saw how Kean had used de Loutherbourg’s innovations to create light-enhanced scenes in his King Lear in 1820. By 1827, images as well as colour were being used: a production of The Flying Dutchman had managed to focus the lights sharply enough that a ‘ship’ could be projected successfully. But it was limelight that brought about the next phase of stage effects, allowing the creation of complex projected images. It may have been at a production of Balfe’s opera Joan of Arc at Drury Lane in 1837 that limelight first appeared in a theatre. (If it was not then, it was at the Christmas pantomime staged by Macready at Covent Garden that same year.) Drury Lane advertised that ‘a new and extraordinary Light will be introduced, called PHOSHELIOULAMPROTERON’, and this was probably limelight. Limelight was produced when a bag was filled with oxygen by heating manganese dioxide; another bag was filled with hydrogen. The hydrogen was expelled and lit, to warm the lime. When the calcium in the lime began to be consumed, the flame turned from pale yellow to red. At this point the oxygen was added, and the mixed gases gave an incandescent light. To produce an even light, the gases had to be expelled from the bags evenly and continuously. To do this, each bag was put between two pressure boards, and the light was produced by an operator pressing down on the boards. When Faust was mounted at the Lyceum there were twenty-five limelights; therefore twenty-five

  limelight operators were needed. By 1881, wrote one journalist, in the Strand every evening one is ‘certain to encounter men carrying on their shoulders enormously inflated bags, much as the “sandwich men” carry their boards. These are now found necessary at every theatre, and contain the gases for supplying the fiercely-glowing limelight lanterns.’46 The high level of manpower was more than compensated for by the elaborate effects that could be created.

  With limelight, dissolving views had become possible, created by two magic lanterns focused on the one spot: one lantern was then slowly extinguished, while the light in the second was similarly brought up. ‘Snow’ could be produced by making pinholes in a strip of black fabric and fixing it on to rollers; a crank unrolled the fabric across the light of another magic lantern. If all three images were used together, a stage picture of some complexity could be built up: for example, magic lantern 1 projected an autumn scene with a windmill; magic lantern 2 superimposed a ‘snowfall’ over this; a dissolve took the audience to magic lantern 3’s view of the same windmill, now covered with snow.

  Limelight was particularly useful for the transformation scenes of pantomimes and extravaganzas; when electricity arrived, in the early 1880s, it was enthusiastically adopted to be used for stage effects, well before its use to light the auditorium. In Gilbert and Sullivan’s Iolanthe the fairy queen and her attendants wore electric stars in their hair, and by 1883 the Princess’ Theatre in Manchester had staged a ballet for twenty-six women who ‘danced nightly by the light of small Swan lamps placed in a flower on each lady’s head’.* In an 1895 production of Cinderella at Drury Lane there was a rotating wheel in the background lit by electricity. The ‘electric ballet’ became a feature of many extravaganzas, and as late as 1897 the Alhambra, a music hall, had a Grand Electrical Finale.48 A version of Cinderella at the Hippodrome had lamps on the dancers’ headdresses, Cinderella’s ball gown was covered with ‘diamonds’ that were lit electrically, and her coach, wheels and spokes included, was outlined by 1,000 bulbs. The final scene, the Palace of Lustres, had 10,000 electric lights.49

  These giant productions required giant resources: Macready’s production of Coriolanus in 1838 had somewhere between 100 and 200 ‘senators’ in the crowd scenes; Charles Kean required 250 ‘citizens’ for Bolingbroke’s entry into London in Richard II in 1857; by the time Irving came to produce The Corsican Brothers in 1881, with its relatively small cast (for more on that production, see pp. 333-4), he still needed 30 gasmen and 90 stage carpenters backstage to produce the effects he wanted. Pantomime required even more: Little King Pipkin at Drury Lane in 1865 employed 48 seamstresses and wardrobe mistresses, 45 dressers and 17 gasmen, while 200 children and 60 ballet dancers appeared onstage. In 1866 Augustus Harris at Drury Lane marshalled nearly 500 ‘thieves’ to accompany The Forty Thieves of the pantomime’s title.50

  And that was without the animals. Animals were an essential component of spectacular theatre throughout the nineteenth century. Where circuses ended and drama began was not a question that troubled the times much. At the Royal Circus, St George’s Fields, in 1806 The Cloud King; or, Magic Rose, ‘A New Splendid Melo Dramatic Tale of ENCHANTM
ENT’, was staged, with a set that combined much of the new lighting and special effects that were developing, together with animals brought on as part of the drama:

  A dark Wood, through which, from the situation of the Trees, appear a variety of intricate avenues, backed by a mazey labyrinth - a most tremendous storm, intermingled with cries of distress, vivid flashes of lightning, and tremendous peals of thunder, &c. &c.

  In the intervals of the storm Scander is seen on his Horse, which attacked by an angry Lion, as it crosses the stage, emits fire from his nostrils, followed by Cymballo on foot in the greatest agitation…They are attacked by an immense Serpent, which they at length destroy; and, the atmosphere appearing lighter, thanking Heaven for their deliverance, the Travellers, by the light of the Moon, prepare to renew their journey, but are suddenly prevented by a torrent of rain - in vain they endeavour to shelter themselves, the trees they select for that purpose being struck by thunderbolts, and torn asunder - at length a chasm suddenly appears, discovering a distant illuminated portal, leading to a splendid Palace, richly adorned with festal lamps…51

  The following year, the success of shows similar to this was such that the patent theatres began to feel the financial loss. Philip Astley (1742-1814) had been in the 15th Light Dragoons during the Seven Years War, and afterwards he had opened a small show where he did trick riding. In about 1770 this was expanded into Astley’s Amphitheatre, at the southern end of Westminster Bridge. Astley’s presented horsemanship, acrobatics, acrobatics on horses, strongmen, juggling and other similar feats of dexterity, combined with little sketches or character scenes. By 1786 the Amphitheatre consisted of a ring (where in a theatre the stalls seats would be), where the horses performed, separated from the stage by an orchestra pit. Onstage Astley produced burlettas, ballets and pantomimes and, as with panoramas later, it was commercially expedient to get the latest world events dramatized quickly. Astley had a staged representation of the fall of the Bastille open to the public six days after the event had taken place. He had already produced Paris in Uproar in 1789, and followed this up with The Champ de Mars (1790) and Bagshot-Heath Camp (1792). In 1801 The British Glory in Egypt, with the defeat of the French by the Highlanders, with ‘REAL CAVALRY and INFANTRY’ was proudly announced.52 He was up against competition from Sadler’s Wells, which used the nearby New River to mount aquatic battle scenes, including in 1804 The Siege of Gibraltar, for which Woolwich Arsenal workers provided the model ships.

  Astley had a summer licence, and he and his competitors at the Royal Circus were constantly in danger of losing even that, owing to such stagings, which came perilously close to legitimate drama. Astley was once prosecuted for venturing into legitimate theatre, but popular resentment prevented his conviction. In general, to get around the ban on dramatic dialogue, the illegitimate theatres tended to use scrolls, banners and pennants with text on them. During the French wars patriotism was literally visible. In the Royal Circus’s Blackbeard, the villain carried a scroll that announced ‘THE ENEMY IS BRITISH AND WILL DIE OR CONQUER.’53 Patriotism was a large part of the Amphitheatre’s output - and of Astley’s own life. After the fall of the Bastille, he re-enlisted as a soldier, aged fifty. When his Amphitheatre burned down in 1794, however, he was given a discharge. As with most theatres in the nineteenth century, fire was a constant hazard, and the Amphitheatre burned down and was rebuilt with variations to its shape in 1794, 1803 and 1841.

  It was 1800 when for the first time the horses moved from the ring to the stage. John Conway Philip Astley (1768-1821), Astley’s son, produced Quixote and Sancho; or, Harlequin Warrior with ‘mechanical tricks and…on the Stage, TWO SQUADRONS OF HORSE, mounted by Warriors clad in Gold and Silver Armour’.54 The Royal Circus (from 1806 renamed the Surrey Theatre) countered by staging a pantomime of The Magic Flute; or, Harlequin’s Champion, set during the reign of Charlemagne and with ‘an appropriate and splendid Procession on the Stage of Equestrian Knights, on real Chargers, caparisoned in the Housings, Trappings, and variegated Armour, of the Times; the Stage representing the Amphitheatre of Renown’.55 But Astley fils produced a knockout blow that established his Amphitheatre firmly in the hearts of spectacle-hungry crowds. The Blood Red Knight,* produced in 1801, ran for 175 performances and was said to have netted him £18,000. It was later revived over and over for the next quarter-century and more. The stage directions for the last scene show how far Astley had already developed his genre: ‘Horse and foot are seen in action on the bridge. The Castle being forced, the action becomes general on the Stage, ramparts, water, and bridge. Some of the Guards are immersed in water, surrounded by friends and foes. The Castle is at length seen on fire in several places…’ In 1807 further rebuilding gave Astley, as he promised enticingly in an advertisement in The Times, ‘Stage Elevations, Platform Work, Devil’s Bridges, &c. of New Invention’.57

  This was too much for the legitimate theatres to bear. In 1811 Covent Garden had its cake and ate it too. While producing a new staging of George Colman the Younger’s Blue Beard; or, Female Curiosity (which had had a production at Drury Lane in 1798), complete with horses from Astley, the manager, John Philip Kemble, wrung his hands about having ‘with strong reluctance to innovate upon the usual entertainment of a theatre royal’, sacrificing the ‘scruples of exact taste’ and stooping to such gutter tactics as animals onstage. Yet it was Blue Beard and its horses that produced the single most profitable season Covent Garden had ever had. Annual receipts were usually in the region of £80,000; in the 1810-11 season the theatre cleared £100,000, of which the first forty-one nights of Blue Beard alone contributed £21,000, or a fifth of the theatre’s turnover.

  The success was unsurprising: Astley and Colman between them had filled the stage with wonderfully exciting scenes. Early on came a procession of animals, including a mechanical elephant and wooden camels. But then the real animals appeared. Fatima had been married off to Bluebeard (for some reason also known in this production as Abomelique) against her will. Selim, her true love, came to the rescue, accompanied by a troop of soldiers on horseback, who drew up in formation across the stage before galloping off over a bridge and then across the hills and into the distance. In the finale Abomelique’s and Selim’s forces rode towards each other, as the Examiner breathlessly described to its readers:

  Firstly, the aforesaid gallopings are repeated over mound and bridge, till every steed has reappeared often enough to represent ten or a dozen others; then one or two of them get interestingly entangled in a crowd; then a drawbridge, breaking down, is scaled by three or four at full gallop, which calls down the thunder of the galleries; - then a duel ensues between a couple of the horsemen…Lastly, comes the grand display, the dying scene; and here it is difficult to say which is more worthy of admiration, the sensibility or science of these accomplished quadrupeds…[One of the horses] entered the stage with as much indifference as if nothing had happened, though it was soon evident that he had received his mortal wound, for after a little meditation he began to die, bending his knees one after the other…and then turning upon his side and becoming motionless, just as a human actor does upon his back…58

  Blue Beard was programmed with The Comedy of Errors, and it continued to appear together with legitimate drama over the next halfcentury, as Covent Garden realized it was stuck with staging spectacle for its financial well-being. (In 1816 Macready’s London debut at Covent Garden, as Iago, was on the same bill as an ‘equestrianized musical romance’ called Lodoiska.)59 There was a lot of press comment along the lines of the most un-British suggestion in the Satirist, or Monthly Meteor, that ‘It were better to poison the manager’s horses, than that he should poison the national taste.’60 But in fact the legitimate theatres had been producing this sort of thing for some time, both in pantomimes and in new plays, if on a smaller scale. Prince Pückler-Muskau had seen Kemble play Falstaff, followed on the bill by a melodrama in which a Newfoundland dog ‘really acted admirably; he defended a banner for a long time, pursued the e
nemy, and afterwards came on the stage wounded, lame, and bleeding, and died in the most masterly manner, with a last wag of the tail that was really full of genius’.61

  Other theatres, which did not have Covent Garden or Astley’s resources, got in on the craze for horses via satire - satire always being a sure indicator of success. In 1811 the Drury Lane company (at the Lyceum, as Drury Lane had once more burned down) revived an old Samuel Foote comedy about a tailor, which was quickly retitled The Quadrupeds; or, The Manager’s Last Kick, with a finale of tailors and apprentices staging a cavalry charge on donkeys. At the Haymarket, Colman produced a parody of his own play with what he called a ‘Tragico-Comic-Anglo-Germanico-Hippo-Ono-Dramatico Romance’, The Quadrupeds of Quedlingburgh; or, The Rovers of Weimar, with soldiers on wickerwork horses this time.62

  Parody was easy; developing the original form required more skill. Out of the general run of hippodramas came the ‘lion dramas’ of the 1830s. The first, and principal, venture in this genre was by Henri Martin, a French equestrian, initially in France and in 1831 at Drury Lane, with Hyder Ali; or, The Lions of Mysore. In this lion drama Martin himself played the nabob Sadhusing, who is hiding in the forest of Mysore to escape the angry sultan Hyder Ali, who is in love with Delhi, Sadhusing’s daughter. As the piece opens, Sadhusing wakes up in the forest and rescues his sons from a pair of boa constrictors (pausing only for the three of them to reproduce a tableau of the Greek sculpture the Laocoön). Then the sultan’s troops attack, but Sadhusing is protected by two lions. Act II opens with a comedy scene, with a pelican stealing the sultan’s jester’s dinner; then it is back to the forest, with Sadhusing now surrounded by llamas, a buffalo, a monkey and a kangaroo. The sultan enters on a tiger hunt, seated on an elephant, and Sadhusing attacks him, but is captured. Given the chance of freedom by agreeing to fight a lion, this Sadhusing does, and the final tableau is of Sadhusing in a triumphal procession with the lion, the sultan and Delhi on an elephant, followed by dancing girls, bands and happy crowds. The story was of course irrelevant: it was the wild beasts roaming loose onstage that were so exciting. In fact wire netting was concealed in the scenery, so that, while it looked as if the animals were wandering about at will, they were in reality penned into a small area with Martin, while all the other performers remained safely on the other side of the net.63 The playbill for this production announced a performance of Macbeth in the same evening, but it was Hyder Ali - ‘the Most Gorgeous Spectacle ever produced’ - that was given the most space. Two sure signs of its success: Queen Victoria attended, and the Adelphi produced a spoof version, with popular actors playing the different animals.64