It’s a surreal scene, indulging humour that raises the spectre of more than one anxiety, but has the postal service simply gone wild, or is Joe drawing out some of the dangers that lurk beneath the surface of the everyday – capital punishment, for example, or the European’s fear of the Orient? Might all this business about letters and boxes even indicate a subtle sexual subplot that, in contradistinction to the hymnal destiny of Harlequin and Columbine, indicates the reproductive dead-end that is Clown and Pantaloon, attacked by a fanged orifice, a vagina dentata and a sexually threatening African? It’s all too much for Joe and Louis, who take solace in the discovery of magically refillable bottles of wine. Having drunk themselves silly, they go off (presumably to pee), at which point Harlequin torments them further by turning the bottles into beehives. Through the power of suggestion, the grocer’s shop is instantaneously transformed into a farmyard, into which Clown and Pantaloon stagger, and, taking up the beehives/bottles, are chased off, each with a swarm of bees around his head. They exit, ‘bellowing’.
The harlequinade is nearing its end, and the scene changes to a mermaid’s cave, where Mother Goose appears among her attendant fairies to announce, ‘Your task concludes, your mistress’ rage is o’er,/These wandering mortals, I’ll perplex no more.’ Harlequin has only one more obstacle to overcome before he can enjoy his reward: Oddfish, a queer aquatic monster that rises from the sea, guzzling oysters and spanking the unruly serpents that coil around his legs and terrorise Columbine. Harlequin dispatches him in the most hospitable way, deploying his sword as a yard of wine that he pours directly into the monster’s mouth before sending him off to retrieve the golden egg. Oddfish obeys, and though his first foray produces only seaweed, his second bears the prize. Mother Goose restores order and, in what would usually have been the coup de grâce that brings about the most lavish scenic tableau of the year, turns Oddfish’s Palace into a cut-price Eden, described as ‘simply a pair of flats, and … no “blaze of triumph” whatever’, whose most diverting feature is a pod of cheerful dolphins and some mermaids brushing their hair. The dancers rush back on for a final number intended to distract the eye from the woeful scenery, before the lovers come forward, their hands joined by the newly reformed and appropriately paternal Squire, as Mother Goose begs the audience’s indulgence with her parting words:
Ye patrons kind, who deign to view,
The sports our scenes produce,
Accept our wish to pleasure you,
And laugh with Mother Goose.
To which Grimaldi adds,
And let no critic stern reject
What our petitions beg,
That we may from your smiles collect
Each night some Golden Egg.
The crowd’s acclaim was deafening, and the following morning, the critics were universal in their submission to Joe’s injunction. From beginning to end, they reported, the show had ‘set the young … and old folks, too, in a roar’. It was received (said The Times) ‘by JOHN BULL with that clamorous expression of his feelings to which he is accustomed on the view of an old favourite’. If the show seemed familiar, it was because, in one form or another, they’d probably seen much of it before. As Joe himself admitted, there wasn’t ‘a trick or situation in the piece to which he had not been well accustomed for many years’. From Harlequin’s first escape to his last, Mother Goose proved the maxim that the old ones are the best, as some of the tricks and business, such as the flying tables and chairs, can be dated to at least 1685, when they appeared in a prototypical pantomime, William Mountford’s The Life and Death of Doctor Faustus Made Into A Farce.
Not that anyone seemed to mind. ‘We have not for several years’, wrote the European Magazine, ‘witnessed a Pantomime more attractive than this; whether we consider the variety and ingenuity of the mechanical devices; the whim, humour, and agility of the Harlequin, Clown, and Pantaloon; or the admirable dexterity with which the scenery is managed.’ This ‘dexterity’ was one of its greatest virtues: as the machinery was relatively simple, there were none of the long delays and backstage mistakes audiences were used to.* A description of the show, printed within days of the début, had it that the first night ‘(which is generally only looked upon as a public rehearsal) was as perfect a performance, as need be wished’.
It was as if the pantomime had been presented as the answer to the question ‘What is entertainment?’, while the very definition of what it meant to be entertained was being redefined in the light of what the audience saw. Its nineteen scenes offered a full range of textures and tempos that blended comedy with spectacle, the two bound together by music of ‘unceasing vivacity’ that ran through the piece ‘like the pattern in a watered gown’. The form provided the framework for what was essentially a variety show, a piece of extended slapstick dotted with guest slots for morris dancers, Master Smalley, and the Pandean Minstrels.
At the centre of it all was Joe. ‘His very excellent clown’, wrote one critic, ‘obtains universal sufferance, his figure is neither too tall or too short, and … so irresistibly comic, as to put dullness to flight, and make a saint laugh, his acting and manner … leaves all competition at a very humble distance.’ Even Lord Eldon, the Lord Chancellor, a major political player and sober establishment man who had never even seen a pantomime Mother Goose, could not contain his enthusiasm: ‘Never, never,’ he insisted emphatically, ‘did I see a leg of mutton stolen with such superhumanly sublime impudence as by that man.’ So impressed was he that he returned eleven times that season just to watch Joe steal. There was even praise from Kemble, who said that Grimaldi had ‘proved himself the great master of his art’, though most gratifying of all must have been the words of the inestimable Mrs Jordan, who called him simply ‘a genius … yet unapproached’.
‘Grimaldi’s career until this Christmas’, wrote one critic, ‘may be regarded as the novitiate of his Saturnalian priesthood,’ and from that point on, he was a fully fledged star. Even the Monthly Mirror, the vehicle of unfailingly bad reviews, whose last mention of Joe had been to say of his Orson that ‘we are inclined … to prefer his predecessor, Du Bois’, conceded the fact, and by February, it was writing,
The Clown of Mr. Grimaldi is the principal cause of crowded lobbies and scarcely standing room. Many of our second-and third-rate tragedians would give their ears to meet with half the plaudits which are every night conferred on Grimaldi for his inimitable exertions. His Clown has not been equalled – we never expect to see it surpassed. He has arrived at an acme of all clownery.
Yet even in the first blush of celebrity Grimaldi had few opportunities to enjoy his success. Most popular actors threw themselves into the social whirl, dining out and holding forth in the salons of the affluent newly open to them. By contrast, Joe found that fame threatened his domesticity, even when it appeared to complement it. The clearest example of this was the appearance of a man who arrived on his doorstep after Mother Goose had played only eight times. The Memoirs remember him as Mackintosh, although in fact he was called John Mackoull. Joe had met him several times through the auspices of Jack Bologna around the time that Jack had been re-engaged at the Wells.
Jack knew him as a regular at the London theatres, a carefree bachelor of independent means who had once invited him to his house in Kent for a few days’ shooting. He had asked Joe to come along and, thoroughly looking forward to a stylish country weekend, they were surprised to be greeted by a scruffy, bald, asthmatic driving a tax-cart. This was Mackoull in his natural habitat. A recreational impostor, he saw no harm in letting his London friends think he was much grander than he was. His lame horse led the way to his house, actually a dirty roadside pub two miles out of Bromley called the George Inn. This vexed Jack considerably, and he complained angrily at the deception, although, as their host cheerfully pointed out, the pub belonged to Mackoull’s mother, a doting old woman who worked while he idled, so he was indeed a gentleman of leisure.
Jack seethed, but Joe saw the funny side, at least unti
l Mackoull’s delusions got them into serious trouble. Having calmed his guests with food and beer, he equipped them for shooting, declining himself to take a gun, and brought them to a wheat-field where, in tones of great excitement, he pointed out the game. But instead of the partridges and pheasants the sportsmen were expecting, Mackoull had indicated a flock of common pigeons, hundreds of them. ‘I invited you to shoot birds,’ he said, sensing their irritation, ‘and pigeons are birds.’
‘The fellow’s a humbug,’ whispered Jack, ‘kill as many of his pigeons as you can,’ and, opening fire, he blasted into the field without even bothering to aim. In spite of his great love of the breed, Joe joined in, and ‘the slaughter was very great’. By the time their muzzles fell silent, the field was littered with corpses, and Mackoull immediately began to fuss, hurrying them to collect them up so they could get off as quickly as possible, confessing that neither field nor pigeons belonged to him but to a neighbour, ‘and precious savage he’ll be when he finds out how you have been peppering them’. Speechless at having been duped into committing a capital crime, the accidental poachers ran back to their gig and fled the countryside. Even in town, they weren’t safe: before the week was out they got word that a constable was in London looking for them, hired by Mackoull’s neighbour, using names and descriptions conveniently furnished by Mackoull himself.
Strange, then, that two and a half years later this contrary oddness should be sitting in Joe’s parlour much transformed. Immaculately dressed, impeccably polite and betraying no sign of the fustian eccentric who had nearly got them hanged in Kent, he begged forgiveness so genteelly that Joe lacked all resolve to bear him a grudge. In the interim, Mackoull had established himself in business, taking rooms behind the Bank of England where he invited Joe to dine with him before the play. Joe found him easy and humorous company. There were several such dinners over the next few weeks, and a genuine friendship began to emerge. There were no objections, therefore, when Mackoull called with an invitation from friends of his who were keen to make Clown’s acquaintance one night after the pantomime. Joe was reluctant to break his habit of taking supper with Mary at the end of the day, but eventually agreed and, on the night appointed, took a coach from Covent Garden to an address near Fitzroy Square where they stopped in front of one of the tallest, whitest, most brilliantly illuminated Queen Anne mansions on the street.
Convinced they had the wrong address, he was debating directions with the driver when Mackoull suddenly appeared from a passage and took his friend into a magnificent supper room, papered and gilded and lined with exquisite rugs. Around a large table set with fine crystal and silver stood six smiling couples, as impeccably presented and richly bejewelled as the room itself. Mackoull introduced the host and hostess, Mr and Mrs Farmer, who, shaking Joe’s hand and paying earnest compliments to his abilities, introduced him to the others before they all sat down to a supper of succulent dishes and vintage wines. Once he had overcome his initial shock at being in such refined company, Joe enjoyed himself immensely, eating, drinking and regaling the table with songs and stories until at last liveried servants helped him to a coach at five in the morning.
Mary was beside herself when Joe described the night he’d had. Like her sisters, she loved nothing more than clothes, gossip and the doings of people of fashion, and when a second invitation arrived hard on the heels of the first, she demanded to come. The party reconvened with repeated success, and the nights in Fitzroy Square became regular events.
The Grimaldis were much taken with their convivial new friends, whose midnight suppers brightened the first dreary months of the year. Joe, in his cups, even invited them to dine at Baynes Row, much to the annoyance of his wife, who complained that they had ‘not one quarter so many spoons as the Fitzroy Square people, and no chandeliers at all’. Even so, something was not quite right: despite their obvious wealth, neither Mr Farmer nor any of his guests ever spoke of business or trade, yet their liberal hospitality, easy manners and apparent lack of ceremony suggested they weren’t aristocrats – at least not like any of the aristocrats Joe had ever encountered at the theatre. Mackoull was no help, saying only that they were people of substantial means and leaving it at that.
The dinners continued until early March, when Joe was asked to play Scaramouch for the benefit for his old friend Lund. As the show was at the Woolwich theatre, requiring an overnight stay, Mr Farmer proposed that the men of the group make a night of it. They all agreed, except a man called Jones, who regretted that he had to keep an appointment. The party went off in exceedingly high spirits, making Lund’s benefit memorable not only for the performances but for the cheerful, talkative group in the box who dressed finely and spent freely.
It was the last Joe and Mary ever saw of their smart new friends, and neither did they hear from Mackoull, until several weeks later when a man named Harmer appeared at Baynes Row. Introducing himself as Mackoull’s solicitor, he sat down and, fixing Joe with a grave stare, announced that his client was in custody, accused of robbing the Edinburgh mail coach, a crime for which he would almost certainly be put to death.
* The bear in Valentine and Orson was usually played by a man in furs, although on several occasions, Giovanni Belzoni, the ‘Patagonian Sampson’, chose to play Orson against a real bear. One night in Perth, Belzoni found his co-star in a particularly truculent mood during the death scene, biting and swiping and trying to get him into a potentially fatal clinch. Belzoni batted her off even as she was supposed to be dead. The result was booing and heckling from the Scottish audience, who berated him for his lack of respect and shouted, ‘Why don’t you gie your puir auld muther a wee kiss?’ Belzoni retired from the stage and went on to become the most important Egyptologist of the early nineteenth century, excavating six major tombs in the Valley of the Kings, and bequeathing the British Museum many of its finest archaeological treasures.
* Though it had been the practice to lay a green carpet for the final scene of a tragedy for many years, the origins of the custom are entirely unclear. It was practical inasmuch as it prevented those characters who were about to die from dirtying their costumes on the filthy boards, and was probably green because that was the colour most associated with the theatre with its green room, green curtain and green baize upholstery.
* The diary of James Winston, acting manager of Drury Lane from 1820–27, affords an acute sense of the degree to which pantomimes were constant works in progress. ‘Dec. 26th, 1820: … The pantomime failed principally for the want of tricks … Two and a quarter hours first night. Dec. 27th, 1820: Much altered – much hissed. Dec. 28th, 1820: Pantomime much curtailed – went better.’
8
THE FORTY VIRGINS
He that does any one thing better than all the rest of the world, is a genius. grimaldi has done this.
Oxberry’s Dramatic Biography (1825)
KEMBLE CALLED TIME ON the Covent Garden season on 23 June 1807, thanking the audience for the generous patronage that had seen Mother Goose play for ninety-two performances. It had not been an entirely uninterrupted run, as Harris, unable to believe his luck, had insisted they capitalise on their good fortune by bringing forth a piece that employed all the opulence they had previously spared. The result was, predictably, a disaster. Ogre and Little Thumb débuted at Easter, written by Joe’s schoolmate, Harris’s son, Henry. It was his first stab at pantomime and bore all the marks of someone trying too hard. No amount of spectacle and over-complicated scenery, which included a real waterfall dropping nine tuns of water a minute, and an army of ‘skipping children’, could make up for its dreadful plot, a story described as so ‘wretchedly managed’ that it ‘would disgrace a booth at Bartholomew Fair’. This was some criticism, given the general standards of the time, but it was, said The Times, a piece of ‘brilliant stupidity … the worst piece of mummery that has ever been privileged to disgrace a stage’. Fortunately, Grimaldi’s stock was bountifully high, and when he and his colleagues went straight into a revival of Mot
her Goose, it was embraced with a passion more ardent than before.
Over at Sadler’s Wells, it was a summer of great business, due largely to Charles Dibdin’s policy of giving the audience more of what they already liked. The hit of the season was an aquadrama called The Ocean Fiend, which featured an infant being hurled from a bridge, a daring rescue by a heroic Newfoundland dog, and the spectacular immolation of a palace augmented by a brand-new effect called ‘redfire’, a chemical compound that, when burnt, produced an intense crimson light that reflected thrillingly against the pool. Joe’s miraculous form also carried over from Covent Garden to Islington, even culminating in a bona fide miracle.
In July, another of Thomas Harris’s sons, George, captain of the Sir Francis Drake, had arrived in Plymouth after a long voyage and, paid up, he and his crew went straight to London in search of a good time. Their first stop was Sadler’s Wells, where they drank freely, ogled the water, and enjoyed London’s premier clown, appearing in a pantomime called Jan Ben Jan; or, Harlequin and the Forty Virgins, an Orientalist confection with scenes set in China, Persia, London and Margate. Though geographically baffling, the business was particularly good. Clown, carried in a box and supposedly dead, pinched swigs of wine from two unsuspecting porters who accused each other and angrily started to fight, before introducing a new comic song, ‘Don’t I Look Spruce on My Neddy?’, in which Joe lampooned the fashion for aristocratic jockeys while riding a charger fashioned from a bench, a broomstick and a donkey skull; and a half-sung, half-spoken ‘chaunt’ comparing the beasts of Pidcock’s menagerie to men of different professions.
The Pantomime Life of Joseph Grimaldi Page 19