A Book of Burlesque: Sketches of English Stage Travestie and ParodyAdams, William Davenport
History
A Book of Burlesque: Sketches of English Stage Travestie and Parody
Adams, William Davenport
Burlesque (Literature); English literature -- History and criticism; Parody
On the whole, the days between 1831 and 1885 were, for burlesque,
"palmy" days indeed. They produced not only many admirable writers of
the _genre_, but many admirable actors thereof. Planché was generous
in his praise of the artists who helped so greatly to make his pieces
"go"; and he did well to be so, for never, I suppose, was a comic
writer so fortunate in his interpreters. During his first years at the
Olympic he had the aid of the incomparable Vestris, of Rebecca Isaacs,
of Miss Murray, of Mrs. Macnamara, of Mrs. Honey, of John Brougham,
of James Bland, of James Vining, and of Charles James Mathews,--all
in the first rank of their art. At Covent Garden, from 1840 to 1843,
the company included, at different times, not only Mme. Vestris, Mrs.
Macnamara, Brougham, Bland, and Vining, but Harley, Wm. Harrison,
Morris Barnett, Selby, Miss Fairbrother, Miss Priscilla Horton, Mrs. C.
Jones, and Mrs. Alfred Wigan. At the Haymarket, during the three years
following, Planché had his ideas carried out, not only by Bland and
Miss Horton, and during one year by Mme. Vestris and Charles Mathews,
but also by Caulfield, Widdicomb, Tilbury, Brindal, Braid, Julia
Bennett, Miss Reynolds, and Mrs. L. S. Buckingham. Continuously lucky
in this respect, Planché enjoyed--from 1847 to 1853, at the Lyceum--the
services of Miss Fitzwilliam, Julia St. George, Miss Oliver, John
Reeve, Robert Roxby, Basil Baker, and Mr. and Mrs. Frank Matthews, in
addition to Vestris and Mathews and many others of the artists named
above. Finally, and best, when Planché brought out, at the Olympic, his
"Yellow Dwarf," his "Discreet Princess," and his "Young and Handsome,"
his chief comedian was the "great little Robson," the fame of whose
tragi-comic outbursts still lingers among us, and who had for his
successive supporters Horace Wigan, Emery, James Rogers, Julia St.
George, Miss Maskell (Mrs. Walter Baynham), and Miss Swanborough.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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