Long before Miss Farren, afterwards Countess of Derby (died April 21,
1829), first charmed a London audience, we hear of her in 1772 at
Wakefield in one of her first parts--if not her first--that of
Columbine. She could both sing well and dance gracefully. One of the
earliest "parts" that even the great Mrs. Siddons (that afterwards was),
when a young girl, played, was in connection with Pantomime, as Combes
remembered to have seen her "Standing by the side of her father's stage,
and knocking a pair of snuffers against a candle-stick to imitate the
sound of a wind-mill, during the representation of some Harlequinade."
In days gone by Madame Leclerq, Carlotta Leclerq, Charles Kean's
Columbine in the seasons of 1850-1-2, E. Dennett, Emma Boleno, died
October 18th, 1867, aged 35; Marie Charles, who died from an accident by
fire, Pavilion Theatre, January 21, 1864, and others have won
considerable fame in the part of Columbine.
Amongst those who have played Harlequin in days gone by, have been the
elder Kean, and the well-known actor, Mr. Wilson Barrett, who, early in
his career, played this part for an extra two shillings and sixpence
"thrown in," to augment his then weekly salary of seventeen shillings
and sixpence; whilst Sir Henry Irving tells us that he also has appeared
in Pantomime, in the character of a wicked fairy, named Venoma, in days
since past, for a small monetary emolument.
CHAPTER XIX.
Popular Pantomime subjects--Poor Pantomime Librettos--Pantomime subjects
of our progenitors--The various versions of "Aladdin"--"The Babes in the
Wood"--"Blue Beard"--"Beauty and the Beast"--"Cinderella"--"Dick
Whittington"--"The House that Jack Built"--"Jack the Giant
Killer"--"Jack and the Beanstalk"--"Red Riding Hood"--"The Sleeping
Beauty in the Wood"--Unlucky subjects--"Ali Baba and the Forty
Thieves"--"The Fair One with Golden Locks"--The source of "Sindbad the
Sailor" and "Robinson Crusoe."
It may be of interest in this History of Pantomime to note the origin of
some of our most popular present day Pantomime subjects, besides showing
many of our present day Pantomime libretto writers that in such
well-known themes as "Aladdin," "Cinderella," and others, there is no
need to cast their stories pretty much in the same groove, year after
year, when by drawing on the fairy-lore of the East much that is new and
original, for present-day English Pantomimes, is waiting the attention
of their skill and ingenuity.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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