Theatre
‘The prejudice against the theatre had been very great in Scotland, and still existed among the rigid Calvinists. One day, when I was fourteen or fifteen, ongoing into the drawing-room, an old man sitting beside my mother rose and kissed me, saying, "I am one of your mother's oldest friends." It was Home, the author of the tragedy of Douglas [a blank verse play]. He was obliged to resign his living in the kirk for the scandal of having had his play acted in the theatre in Edinburgh, and some of his clerical friends were publicly rebuked for going to see it. Our family was perfectly liberal in all these matters. The first time I had ever been in a theatre I went with my father to see Cymbeline. I had never neglected Shakespeare, and when our great tragedians, Mrs. Siddons and her brother, John Kemble, came for a short time to act in Edinburgh, I could think of nothing else. They were both remarkably handsome, and, notwithstanding the Scotch prejudice, the theatre was crowded every night.’ (Rob Roy at the Theatre Royal, Edinburgh)Mrs Siddons, whom Mary Fairfax refers to in this account of her contact with theatre, was the great actress, Sarah Siddons. One of her granddaughters, Harriet Siddons, lodged at Number 22. She was the widow of Major Henry Siddons, also a grandchild of the famous actress. Although Henry's grandparents, parents and uncle were all in the theatre, he chose a career in the army. Things might have been different though, for when his famous grandmother came to act in Corialanus in Edinburgh, she wanted to have young Henry and his two siblings come on stage, but their father would not consent.
While Major Henry Siddons rejected a career in the theatre, Dr Culverwell (photo) pined to act. He was a doctor based in Great Marlborough Street, London but travelled around the country. In 1867 and 1868, Culverwell held regular consultations at Number 16 where, for 10s 6d, he offered personal advice ‘upon all cases of nervous debility, involuntary blushing, palpitation, loss of memory, incapacity, spermatorrhoea, sterility, cauterisation and galvanism.’ He was also the author of Marriage, its obligations, happiness and disappointments. In the early 1860s, he served as a surgeon for the Union army in the American Civil War, and acted with little success in performances in New York and Washington, where he appeared on stage in Hamlet with the later assassin John Wilkes Booth playing the title role. Undaunted by his theatrical disappointments in America, Culverwell began performing in England with greater success. The agony uncle of Great Marlborough Street acted under the stage name of Charles Wyndham, and his connection with the medical world became limited to occasional fund-raising performances for hospitals. His theatrical career was so successful that he was able to buy a West End theatre, which he renamed Wyndham’s Theatre. In 1902 the theatrical doctor was knighted.
In 1875, Wybert Reeve (Number 3) came to Edinburgh to manage the newly opened Edinburgh Theatre, Winter Garden and Aquarium in Castle Terrace. (poster) Built in just three months, the new theatre could seat 2,300 people. Reeve also wrote plays, mainly farces, including Never Reckon your Chickens. The announcement of the opening of the Edinburgh Theatre promised a ‘Numerous and Talented Company. At Half-past Seven, the Entertainments will commence with God Save the Queen, sung by the Company. An Opening Address by Mr Wybert Reeve. To be followed by the Admired Comedy, Used Up, after which the Laughable Farce Last Legs. On Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday Shakespeare’s Beautiful Comedy As You Like It. N.B. Arrangements have been made to have Tramway Cars for Leith, Morningside and Newington, in waiting at North (Princes’ Street) end of Castle Terrace at the Close of the Performance each evening.’ Sadly the new venue was not a success, and within eighteen months the theatre closed.
A contemporary report from The Annals of the Edinburgh Stage implicated Reeve in the theatre’s failure: ‘The promoters of the Edinburgh Theatre were not the only people who looked forward with confidence to the financial success of the under-taking. If a magnificent building, handsome appointments, and the most elaborate machinery for working everything on the stage, could have made the scheme a success, the Edinburgh Theatre would probably have been still in existence. It was opened on December 20th 1875, under Wybert Reeve, whose management cannot be recorded as brilliant. Carl Rosa's Opera Company occupied the boards in February 1877 and a superb spectacle production of Henry V, but with Mrs Stirling’s last performance on Saturday in Masks and Faces, the history of this splendidly equipped theatre came to a close.’ Reeve left Edinburgh and Albany Street soon after the closure. However, this blip in his career did not set him back. He returned to performing, principally playing the charming Italian villain, Count Fosco, in Wilkie Collins’ own stage adaptation of The Woman In White; a role he performed more than 1,500 times in England, Canada, the USA and Australia. In the latter years, Reeve was manager of the Theatre Royal in Adelaide; one hopes with more success.
The renowned English actress, Helen Saville Faucit, Lady Martin, (Portrait by Wilhelm Lehmann – Royal Shakespeare Company collection) lodged at Number 42 as evidenced by a surviving letter she wrote from the address. The letter to the theatre manager, John Coleman, in response to a request for her to perform in Sheffield, is dated February, but without any year. However, in the letter the actress writes that as her engagements would keep her in Scotland for three weeks, travelling to Sheffield would be too far out of her way, and would 'prove tiresome & expensive'. This timing would fit with her time in Edinburgh in 1857, as in early March of that year she played Imogen in Shakespeare’s Cymbeline at the Theatre Royal. As the Theatre Royal was at the top of Broughton Street (photo below), lodging in Albany Street would have been convenient. Faucit’s performances as Imogen were extremely popular and it is clear that she was considered the draw as the Theatre Royal’s play-bill for the 1857 Cymbeline featured her name above the play title, and in a larger font, and included the popular actress’s name three times in the poster.
Playing alongside her in that same performance , in the role of Pisanio, was ‘a tall, thin, angular nervous-looking young man’ who had recently joined the company. However, his nervousness swiftly dissipated as he performed and on declaiming the lines, ‘Hence vile instrument; Thou shalt not damn my hand’, he
flung his sword with such power that the electrified audience burst into a round of applause. Faucit was impressed by the young actor and was helpful in his early career. The young actor’s name was Henry Irving and, forty years later, the now knighted, acclaimed actor created his own production of Cymbeline, with the celebrated actress, Helen Terry, performing alongside him.
Other actors and entertainers seeking ‘digs’ when performing in Edinburgh may well have been directed to Albany Street and, in particular, Mrs Jackson’s Lodging House (Number 35), for on both the days the 1871 and 1881 census records were taken, performers were lodging there. In 1881 it was Harry Hamilton. He was a member of a family that mounted spectacular Diorama shows, sometimes called ‘Excursions’: ‘Messrs. Hamilton beg to announce The Real and Only Hindoo Snake-Charmer in England, Mr. Ghessa, from Lucknow, will appear with his Live Cobra Snakes, and also give his Wonderful Indian Illusions. The Russian Skaters will appear at every representation.’ The newspaper’s reviewer enjoyed the spectacular entertainment: ‘Messrs Hamilton’s new “excursion” includes pictorial representations of incidents in the late Russo-Turkish war, and sketches of places and people connected with the campaign. Glimpses of Cyprus being pleasingly dove-tailed between the battle-fields of the Balkans and Asia Minor. Among the more interesting features of the diorama are the blowing up of a Turkish iron-clad, the storming of a Moslem chapel in Constantinople, with fine illuminated effect, and a number of scenes at railway stations. In the Russian Fair some diverting incidents were introduced, not forgetting our old friend Punch and Judy whose antics greatly delighted the children. A very happily conceived scene is that representative of the rejoicing in London on the occasion of the Royal procession in connection with the recovery of the Prince of Wales.…Mr Charles Serrone gives a perspicuous account of the various places visited and last night also sang several ballads with good effect. In a word, we found the new “excursion” every way worthy of commendation.’
Ten years earlier Mrs Jackson’s lodgers from the world of entertainment were Alfred Howard, an actor, and his young daughter, Lydia, better known as ‘The Fairy Actress’. Alfred had been presenting Lydia on stage from the age of three. The review of the Edinburgh show was glowing: ‘This gifted little actress, now only six years of age, took her audience quite by surprise; everyone seemed astounded at the juvenile end blooming appearance of their little entertainer. A Lilliputian figure and childish face -the personification of simplicity - a light and airy carriage, free from constraint or affectation, and an arch smile playing over her plump, rosy face, at once gained for her the sympathies of all present, who received her with a burst of honest enthusiasm. Supported by Mr. Alfred Howard and Miss Kathleen Power, the entertainment commenced with a representation of Little Red Riding Hood, in which, of course, Miss Howard sustained the part of the heroine, and the perfectly natural and graceful manner in which she portrayed the character, excited the heartiest applause. In all her other representations she was equally successful, especially in her rendering of the characters of the Leading Lady in a laughable sketch of that title, Tom Tuff. Her recitals of Longfellow's Excelsior and Psalm of Life were also exceedingly beautiful, and as she performs on Monday and Tuesday evenings next, we should advise all to attend the entertainments of this extraordinary little "wonder."’