The Pantomime Life of Joseph Grimaldi

by McConnell Scott, Andrew

  73 ‘the most abject servility’: Dibdin, Memoirs, p. 41; Arundell, Sadler’s Wells, p. 77.

  74 ‘St. James’s Square’: The Times, 28 June 1793.

  74 armoury of fearsome weapons: Dibdin, Memoirs, p. 43.

  75 capacity of almost four thousand: The actual seating capacity of the 1794 Drury Lane is only ever an estimated figure. Mine is based on the 3,919 cited in Sheppard, Survey of London, p. 52.

  75 anticipation and intimacy: Boswell, London Journal, pp. 256–7.

  75 ‘vast void … a wilderness of a place’: Torrington, quoted in Hogan, London Stage, pp. xliv-xlv; Siddons, quoted in Joseph Donohue, Theatre in the Age of Kean (Oxford: Blackwell, 1975), p. 18. One observer complained in 1810, ‘Not a feature of the face can be distinguished, far less the variations and flexibility of the muscles, the turn of the eye and graceful action.’ Donohue, p. 19.

  76 ‘loud explosions’: John Philip Kemble, Lodoiska: An Opera in Three Acts (London: n.d. [1794]), p. 56.

  76 impromptu stunt: See Paul Ranger, ‘Terror and Pity Reign in Every Breast’: Gothic Drama in the London Patent Theatres, 1750–1820 (London: Society for Theatre Research, 1991), pp. 46–9.

  76 feed this grandiosity: In his Memoirs, John Bannister wrote that Drury Lane ‘was now become a sort of political, financial association. Large debts were contracted secured by renters’ shares, with nightly payments and free admissions: the practice soon arose of engaging greater companies in every department of the drama than could possibly be brought into action in any one night of performance; and often players, who were not wanted, were retained, that they might not increase the size of the rival establishment. All this had more the air of pushing a trade than promoting a liberal art, and the high estimation of theatres diminished in consequence.’ John Adolphus, Memoirs of John Bannister, Comedian, 2 vols (London: Richard Bentley, 1839), vol. 1, p. 331.

  77 still earning less: See Findlater, Joe Grimaldi, p. 67.

  The Flying World

  80 sodomy: Together, Dibdin and Bickerstaffe had written one enormously successful opera, The Padlock (1768), in which Dibdin had also starred as Mungo the comic African servant. The part, with its popular catchphrase ‘Mungo here, Mungo dere’, is notable for being the first comic blackface role in history and therefore a direct antecedent to later racist minstrelsy.

  80 ‘should not know him’: Holcroft, Life, vol. 2, p. 238.

  80 a move that greatly angered his father: See Dibdin, Reminiscences, vol. 1, pp. 10–12.

  80 ‘Write to Tom Dibdin’: Dibdin, Reminiscences, vol. 1, p. 311.

  80 ‘the triplicate horrors’: Dibdin, Reminiscences, vol. 1, p. 134.

  81 John Street Theatre: Disher, Clowns and Pantomimes, p. 94.

  81 ‘Every ill my thoughts employ’: Disher, Clowns and Pantomimes, p. 93.

  82 ‘heart and soul’: Leigh Hunt, Leigh Hunt’s Dramatic Criticism, 1808–1831, ed. Lawrence Hutson Houtchens and Carolyn Washburn Houtchens (New York: Columbia University Press, 1949), p. 88.

  83 ‘ate little, drank little, slept less’: Dickens, Memoirs, p. 55.

  84 The table was carrying sixteen men: Dickens, Memoirs, p. 59. See classified advertising for Sadler’s Wells in The Times, 5 May 1796. Arundell (Sadler’s Wells, p. 55) names one of the Sicilian strongmen as ‘Signor Saccardi’ although it is also possible that the performer was the ‘French Hercules’ of Sadler’s Wells, mentioned by Henry Angelo in his Reminiscences (vol. II, p. 8): ‘Lying upon his back, with his legs and arms he raised from the ground, and supported for half a minute, sixteen moderate-sized men, who were standing upon a long table.’

  85 tendency to mix up his words: Findlater, Joe Grimaldi, p. 174, records several examples of Joe’s malapropisms.

  86 the natural choice to succeed: English Stage, vol. 3, pt 5, Drury Lane, 11 November 1796.

  87 starting to look fat: BDA, vol. 2, p. 195.

  89 ‘a conjuror’s study’: Richard Wheeler’s Memoir from the Clerkenwell Workhouse, Percival, vol. 4, p. 191.

  89 ‘hated Grimaldi’: Dickens, Memoirs, p. 80.

  91 ‘come and welcome him’: Dickens, Memoirs, p. 87.

  91 ‘winning the affections of a young lady’: Dickens, Memoirs, p. 91.

  92 ‘a pretty young wife’: Dickens, Memoirs, p. 110.

  92 ‘merry as a marriage bell’: Dickens, Memoirs, p. 104.

  93 ‘buy anything’: Dibdin, Memoirs, p. 17.

  93 ‘the Astleyian fancy’: Dibdin, Memoirs, p. 18.

  93 ‘never let ’m have anything to eat’: Alfred Bunn, The Stage: Both Before and Behind the Curtain, from Observations Taken on the Spot, 3 vols (London: Bentley, 1840), vol. 1, p. 59; Dibdin, Memoirs, p. 20.

  93 Astley was immovable: Dibdin, Memoirs, p. 20.

  94 stayed for the next nineteen and a half years: Dibdin, Memoirs, p. 21.

  94 pulled him aside: Dibdin, Memoirs, p. 43.

  94 ‘peculiar whimsicality’: Dibdin, Memoirs, p. 43.

  94 ‘majestic strength’: The Times, 2 August 1799.

  94 performing academy for children: BDA, vol. 4, p. 484.

  95 doubts about Charles: BDA, vol. 4, p. 482. Charles Dubois’s first appearance at Sadler’s Wells was in Meadea’s Kettle on 9 April 1792. My assertion that he was around eleven or twelve in 1800 is based on the conjecture that he made his début between the ages of three and four, as was the course for theatrical progeny.

  95 ‘more extravagant than it had been the custom’: Dibdin, Memoirs, p. 48.

  96 ‘Come, ladies’: Dibdin, Memoirs, p. 65.

  96 tax on wig powder: George Rudé, Hanoverian London, 1714–1808 (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1971), pp. 236–7.

  97 ‘musical bagatelle’: The Times, 21 April 1800.

  97 London’s premier clown: The Times, 14 April 1800.

  97 ‘I’ll be damned if you do!’: Arundell, Sadler’s Wells, p. 62.

  97 suggestive looks: The Times, 21 April 1800.

  98 ‘magic, quickness and variety’: Disher, Clowns and Pantomimes, p. 97.

  98 ‘a Taylor’s box’: The Times, 21 April 1800.

  98 ‘dealing with the Devil’: The Times, 26 April 1800.

  99 elbows jammed: Dibdin, Memoirs, p. 44.

  99 ‘Nobility of the first rank’: The Times, 5 May 1800. The bill, continued the correspondent, proves ‘that after all, the priority of existence, and elegance of plan in amusements over other similar Theatres, will always give Sadler’s Wells the decided preference in point of respectability; particularly when exertions like those which have been made this season are set on foot for the reception of the public ever mindful of those who study its satisfaction’.

  99 the clown fraternity: BDA, vol. 6, p. 408.

  99 apprentices of the Signor: See Disher, Clowns and Pantomimes, p. 90.

  100 hungry to acclaim raw and unaffected talents: The greatest beneficiary of this urge was Edmund Kean, lauded as a force of nature when contrasted with Kemble’s stiff, declamatory style. Jacky Bratton has called this phenomenon, first noted in Georgian theatre, ‘the “natural” newcomer who suddenly exposes the theatrical establishment as stylised and old-fashioned’. Jacky Bratton, ‘The Celebrity of Edmund Kean: An Institutional Story’, in Jane Moody and Mary Luckhurst (eds), Theatre and Celebrity in Britain, 1660–2000 (Basingstoke: Palgrave, 2005), pp. 90–106, p. 90.

  100 ‘as Clown and singer of Clown’s Songs’: Dibdin, Memoirs, p. 41.

  101 Childbirth had claimed another victim: See Lawrence Stone, The Family, Sex and Marriage in England, 1500–1800 (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1979), p. 64.

  101 ‘poor Joe’: Dickens, Memoirs, p. 111.

  The Magic of Mona

  105 Coldbath gaol was: among the first London prisons to be reformed, and its governors had introduced the mindless turning of the waterwheel ‘to restore temperance and cleanliness, and to mend the morals of the profligate by restraining vicious intercourse’. Rudolph Ackermann, William Combe, W. H. Pyne, Augustus Pugin and
Thomas Rowlandson, The Microcosm of London; or, London in Miniature, 2 vols (London: Methuen, 1904), vol. 1, p. 127.

  107 ‘interminable confinement’: Dickens, Memoirs, p. 126.

  107 ‘silly’: bda, vol. 2, p. 458.

  107 a familiar face: Byrne appears to have been paid the respectable salary of ten pounds a week. BDA, vol. 2, p. 458.

  107 ‘a large vessel’: Adolphus, Memoirs of John Bannister, vol. 1, pp. 257–8.

  108 a freer and more balletic approach: Beaumont, History of Harlequin, p. 110.

  108 fifty thousand spangles: Thelma Niklaus, Harlequin; or, the Rise and Fall of a Bergamask Rogue (New York: George Braziller, 1956), p. 157.

  1o8 dandified masculinity: On classical form in men’s fashions of the 1790s, see Kelly, Beau Brummell, pp. 100–7.

  109 ‘big head’ Punch: Punch wore ‘a large and heavy hump on his chest, and … on his back; a high sugar-loaf cap, a long-nosed mask, and heavy wooden shoes’. Dickens, Memoirs, p. 118. Sheridan particularly appreciated his early scenes, offering the punning compliment, ‘Your punch was so good, I have lost all spirit for the pantomime.’

  109 delivered Joe as their champion: One theatrical correspondent described it thus: ‘In consequence of a dispute, as serious as most of those from which our modern Duels originate, viz. which could make the ugliest face! which, after many vain appeals to the company present, ended in a mutual exchange of cards (another prevailing puppyism), and the meeting alluded to in consequence took place; but so completely had the circumstance been circulated as to become generally known; and, however the Gentlemen might have calculated upon privacy, notwithstanding the lateness of the hour, several hundreds of spectators were witness to the important contest, which ended in a mere jack boot business, creating the most convulsive effects of laughter. We suppose our readers smoke us by the time, and readily see that we allude to the very fine satire upon modern duelling, so well executed by Messrs. Dubois and Grimaldi, in the very entertaining Harlequinade of The Philosopher’s Stone, by Mr. C. Dibdin, jun, at Sadler’s Wells.’ Percival, vol. 3, f. 89.

  110 ‘grew discontented’: Dibdin, Memoirs, p. 45.

  110 transformed the art of clowning: See Moody, Illegitimate Theatre, p. 212.

  110 ‘shone with diminished rays’: Dibdin, Memoirs, p. 45.

  111 owed thirteen hundred pounds: Tomalin, Mrs. Jordan’s Profession, pp. 210–11; Kelly, Kemble Era, p. 62. Drury Lane salary and provincial tours meant that in the season 1799–1800, Kemble made a profit of £1,112 (DNB).

  111 ruthless economising: Thomas Dibdin described her speech as ‘idiomatic of Peckham-fair’. Dibdin, Reminiscences, vol. 1, p. 227.

  112 ‘Bonny Long’: Though Memoirs refer to Mrs Baker’s prompter as ‘Bony Long’, Dibdin’s Reminiscences has him as ‘Bonny Long’, a title that has more likelihood of being accurate, as Long was reputedly fat, and Dibdin was personally acquainted with the man in question, whereas Dickens was not.

  112 ‘no thumbs’: Dibdin, Reminiscences, vol. 1, p. 98.

  112 ‘In gratitude for her kindness’: Dickens, Memoirs, p. 127.

  114 William Powell: Dickens, Memoirs, p. 125.

  114 travelling to the Continent: Kemble had only resumed management on the understanding that he would buy a share in the theatre and become part-proprietor. But after his lawyer had examined the documents pertaining to Sheridan’s purchase of the theatre and declared that Sheridan’s ownership couldn’t be ascertained for certain, he gave up the idea.

  114 the Signor had kicked a man in the face: ‘We recollect the father of the old Grimaldi, the clown, having been had up to Bow-Street for kicking a gentleman in the street on the chin.’ Morning Chronicle, 22 August 1826.

  115 a sustained conspiracy against him: Of Joe’s persecution complex, Miles wrote that, ‘unmerited injury seemed ever-present to his imagination; and this medium magnified the animosity which he supposed the other party to bear towards him, until it positively absorbed every other idea, and every action of the party was attributed to this never-dying hate’. Miles, Grimaldi, p. 176.

  115 more than he was getting from Kemble: In the 1801–2 season, Kemble was paying Joe £4 a week. He himself drew a salary of £56. Boaden, Life of J. P. Kemble, p. 458.

  115 ‘most antique theatre in London’: Dibdin, Memoirs, p. 47.

  115 ‘penurious manner’: Dibdin, Memoirs, p. 47.

  115 enlarged pit and gallery: Arundell, Sadler’s Wells, p. 64.

  116 ‘stood unrivalled’: Morning Chronicle, 31 August 1802.

  116 ‘truly affecting’: The Times, 21 August 1802.

  116 pony races: Dibdin may well have taken the idea from Dublin’s Theatre Royal, Crow Street, where a similar thing had been tried at the end of the eighteenth century. See Iain Mackintosh, The Georgian Playhouse: Actors, Artists, Audiences and Architecture, 1730–1830, Hayward Gallery Exhibition Catalogue (London: Arts Council of Great Britain, 1975), item 308.

  117 ‘a rustic booby’: Dibdin, Memoirs, pp. 47–8.

  117 ‘lubberly loutish boy’: Halliday, Comical Fellows, p. 35.

  118 ‘a whole pantomime in itself’: London Magazine, 1823, Islington Local History Centre.

  118 ‘a thousand odd twitches’: Findlater, Joe Grimaldi, p. 199.

  119 ‘clown atrocity … New School’: Miles, Grimaldi, p. 193; Dibdin, Memoirs, p. 47.

  119 There were influences: See also Moody, Illegitimate Theatre, p. 214.

  119–20 ‘a grown child’: Oxberry (eds), ‘Memoir of Joseph Grimaldi’, p. 119.

  120 ‘mincing affectation’: Oxberry, (eds), ‘Memoir of Joseph Grimaldi’, p. 119.

  121 a stable of boxers: English Stage, 20 December 1788, vol. 2, pt 5, p. 1120.

  121 if it was to end by midnight: Richard Ryan, Dramatic Table Talk; or, Scenes, Situations and Adventures, Serious and Comic, in Theatrical History and Biography, 2 vols (London, 1835), vol. 1, pp. 19–20.

  121 it was impossible: The exact date of this episode remains mysterious, as the Memoirs place it after his marriage to Mary Bristow and the second trip to Mrs Baker’s (December 1801, and March 1802, respectively). The bills show that Blue-Beard was performed only twice in the 1802–3 season, on 28 May and 10 June. Its last performance in the 1801–2 season was 26 November. Similarly, Kemble had left Drury Lane for the Continent in July 1802, and could not therefore have been present at Joe’s reinstatement the morning after the furore. To further muddy the waters, Blue-Beard was billed for 22 September 1801, which would allow for Kemble’s presence, but would provide alternative problems of chronology. This entire episode marks a point of some confusion in both the Memoirs (unsurprisingly), and Findlater’s Joe Grimaldi.

  124 ‘a liberal and magnificent scale’: Dibdin, Memoirs, p. 54.

  125 ‘Corsican usurper’: See Stuart Semmel, Napoleon and the British (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2004), pp. 38–71.

  125 ‘a nation of arms’: Angelo, Reminiscences, vol. 2, p. 404.

  125 342,000 men across Britain: Robert Harvey, The War of Wars: The Great European Conflict, 1793–1815 (New York: Carroll and Graf, 2006), p. 354.

  125 John Barber Beaumont: Angelo, Reminiscences, vol. 2, p. 407. Theatrical volunteers also included George Cooke and Charles Incledon.

  126 ‘theatres … prosper most during War’: Dibdin, Memoirs, p. 119.

  127 ‘of gentlemanly appearance’: The account of John Grimaldi’s unexplained disappearance from Drury Lane in November 1803 can be found in Dickens, Memoirs, pp. 132–41.

  130 fn. the end of John Grimaldi’s story: See World, 30 November 1877, p. 1, and 1 December 1877, p. 5. An even more garbled version of this story appears in The Times, 24 December 1877.

  The Spirit of the Waters

  131 Lord Nelson: For Nelson’s celebrity, see Kathleen Wilson, ‘Nelson and the People: Manliness, Patriotism and Body Politics’, in David Cannadine (ed.), Admiral Lord Nelson: Context and Legacy (Basingstoke: Palgrave, 2005), pp. 49–66.

  132 Napo
leon supposedly credited them: Anita Louise Press, ‘Sadler’s Wells Theatre Under Charles Dibdin the Younger from 1800-1819: When Britannia Ruled the Stage’, unpublished doctoral dissertation (University of Toronto, 1994), p. 207.

  132 decorated for patriotism: Press, ‘Sadler’s Wells’, p. 209.

  132 Carlo the Wonder Dog: Reynolds, Life, vol. 2, p. 351.

  133 ‘a pair of Tongs’: Dibdin, Memoirs, p. 99.

  133 ‘baiting with a whale’: Dibdin, Memoirs, p. 60.

  134 ‘and sit so for an hour or two’: Dibdin, Memoirs, p. 80.

  134 ‘a pause of breathless wonder’: Dibdin, Memoirs, p. 62.

  134 ‘in an extacy’: Dibdin, Memoirs, p. 62.

  135 ‘the most novel, imposing and nationally interesting Exhibitions’: Dibdin, Memoirs, p. 62.

  135 Archimedes’ pump: The proprietors eventually arranged with the New River Company to provide water direct from the mains for an annual fee of twenty pounds. See Dibdin, Memoirs, p. 63.

  135 ‘heat of Bengal’: Boyd Alexander (ed. and trans.), Life at Fonthill, 1807–1822: From the Correspondence of William Beckford (Stroud: Nonsuch, 2006), p. 247.

  135 allowed to stand: Richard Wheeler’s Memoir from the Clerkenwell workhouse, Percival, vol. 4, f. 186.

  136 ‘Patagonian Sampson’: The accuracy of this event may be called into question. Press, ‘Sadler’s Wells’, p. 229, suggests it happened during the years of the Aquatic theatre, while Stanley Mayes (The Great Belzoni: The Circus Strongman Who Discovered Egypt’s Treasures [London: Tauris Parke, 2003]), p. 44, asserts that as Belzoni did not appear at the Wells after 1803, the water alluded to must have been the chalybeate springs beneath the stage. It seems unlikely, however, that he could have fallen that far (and that accurately) without more serious injury to himself and his load.

  136 Betty’s infatuation: The Times, 2 May 1805.

  137 tickets sold out in seven minutes: The Times, 3 December 1804.

  137 ‘drowned by the shrieks’: The Times, 3 December 1804.

  137–8 People fainted: James Boaden, The Life of Mrs. Jordan, Including Original Private Correspondence and Numerous Anecdotes of Her Contemporaries, 2 vols (London: Edward Bull, 1831), vol. 2, p. 170. A thorough description of the opening night can be found on pp. 168–75.