Consuming Passions: Leisure and Pleasure in Victorian Britain (47 page)

All these things made theatres more comfortable, as well as easier to get to, and theatres in the West End and the provinces were attended by the most respectably bourgeois in the land (apart from an evangelical minority). Queen Victoria adored the theatre: in 1838 alone she went to Covent Garden for Bulwer-Lytton’s
The Lady of Lyons
, James Kenny’s farce
The Irish Ambassador
, and another farce,
The Omnibus
, by Isaac
Pocock, as well as his melodrama
Rob Roy McGregor
; she also attended a pantomime and the opera there (but didn’t trouble to write down the titles of the shows she saw). At Drury Lane that year she saw
Harlequin and Jack Frost
, plus a ‘lion drama’,
The Lions of Mysore
(see below).
³⁸
Apart from the lack of Shakespeare, it was a fairly standard - and wide - range: farce, pantomime, melodrama, drama and animal shows.

Pantomime was a new genre, having developed only in the eighteenth century, and its novelty encompassed its spectacular form, the use of new technology to achieve it, and also the length of its run. By the middle of the nineteenth century, pantomime took up an ever larger proportion of many theatres’ calendars: the investment in the spectacle was huge, and the audience to witness it equally huge. In Leeds in 1885 the Grand Theatre made an annual profit of £2,067, of which £1,766, or 85 per cent, came from its ten-and-a-half-week run of
Sinbad the Sailor
, which was popular with the Leeds audiences, and further drew in nearly a quarter of a million visitors from the surrounding regions, who arrived in specially organized excursion trains. Many other theatres devoted similar periods of time to such lucrative business. As Charles Kean said pragmatically, ‘There is a certain sum to be got in a certain time…The case reduces itself to a matter of arithmetic. So many holiday visitors for a given number of weeks, give so much and no more.’
³⁹

On its first appearance pantomime was not considered to be primarily for children. It was Joseph Grimaldi, almost single-handedly, who took the genre to the forefront of theatrical entertainment. It had already been popular; now it was fashionable. Grimaldi had been born into the trade: his grandfather (nicknamed ‘Iron Legs’ Grimaldi) had been a pantomime performer, as had his father; Grimaldi made his first appearance, aged three or four, as an ‘Evil’ that popped out of Pandora’s box in a 1781 pantomime of the same name. His great achievements were first at Sadler’s Wells and then at Covent Garden, where he transformed the role of the Clown from a rustic booby into a mischievous, vengeful sprite, gleefully spreading havoc as he lightly danced his way through the evening.

At the beginning of the century, pantomime appeared at four set times in the year: from Christmas Day to mid-February, at Easter, in early July, and from the Lord Mayor’s Show in November for a few weeks. (Provincial theatres also used this November date, even without the street pageant.) Gradually, the dates began to spread, with the weeks
after the Lord Mayor’s Show trickling on until they met the performances that started on Christmas Day. The original form developed too over the same period.

At the beginning of the century the formula was fairly rigid: there were a couple of scenes where a standard fairy-tale story was set up, usually involving a wicked father refusing his daughter’s wish to marry. These straightforwardly dramatic scenes, told in verse, ended with a spirit of some sort descending and turning the lovers into Harlequin and Columbine, and the father and his approved suitor (or perhaps his servant) into Pantaloon and the Clown (always Grimaldi’s role). A harlequinade followed, taking up the rest of the performance, as Pantaloon and the Clown chased Harlequin and Columbine through a variety of settings, which ranged from the purely imaginative to scenes of contemporary life with satirical or political undertones. In the last scene the spirit descended once more and blessed the happy couple, and a rousing finale finished off the evening.

By the 1830s the harlequinade began to atrophy, and the earlier scenes, inflated into major spectacles, took over, followed by a transformation scene that could last up to half an hour. These early scenes used stock fairy-tale characters - Cinderella, the Babes in the Wood, Dick Whittington - and set them in an imaginary fairy realm.
*
In 1827 Prince
Pückler-Muskau went to see
Mother Goose
, and described it in some detail:

At the rising of the curtain a thick mist covers the stage and gradually rolls off. This is remarkably well managed by means of fine gauze. In the dim light you distinguish a little cottage, the dwelling of a sorceress; in the background a lake surrounded by mountains, some of whose peaks are clothed with snow. All as yet is misty and indistinct; - the sun then rises triumphantly, chases the morning dews, and the hut, with the village in the distance, now appears in perfect outline. And now you behold upon the roof a large cock, who flaps his wings, plumes himself, stretches his neck, and greets the sun with several very natural Kikerikis. A magpie near him begins to chatter and to strut about, and to peck at a gigantic tom-cat…this tom-cat is acted with great ‘virtuosité’ by an actor who is afterwards transformed into harlequin…Meanwhile the door opens, and Mother Skipton [Shipton], a frightful old witch, enters with a son very like herself. The household animals, to whom is added an enormous duck, pay their morning court to the best of their ability. But the witch is in a bad humour, utters a curse upon them all, and changes them upon the spot into persons of the Italian commedia dell’arte, Pantaloon, Harlequin, Columbine and the rest, who then persecute each other without rest, till at last the most cunning conquers.

In the next scene we are transported to a village street, the centre of which is occupied by a tailor’s workshop. In the open front of this sit several apprentices stitching industriously. A gigantic pair of shears is fastened above the lintel as a shop sign. Harlequin races in and, with a gigantic spring and a somersault, crashes through the first-floor window. Pantaloon and his friends now rush in in pursuit, gesticulating to each other, and one of them points to the broken window. Pantaloon enters the shop but, as he is rushing up the stairs, Harlequin emerges from the chimney and escapes over the rooftops. Pantaloon then enters the upper room, puts his head out through the broken window and turns this way and that in search of Harlequin; unfortunately at that moment the great blades of the shears close and cut his head off. Not in the least discouraged, Pantaloon withdraws from the window, comes downstairs and begins to look about the street for his head. At this moment a poodle comes on, sees the head and runs off with it, with Pantaloon in hot pursuit. Before Pantaloon gets off the stage, he is met by
Harlequin who is now disguised as a doctor. He explains his plight (by gestures), and Harlequin takes from his pocket a jar of ointment with which he rubs the stump of Pantaloon’s neck. This causes the head to reappear out of the neck. Pantaloon recognizes Harlequin and sets off after him. His followers cannon into each other and fall on top of one another on their way off the stage…

The scene now changes to the path, which winds up a mountain-side towards a lofty castle in perfect perspective scale, so that everyone who is climbing up it diminishes in size proportionately. Gradually they all disappear, and finally [a] colossal pie, which is being carried by [an] assistant, goes down like the setting moon.

We now find ourselves in the great hall of the castle, which belongs to a beneficent magician who banishes Mother Shipton and her son to the centre of the earth and restores all the characters to their proper human form. Harlequin is recognized as the rightful prince and marries Columbine.

Clouds now cover the stage, and from the midst of them rises a balloon in which there is a pretty little boy. This ascends to the roof of the theatre and, as it is circling round the chandelier, the whole stage scene disappears through the floor and stars shine through the clouds - a very pretty illusion. The balloon now descends, the earthly scene rises again, and the whole spectacle ends with tightrope artists and acrobats.
⁴¹

The harlequinade still survived in Pückler-Muskau’s account, but within four years it would be banished almost entirely. By then many of the pantomimes had ceased to be pantomimes, even in name, and had become simply extravaganzas. The hero of the extravaganza was James Robinson Planché (1796-1880), a descendant of Huguenot refugees. His first play, ‘a Serio-Comick, Bombastick, Operatick Interlude’, had been staged at Drury Lane in 1818, but it was in 1831, with his
Olympic Revels, or, Prometheus and Pandora
, the opening production at Mme Vestris’s Olympic Theatre, that he created a new genre.
Olympic Revels
was the first of thirty-six pieces he was to write in the next seven years (his total output numbered at least 180, and included the libretto for Weber’s opera
Oberon
). Its tone can be judged from the opening scene. Jupiter, Neptune, Hercules and Plutus, the god of wealth, are playing whist, but Jupiter has lost his temper over their chattering and refuses to play any more:

A summary of Planché’s
The Island of Jewels
(1849) can stand as representative of the type of production that was to prove so popular. Princess Laidronetta is rejected by her family because she is saddled with the curse of ugliness by the malevolent Fairy Magotine. When a green serpent begs her for help, she is magically transported by a fairy boat to a rocky cavern with her friend Fidelia (played by Mme Vestris). The cavern is then transformed into a palace made of jewels, and jewel soldiers appear bearing Emerald inside a litter. From inside, Emerald asks Laidronetta to marry him, warning her that she must not look at him before the wedding in order to break Magotine’s spells over them both. She agrees, and a ‘crystal proscenium’ appears for the ballet of Cupid and Psyche. But, as in all the best fairy tales, Laidronetta succumbs to temptation and takes a peek at Emerald, who, she discovers to her horror, is the green serpent. The entire set vanishes in a violent storm, out of which Magotine appears, to take Laidronetta prisoner for seven years. After much backing and forthing over a series of impossible tasks, the good fairy Benevolentia finally appears, helps Laidronetta perform the tasks, and transforms Emerald back into the prince he had been before Magotine cast her evil spell. The scene is equally transformed, to a Fairy Garden, where Emerald is once again surrounded by his court. Magotine is banished to hell, Laidronetta’s family are remorseful (especially as she is no longer ugly), and the great transformation scene, ‘The Brilliant Discovery of the Crown Jewels in the Palm of Success’, takes place. All this is interspersed with songs, dances, jokes about current concerns, including the ‘Railway King’ and card sharps, and sideswipes at other plays being performed in London.
⁴³

It is scarcely surprising from the above two long descriptions that when David Copperfield first went to the theatre, a pantomime at Covent Garden, he came away overwhelmed by the ‘mingled reality and mystery
of the whole show, the influence upon me of the poetry, the lights, the music, the company, the smooth stupendous changes of glittering and brilliant scenery, [which] were so dazzling, and opened up such illimitable regions of delight, that when I came out into the rainy street, at twelve o’clock at night, I felt as if I had come from the clouds’.
⁴⁴
This ‘glittering and brilliant scenery’ that Dickens wrote so feelingly about had long been overseen by artists of some substantial reputation, such as David Roberts and Clarkson Stanfield, or was the work of theatrical set-painting dynasties like the Grieve family, who designed for Charles Kemble, Charles Kean, W. C. Macready, Grimaldi, Mme Vestris and more, over careers that spanned many of the innovations of the nineteenth century.
⁴⁵

For new technology was changing the appearance of the theatrical flat, making stage design one of the most quickly evolving developments in theatre. The magic lantern had been in use in the theatre since the beginning of the century, but until the 1830s the oil lamps produced only a weakish light, and it was hard to create images that could be seen clearly, with enough definition, at a distance. On p. 255 we saw how Kean had used de Loutherbourg’s innovations to create light-enhanced scenes in his
King Lear
in 1820. By 1827, images as well as colour were being used: a production of
The Flying Dutchman
had managed to focus the lights sharply enough that a ‘ship’ could be projected successfully. But it was limelight that brought about the next phase of stage effects, allowing the creation of complex projected images. It may have been at a production of Balfe’s opera
Joan of Arc
at Drury Lane in 1837 that limelight first appeared in a theatre. (If it was not then, it was at the Christmas pantomime staged by Macready at Covent Garden that same year.) Drury Lane advertised that ‘a new and extraordinary Light will be introduced, called PHOSHELIOULAMPROTERON’, and this was probably limelight. Limelight was produced when a bag was filled with oxygen by heating manganese dioxide; another bag was filled with hydrogen. The hydrogen was expelled and lit, to warm the lime. When the calcium in the lime began to be consumed, the flame turned from pale yellow to red. At this point the oxygen was added, and the mixed gases gave an incandescent light. To produce an even light, the gases had to be expelled from the bags evenly and continuously. To do this, each bag was put between two pressure boards, and the light was produced by an operator pressing down on the boards. When
Faust
was mounted at the Lyceum there were twenty-five limelights; therefore twenty-five