The Still Point of aTurning World

Having spent a frustrating day trying to get the British Library newspaper archive to do what it was told - there are clearly some compatibility issues with the browser(s) I'm currently using - I decided to take a break and google some things instead. And I uncovered something rather interesting...

On most of his ERA newspaper adverts after 1904, Benson's official office address is given as 15 Henrietta Street Covent Garden so I decided that might be worth following up.  Henrietta Street is one of the streets which leads off Covent Garden parallel to the Strand, running towards St Martin's Lane. At the turn of the century, it was something of a centre for theatrical and musical hall agents, at the heart of Victorian London's theatre land -only a couple of streets away from the Opera House, the Theatre Royal Drury Lane, the Lyceum, the Savoy and the Adelphi. Today it is a highly desirable residential address, with former offices converted into apartments which command six figure sums: the upper floors of 15 Henrietta Street are advertised to rent at the eye-watering sum of £6,950 per calendar week.  The ground floor currently houses a Japanese menswear company called 'The Real McCoy'.

The building was rebuilt in 1887, designed by H.E. Pollard The office was run by Benson's manager - initially Alfred Smith-Piggott - and formed a vital still point in the revolving world of the Benson companies - with three or four tours on the road, someone needed an overview of who was where doing what! I'm assuming that the huge ledgers which are now in the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust archive must have been kept here along with the details of actors' contracts and payments like those in William Savery's papers.  Henrietta Street would not have been a cheap option, but it kept Benson's name and personality in the city even when he was out on the road. Covent Garden wasn't the up-market and sophisticated shopping experience it is now, of course, but a very busy Fruit and Vegetable market.

On the opposite side of Henrietta Street is one of the side entrances to St Paul's Covent Garden, the famous 'actor's church' and one of my very regular haunts when in the city. Number 10 was the home of Jane Austen's brother Henry and she stayed here in 1813 and 1814 when visiting her publishers.  It is one of the few streets in London still lit by gaslight and if you are very lucky and in the right place at the right time, you might see the Lamplighter coming to light the street lights in a scene reminiscent of that famous Robert Louis Stevenson poem!

http://www.british-history.ac.uk/survey-london/vol36/pp230-239

And like Robert Louis Stevenson's Jekyll and Hyde, where Henry Jekyll lives in a house with two very different sides, 15 Henrietta Street has second entrance - and indeed a second address!  The back of the building is actually in Maiden Lane - number 29 - now a bar and bistro - almost directly opposite the Stage Door of the Adelphi Theatre.  In fact, the Benson Company played the Adelphi for a two week season in Summer 1905 which, predictably, was a financial flop due partly to the scorching weather.

The Adelphi Stage Door is probably most famous - or infamous - as the site of the fatal stabbing of William Terriss. Terriss was one of Irving's actors who branched out into management of the Adelphi and staged melodramas and Shakespeare there.  On the evening of December 16th 1897, he became part of an appalling off-stage drama when a deranged unemployed actor, Richard Archer Prince, attacked and stabbed him to death. Terriss was entering the stage door to prepare for the evening's performance:  Prince had allegedly waited in a doorway across the road (number 29 perhaps??) for Terriss to appear and had then attacked him.

Prince believed that Terriss had deliberately thwarted his career after being dismissed from the Adelphi company for 'unprofessional conduct' and heavy drinking. Ironically, Terriss had actually gone out of his way to recommend Prince be given help from the Actors' Benevolent Fund.  George Rowell's very readable book William Terriss and Richard Prince: Two characters in an Adelphi Melodrama is published by the Society for Theatre Research and contains the full story.

I've often used Maiden Lane as a quieter short cut between Bedford Street and Covent Garden and for years I've given a nod to 'Breezy Bill'as I passed the Stage Door.  Terriss's ghost, inevitably, is said to haunt the backstage area of the theatre and - rather more surprisingly - the Underground platforms of Covent Garden station. See Mysterious Britain.co.uk for more information.  Having read quite a bit about Terriss, however,  I think he'd be quite an affable ghost...

There was no sign of him on the last night of Andrew Lloyd Webber's musical 'Love Never Dies' when I was part of a huge crowd blocking Maiden Lane at the stage door: we turned back taxi cabs that night!  However, it is odd to think that I was actually standing outside the site of Benson's office as well.  A small world as well a turning one...

'Towards York shall bend you with your dearest speed...'

Those words of Henry IV were never truer than last Friday afternoon as we set out to catch the train from Durham station.  Thankfully, everything went according to plan and three hours after I'd left work we were sitting in the foyer of the Theatre Royal York, enjoying a pre-show glass of wine...

Now normally, I wouldn't post the account of a ballet-going weekend on this blog, but in this case, the details of our trip have some bearing on the whole Benson project and so I crave your indulgence for this longer than usual bulletin!

York's Theatre Royal, one of my very favourite theatres, has just reopened after extensive refurbishment. Originally built in 1744, it is one of the oldest theatres to have been in continual use and the list of performers who have graced its stage is a veritable 'Who's who' of theatrical royalty - Phelps. Kean, Siddons, Kemble, Irving, Bernhardt...and, of course, Benson.

Because there has been a theatre on this site for 270 years, this closure provided the first opportunity to excavate under the stage where the medieval remains of the old St Leonard's hospital have been found.(Further information about the fascinating work done by the York Archaeological Trust can be found here and here) The renovations also allowed the archaeologists to see how the theatre had been changed and developed during its long history before allowing the next raft of changes to progress.

The foyer now boasts an enlarged box office and cafe. The auditorium has a second staircase entrance.The stage has been completely rebuilt to remove the rake and add an orchestra pit and the stage configuration can now be changed to make it into a very adaptable venue. Finally, the stalls seating has been radically changed so that it now rises to meet the curve of the dress circle improving sightlines enormously.  The auditorium is has been repainted a very restful light grey, perhaps in homage to the resident ghost, known as the Grey Lady...

Thankfully, they have not removed or 'modernised' the 1967 concrete and slate foyer and staircase, added to the side of the theatre, which is actually my very favourite part - the original external wall of the theatre becomes an internal wall concrete arches echo medieval vaulted roofs and the slender pillars always remind me of trees. ( I have to admit to actually hugging one on Friday evening...a possible side effect of the house red!)

Birmingham Royal Ballet are celebrating this special Shakespeare year by giving over almost all of their entire 2016 season to bard-related ballets. They visit York annually as part of their 'mid-scale' tour, taking the company to several smaller venues for  2 day stays and their programme this year included a world premiere of a ballet based on some of the Sonnets, pas de deux from Ashton'sThe Dream, Macmillan's Romeo and Juliet and Cranko's Taming of the Shrew and finally a performance of Jose Limon's wonderful Moor's Pavane, based on Othello.

Theatres Trust :uncredited

All of these plays were performed at the Theatre by the Bensons during their visits:  they came to the Theatre Royal around fifteen times between 1886 and 1926.

When the theatre was 250 years old in 1994, the local newspaper produced a book about its history which is rather frustrating in its patchwork approach to the subject.  In it, it asserts that Lady Benson had once 'spent a night in one of the dressing rooms, praying for the repose of the soul of the beautiful nun' supposed to be the Grey Lady, but I've been unable to find the original source for this.  It is a nice thought, though!

Any Bensonian ghosts would have been well pleased with both the performances and the theatre this weekend.  And so lovely to see a regional theatre thriving.

A Knight of the Realm

Today marks the hundredth anniversary of the Shakespeare Tercentenary Matinee at the Theatre Royal Drury Lane.

On the afternoon of May 2^nd 1916  a star-studded cast, the pick of the  London stage, assembled to perform Julius Caesar to an audience of over 3000, including the King and Queen.  Caesar had been chosen as the matinee play because of the crowd scenes which enabled huge numbers of actors to take part. It was to be followed by a series of tableaux depicting scenes from other Shakespeare plays.

Inevitably, the assembled company that day contained a very large number of old Bensonians  and Benson himself had been asked to play Caesar - a first for him.  However, the Bensons were rather on edge. At eleven o’clock that morning, three hours before the curtain was due to rise at Drury Lane, FRB had  received a letter offering him the honour of a knighthood.  There had been some hints of this in the preceeding weeks (and even some premature telegrams of congratulation!)  but when nothing 'official' had been heard, it had been dismissed as just a rumour. The letter had  arrived several weeks after it had been posted, having apparently followed the Company round the country from venue to venue, and Benson was anxious that not replying looked ungrateful and indifferent to the honour.

When the Royal Party arrived at the theatre, Arthur Collins, manager of Drury Lane, hastily explained the situation to one of the King’s aides and then, boldly, asked if it would be possible for FRB to be knighted there, at the theatre, after the performance.  

When the aide told him that His Majesty had no sword with him. Collins rushed out to buy one that would fit the occasion, and the King consented to knight Benson in an ante-room to the Royal Box. At the end of the performance FRB, still wearing the bloodstained robes, half-bald cap and ashen make-up of the ghostly Caesar, was dubbed ‘Sir Frank’.

As Constance Benson wrote  in her autobiography: ‘Could any knighthood, except on the field of battle, have been conferred in a more romantic setting? The day of Shakespeare’s tercentenary, among hosts of fellow actors, in historic Drury Lane, the house packed from Gallery to Pit, a day to remember, a scene never to forget!’

As Sir George Alexander, actor-manager and contemporary of Benson, announced the news from the stage the theatre audience erupted in enthusiastic roar: when Alexander led Benson down to the footlights at the end of the tableaux, they were greeted with a standing ovation and a volume of cheering which left FRB visibly moved and -  for once - entirely speechless.

Otho Stuart, Benson’s sometime partner, manager and Company member, had hurried off to Stratford upon Avon as soon as the matinee had started, to oversee the remainder of the Company’s Festival performances.  At dinner, he received Lady Benson’s wire telling him the news and rushed round to the Memorial Theatre where Company were just reaching the end of the second act of Midsummer Night’s Dream.  He went on stage and before he could finish speaking, the announcement  was drowned out by wild cheering and applause from the audience, the actors and the stage hands.

When Sir Frank and Lady Constance arrived at the station the following day, a flower-covered carriage awaited them, pulled by members of the Company. They were drawn through the streets of Stratford, streets lined with well-wishers who threw more flowers into the carriage as it passed, and then finally  taken to the Memorial Theatre where they were to perform All’s Well that Ends Well that evening.

On May 5^th it was Stratford's turn to celebrate with a –by now traditional – ‘Old Bensonian’ matinee of speeches and scenes presented by some of the London ‘names’ who had started their careers with FRB and who never forgot their debt to him.  As Henry Ainley said at a banquet in Benson’s honour a week later: “We have barnacled our souls to his doormat. He can never get rid of us and we can never get rid of him. He is our blessed ‘Pa’ and we love him.’

 from the Souvenir Brochure

This was the high point for Benson's career: things would never be as good again. He and Constance were about to head to the Western Front to do Voluntary work: by September, news would reach them that their son, Eric, had been killed in action.  There would be only one more Bensonian season at Stratford in 1919 before a new broom would sweep in to stir up tradition and Benson would find himself, rootless and anchorless, treading the familiar provincial paths without the financial security which Stratford had provided over the years.

However, for one brief magical moment, Benson stood firmly centre stage, in the capital city which had sometimes seemed indifferent - even hostile - to him, sharing the limelight with the playwright he'd worked tirelessly to serve. Recognised by the establishment, hailed by his peers, revered by those he'd supported and nurtured, loved by an audience which extended the length and breadth of the nation: what other actor of his generation could claim as much?