Bensonian obituaries

Today is the anniversary of Frank Benson's death: on the evening of December 31st 1939.  At 81, and increasingly frail through the first bitter winter of the Second World War, he had caught a cold which then developed into pneumonia over Christmas.  It was six years since he had finally retired from touring.  His final words, (according to J.C. Trewin) were 'Thank you very much.'

Yesterday, I spent a luxurious day 'playing' with the data base, filling in a few more gaps, before deciding to see what I could find in terms of comments in obituaries.  His death was widely reported across the country, and many newspapers reflected on memories of past theatre performances which his name conjured up.

The Scotsman talked of his 'electric personality...the Don Quixote of the stage...'. The Yorkshire Post reflected that he was 'the doyen of an age of full-blooded acting, of golden speech, of graceful movement, a page of theatrical history has closed forever with his death.'  The Birmingham Daily Post considered 'no man in his time better deserved to be called the father of the English Stage.'

My favourite comment, however, comes from the Manchester Evening News: 'Behind the scenes tonight, in almost every theatre in the land they will be talking of Bensonian days for there is hardly a show put on but numbers in its cast someone who is a link with those tours in some way.'