My tables...

As promised, a little more information about the spreadsheet of performers I posted last week:

Benson Company sample performer spreadsheet

I've used the casting from the Stratford upon Avon Festival performances, as catalogued by the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust and I've added in casting from the London 1900 season and the 1913/14 North American tour, both of which can be found in the appendices in J.C. Trewin's Benson and the Bensonians.  

The Stratford dates, in particular, also cover guest appearances, often by 'Old Bensonians' who came back to slot into productions alongside the regular cast.  Where this appears to be the case I've marked their entry with an asterisk after the name.  Other 'special guests' include performers such as Johnston Forbes Robertson, Herbert Beerbohm Tree and Ellen Terry who were never members of the Benson Company.

Sheet 1 lists the performances for each season along with the performers who appeared, with FRB and CB first and then others arranged in alphabetical order, with the parts they played.  I've separated out performers who were listed as only appearing once in the season into a separate alphabetical sequence.  Often these are people local to Stratford who might appear in small or 'thinking' roles. They also include some 'faux' performers - the company often doubled roles using different names, the most famous being 'Walter Plinge' (and at times, his extended family!). Some, like B.Righton and M.Argate are clearly intended as puns - my favourite so far has to be L.Oakel - but others which are less conspicuous such as 'Mr James' 'Mr Sherrard' also appear frequently. Trewin makes it clear that these names could be inter-changeable between performers, making it difficult to identify how role-doubling worked in performance.

Sheet 2 takes performers who appear in at least two seasons with the Principal Company and lists their roles chronologically.  The intention here is to show some degree of career progression and the range of roles undertaken by each person both within any given season and across seasons. Again, an asterisk implies a guest role.

(I am intending that Sheet 3, which is currently blank, will provide some basic biographical information for each of these performers - I'm still working on this at the moment!)

The information is, inevitably, very Stratford-centric at the moment, which isn't necessarily reflective of the Company on tour across the provinces.  As I come across casting - either on programmes or in reviews - I will add to this.  I also want to extend the casting to later iterations of the company and expand it to cover the North and South Companies where possible.  

A surprise popped up on my Facebook page this week - a publicity postcard advertising the appearance of Oscar Asche and Lily Brayton at the King's Theatre in Sunderland.  Now long gone - as is Crowtree Road where it stood and the 1970s leisure centre that replaced it - the site is today part of the Bridges shopping centre.  At the time Asche and Brayton were appearing, finishing touches would have been being applied to the Sunderland Empire, barely a two minute walk away, which opened in July 1912.                                             

Kings Theatre in the centre of the picture with the dome of the Londonderry pub - now the Peacock - clearly visible at the end of the street.