Find out Moonshine...?

                          

Apologies for the long absence. To be honest, the day job has become so demanding that I've had to fight for any Benson research time and blogging my finds has slipped down the to-do list. However, I have not been idle. The data base continues to grow and I have some plans for it. After much heart and soul searching I am leaving the day job in August to explore 'other avenues' and one of my summer jobs is to create a version of the data base which others can use. (Always assuming they want to...!)

Update aside, I've been tempted back to this blog today by a photograph shared on Facebook and Twitter by the 'Everything to Everybody' project - a collaboration between the University of Birmingham and Birmingham City Council - which is raising the profile of the incredible Shakespeare Library in Birmingham. This untapped resource is calling like a siren for me to visit it - and maybe that will be possible at some point next year. They have posted several interesting photos connected to Stratford and Benson, but yesterday's was a real find.



I have copies of several of the photos which were taken beside this 'sweet and lovely wall' but I've never seen these before!

Their digitisation officer, Richard, picked it as his favourite image from the collection and added this comment " I keep coming back to this photograph. He/she (we don’t have a name) is obviously a much loved cast member where time has been taken to set up a professional photograph outside of the theatre. I wish I had seen this production. Just looking at this dog obediently posing somehow draws you back over a century to the moment it was taken."

(Richard is clearly a Merry Shrew, even if he doesn't know it yet!)

So with an unexpectedly free evening at my disposal, I've been digging to try and find out more, and I THINK I might have an identity for this delightful doggie!

Although I can't find any reference to the dog appearing in this production, I'm wondering if this might be the actor Murray Carrington's dog, 'Dick', who had appeared in Two Gentlemen of Verona in Stratford in 1910 and created something of a sensation.

J.C. Trewin mentions him in 'Benson and the Bensonians', seemingly taking his information from Constance Benson's Memoirs. Apparently, during Lance's sad speech in Act 2 to Crab the dog, Dick 'looked steadily into the audience as if counting the house' but when Launce (played by Bensonian stalwart H.O. Nicholson) 'broke into sobs, he turned and sympathetically licked his face. This little bit of realistic acting so enchanted the audience they greeted it with a tremendous round of applause. The next morning Dick found himself famous. He received the "star" notices.'

Murray Carrington played Oberon in both the 1911 and 1912 performances of Midsummer Night's Dream. He was one of the Benson Company for eight years and returned to Stratford after the First World War. He was apparently the first actor to play Hamlet on the radio! H. O Nicholson played Starveling (who becomes Moonshine), in 1911, but he had left the Bensons' Company by 1912. Nicholson, a Cambridge Classics graduate and former school master, joined Benson in 1896 and was a long-standing member of the Company as well as being one of the Bensonians who ended up with Granville Barker's Company at the Savoy in 1912-13... where he played Starveling again, only this time without a real dog!

I've no idea if this is actually Dick - the name on the collar is too indistinct to read - or whether I'm just 'barking up the wrong tree', (sorry) but it is a nice thought! And I've loved doing the searching!

Summer Time

This week sees the meeting of the 10th World Shakespeare Congress in Stratford upon Avon and London, and academics and aficionados of Shakespeare have travelled from the far corners of the globe to discuss, debate, challenge and celebrate his work and its on-going life in the theatre.  I'm not there.  I briefly toyed with the idea before I rejected it on the grounds that my academic inferiority complex is already far too well-developed and that being in a room with so many 'great ones' might just finish me off completely as a researcher!

However, that hasn't stopped me following the proceedings with extreme interest and I was delighted to hear that Gregory Doran (RSC Artistic Director) had named-checked Benson yet again in his address on Monday.  (I suspect that Mr Doran is a secret 'Merry Shrew' at heart!)

Today has been the first chance I've had for several weeks to investigate the Benson touring rep any further and I'm still trying to plug database holes from the Newspaper Archive. I've had a reasonably successful afternoon - although even small nuggets of information take a lot more digging up these days - and inevitably, my thoughts have been on Stratford in the summertime...

Usually the summer months were 'vacation' for the Benson companies, but in 1910 the decision was made to create a second 'summer' festival to encourage summer visitors to the town.  This ran for two weeks in 1910 and was then extended to four weeks in 1911, beginning on July 22nd with a performance of Midsummer Night's Dream. Thanks to the Leamington Spa Courier, I've been able to find the performances for all four weeks:

week beginning	Monday	Tuesday	Wednesday	Thursday	Friday	Saturday m	Saturday e
24/07/1911	Henry V	Richard II	Merchant of Venice (mat) Romeo & Juliet	As You Like It (mat) Taming of the Shrew	Hamlet *	Henry V	Merchant of Venice
31/07/1911	Tempest	Hamlet *	As You Like It (mat) Richard II	Midsummer Night’s Dream	Romeo & Juliet	Midsummer Night’s Dream	Taming of the Shrew
07/08/1911	As You Like It	Tempest	Romeo & Juliet (wed) Henry V	As You Like It (Thurs) Richard II	Hamlet*	x	Tempest
14/08/1911	Romeo & Juliet	Taming of the Shrew	Merchant of Venice	Tempest (mat) Hamlet *	Richard II	As You Like It	Midsummer Night’s Dream

The performances of Hamlet were 6pm starts - this was the so-called 'infinity' version now slimmed down to a running time of around four hours.  On matinee days it was possible to see two different plays and the schedule was designed so that anyone staying for a few days would be able to see a different play each evening.

The summer of 1911 was a scorcher with recorded temperatures reaching an all-time high of 36 degrees C /98 degrees F - a record not beaten until 1990. By July 20th drought conditions had been declared - there had been no rain at all for twenty days  Newspapers ran columns listing 'Deaths by Heat' and traffic accidents were increased as the road surface melted. Without wide-spread refrigeration, fresh food went off very quickly.  In the Victoria and Albert Docks, 5000 workers came out on strike as a result of having to work in such extreme conditions. The thought of sitting in an unventilated theatre for four hours can't have been very appealing to many Stratford visitors and conditions on stage must have become unbearably hot.

On the final evening of the summer festival, the usual  'floral bouquets, chaplets of bays and boxes of chocolates' were handed across the footlights to the assembled company.  Archibald Flowers, chairman of the Memorial Theatre board reflected that 'owing to the heat there had not been such full houses as at the Spring Festival' and that 'looked at from the standpoint of an ordinary theatrical venture' - that of  £.s.d - 'the season was a failure.'  In fact, he admitted he was amazed that anyone had actually been persuaded to enter the building in such weather.

However, he concluded that the object had been 'to extend the study, love and influence of Shakespeare, and in this direction there was no doubt whatever that the summer season had been a great success.  Numerous valuable seeds had been sown, and many other links forged which were going to draw together people...from every part of the world.'

 It is a comment which applies to the whole of Benson's career, to be honest.  I hope those delegates heading from Stratford to London for the concluding three days of Congress at the Globe feel the same way about their summer stay in Stratford, even if they have experienced slightly less dramatic weather.  (quotes from Cheltenham Chronicle & Gloucestershire Graphic, Saturday 26th August 1911 accessed from the British Library Newspaper Archive)

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?  

All is Mended...

The Royal Shakespeare Company are marking the 400th anniversary of Shakespeare's death with a production of A Midsummer Night's Dream, featuring various different amateur companies playing the Mechanicals and local school children as the fairies.  I went to see the first leg of their ten venue tour in Newcastle on Monday and thoroughly enjoyed it, particularly Lucy Ellinson's performance as Puck.  There's something  liberating about hearing Shakespeare in a regional accent - especially one's own! - and it helps to break down the 'elitist' barrier a little more.  See the trailer for this production on the RSC's website.

Lucy Ellinson and Chu Omabala as Puck and Oberon

Although the RSC used Northern Stage's theatre (formerly the Newcastle Playhouse) rather than the Theatre Royal, there were a few Bensonian links.  The Bensons used to stay at the Grand Hotel in Newcastle's Haymarket - now Blackwell's University bookshop - which is virtually next door to the playhouse and their 'fairy band' was also populated by local children, drilled by the actor playing Puck - who was usually a woman.

This week in 1912, the Company were appearing at the New Theatre Royal Portsmouth, the first of a two week season of Rep which included Dream.  The theatre has recently reopened after a major rebuild which has taken three years. A mixture of Phipps and Matcham architecture, this is how it looked in Benson's day:

Closed for many years as a theatre, it was used by Ken Russell for the film 'The Boyfriend' before fire, theft and vandalism brought it to the brink of demolition.

Filming 'The Boyfriend' in 1972

 Purchased by the New Theatre Royal Trust in the 1980s it came back into use as a theatre in 1984 and now has Grade II* listing.  So lovely to see a theatre come back from the brink!  It's on my bucket list...

Stratford Great Escape 2016

Time is such a relative thing. I find it hard to believe that it is already a week since we were a day into our Stratford 'Great Escape' - four nights in a lovely cottage in the heart of the town, less than three minutes from the Shakespeare Centre, paid for by the Louis Marder Scholarship I was awarded last year.

Having this amount of time to research is a real luxury - normally I'm squeezing time out of the day job and fitting it in where I can. I'd planned three days of research in the Birthplace Library and Archives during which time I was able to access some of the company's accounts and prompt books from three specific productions.

Having the cottage meant a relaxing start to the day, a leisurely saunter to the Archives around 10am and a return to a warm, cosy and very comfortable house, with plenty of work space, two very comfortable sofas and lovely beds! We decided to self-cater - although the tea shops of Stratford did provide some welcome late lunches - and thanks to Marks and Spencer, dined like Queens!  Rachel, who owns the cottage, had left us a welcome gift: how could she have known I was such a fan of ginger?  The discovery of a DVD of The Great Escape in one of the cupboards was another unexpected bonus...

Stratford in February can be incredibly cold and we'd gone prepared with woolly socks and hot water bottles.  Sitting all day in the Library was a chilly business and we were glad of the central heating!

As I'd taken my research assistant with me (she's also my mum!) we were able to get about thirty hours worth of work done between us over the three days: lots of data to add to my database, extra information about the financial state of the company, and the wonderful prompt books.

I'm very much an amateur at this, but I've developed a method for using the prompt books - I buy cheap copies of the plays and then deface them in accordance with the script! Some prompt books are more detailed than others but they all give a flavour of what the productions must have been like on stage to watch.  It's an incredible feeling, handling a book which must have been used in the wings of countless theatres on hundreds of occasions.

The account books, too, have a papery charm - heavy pages designed for pen and ink, meticulously handwritten, each page telling the stark truth about Benson's dreadful financial situation!  In between the pages sometimes are still some 'daily returns' from the theatre managers on the touring circuit or the occasional bill from a printer - the daily ephemera of running a a theatre company,

So busy were we with archival stuff that Stratford itself sort of faded into the background, although on Thursday - which had been a beautiful day - we went and took some photos as the sun set spectacularly over our favourite monument.  My photos don't do it justice!

After such a wonderful week, coming back to reality has been something of a challenge!  Although much of the material we discovered is still to be typed up, I've already used some of the details from the account books to update the database, add some dates and repertoire details, and correct a few gaps and errors.

I now have approximately 60% of the main (principal or A) company mapped, which is really exciting.

It was such a successful visit that I'm already working out when it might be possible to repeat the experience.  We're back in Stratford, as luck would have it, in just over four weeks time but we'll be theatre tourists rather than researchers.  Hopefully, the first signs of spring we saw last week will have fully blossomed by then!

(When I finally arrived home, I could barely get the front door open: six complementary copies of the edition of Theatre Notebook with my essay in were blocking the door!)

In Shakespeare's Garden

Magnolia blossom by the canal

We few...

Today being Remembrance Sunday, it seems appropriate to remember those members of the Benson Company who fought during The Great War of 1914 -18.  Those members of the company who lost their lives are commemorated in a window which can be seen in the Gallery Swan of the Royal Shakespeare Theatre. Unveiled by Dame Ellen Terry in 1925, it shows St George defeating the dragon.  St George is the likeness of Eric Benson, the only son of Frank and Constance, who was killed in action  at the Somme in September 1916.  Winchester College's website contains more details of his war service, military honours and death:  http://www.winchestercollegeatwar.com/archive/eric-william-benson/

Lt-Col Eric William Benson 

Nine other Bensonians are also remembered in the window: Charles Bibby, Harold Chapin, Rupert Conrick, Arthur Curtis, William Harris, Frank Mathews, Guy Rathbone, W Ribton Haines and James Stanners. Many other members of the Company served and survived the war. Benson himself tried to sign up on several occasions and made spirited efforts to convince the authorities that he was actually younger than his age. Finally in 1916 he and Constance set out to work with the Red Cross.

The BATH CHRONICLE AND WEEKLY GAZETTE of June 3rd 1916 reported that Sir Frank Benson, the Shakespearian actor, and Lady Benson are going to Salonika to help in the work of one of the Serbian Army hospitals. They hope to start in about three weeks. "The opportunity of going out presented itself," he said, "and we naturally jumped at it. So many actors have thrown up everything and gone to the front that we felt we ought to do what we could...I do not say that every one on the stage ought to go to the front, for I think that the theatres at home are doing real war work in keeping the nation in good spirits, and the work of actors and actresses in cheering the wounded has, I believe, been of great service. "There is, of course, a difficulty in obtaining men for Shakespearian plays, for you need young, vigorous men for Shakespeare - just the kind you need for the Army. About a dozen of my younger men have gone to the Army during the past year. The stage has already given a great proportion of its men to the Army, and others are working in munition factories and showing skill and ability... I do not advocate closing theatres, but when a man gets a call to go he has to answer it, and that is why I am off." Sir Frank Benson's absence will mean the suspension of his company's Shakespearean tours until next spring.

In 1917 Sir Frank and Lady Benson ran canteens in France for the French Red Cross. They returned to England in June 1917 and recommenced touring , but returned again to France in 1918, Frank driving an ambulance and Constance serving in the British base at Etaples. Sir Frank was awarded the French Croix de Guerre. 

Benson in London

 This week I've been concentrating on the year 1890 for which I had very few database entries. Generally speaking, my research is centred on Benson's touring to the provinces but sometimes it is necessary to look at the bigger picture and see how the two theatrical centres of activity of London and Stratford each had an impact on his work.    Although not a good businessman, Benson - or his management team - seem to have had a canny understanding of the principal of the USP (unique selling-point)  and so, in the early years of the Company, advertisements would often point out that the props and scenery - and indeed the actors Benson toured with - were 'the Globe Company'.  

There have been three theatres of that name in London, the most recent, of course, being the replica of Shakespeare’s theatre, created by actor Sam Wanamaker which opened in 1997.  The other Globe Theatre – in Shaftesbury Avenue – changed its name to the Gielgud  in 1994, partly to avoid any confusion with the South Bank Globe project.  However, the Globe Theatre that Benson leased in 1889 was at the end of the Aldwych on the site now occupied by BBC Bush house.  A large theatre with a capacity of 1,5000, it backed onto the Opera Comique and the initially the wall between the two theatres was allegedly so thin that noise from one could be heard in the other!

Perhaps the obvious most attraction of the Globe for Benson was the name, with its automatic association with Shakespeare: the theatre's act-drop portrayed a image of Stratford upon Avon. Benson appears to have made a popular success of this season: opening on the 19^th of December with his new production of Midsummer Night’s Dream, he was still performing the play to audiences the week beginning April 21^st.  The Dundee Courier recorded the one hundredth performance of the play and commented on the twice weekly matinees and the demand for seats.

Benson hated long runs of a single play, believing that they led to stale and lifeless performances.  To combat this, he changed the programme for Thursday and Friday evenings, giving first The Taming of the Shrew, then Hamlet and finally Othello.  The London press were cautious in their praise, admiring the intention - if not always the execution - of the season. However, Dream  seems to have been a success with audiences, so much so that the production would form the back-bone of the Benson touring rep for many years.

Benson left London in May 1890 to return to  provincial touring, having made at least a dint in the stranglehold of the established London management over Shakespeare and he had also shown that there was an audience for the rather neglected 'fairy play'.  Beerbohm Tree's famous production of the play - complete with live rabbits -wouldn't make an appearance until ten years later, beating Benson's 'century' of performances by a narrow margin.  The Globe Theatre was demolished in 1902 to make way for the restructured Aldwych.  

Side entrance in Newcastle Street.

Another Benson

This week I've been away in the Lake District, but Benson has still been at the forefront of my mind.  The fit -up 'South' company visited  Keswick, Ambleside and Bowness and the Principal and  'North' Companies made several visits to Kendal, Penrith and Ulverston throughout the years Benson was touring.  Keswick, in particular, still has a strong theatrical heritage through the 'Theatre By the Lake' a repertory theatre in the most stunning of settings: http://www.theatrebythelake.com/

W. A. S. Benson - Frank Benson's elder brother by four years - was an architect and designer who made many items of furniture and lighting for Morris & Co and ended up as a Director of the company after Morris's death. The family resemblance between William and Frank is clear in the photo below.  He is well known as a member of the Arts and Crafts movement and his designs for electric lighting are now collectors' pieces. https://www.blackwell.org.uk/.

 

Some of these are on show at Blackwell, a fabulous Arts and Crafts House in the Lake District, just outside Bowness and are truly lovely: the anticipate the Art Nouveau movement with stylised plant forms and the Vaseline glass shades. Blackwell is a delight: a cross between Morris and Mackintosh and well worth a visit:

Interestingly, Shakespeare's Globe are taking their 'fit up' production of Romeo and Juliet to the grounds of Blackwell in the Summer this year, following in the footsteps of  Benson's summer 'pastoral' performances.  http://www.oldlaundrytheatre.co.uk/event.php?event=149&cat=3

Stratford upon Avon in the Spring

Stratford upon Avon is wonderful in any season, but it is especially beautiful in Spring.  For the last two years I've spent 24 hours there as part of my Easter holiday - it's a kind of 'cultural retreat'.  I stay in B&B near the theatre, walk, eat cake, talk to as few people as I can get away with, go to the theatre (of course!) and then spend the second day in the Birthplace Trust library and archives reading room, trying to cram a year's research into five and a bit hours...

The Birthplace Library holds the archives of the Royal Shakespeare Theatre and has a lot of material relating to Frank Benson which I'm slowly becoming more familiar with.  This time, I looked at two prompt books for As You Like It and Taming of the Shrew and began to sift through some of the company's accounts from 1909 and 1910 which made for quite alarming reading because Benson was clearly touring at a ridiculous level of financial loss.

Stratford is a very spiritual place, for me. It's hard to explain it without it sounding silly, but the first time I went there I felt as if I'd returned home to somewhere I'd always been missing.  It has the same impact for me still, today, almost thirty years on, and there's a sense of theatrical history there which is almost tangible. Leaving it is always a wrench. I'm saving some of the pictures for a post later in the month about the old Shakespeare Memorial Theatre, but these give something of the flavour of Stratford in Spring...  I wish I could  bottle the scent and sound of the place as well!

Holy Trinity Churchyard; The 'Gower' Hamlet; Canal Basin and Avon bankside looking towards the Church:
 April 10th 2015

Edinburgh February 1893

Benson made many visits during his career to Edinburgh, often for two week seasons, and always performed at the Royal Lyceum Theatre.  Like the Waterford Theatre, the Edinburgh  Royal Lyceum (named after Irving’s Theatre in London) is still operating as a theatre today, now with its own resident theatre company.  Benson first visited the Lyceum in 1888, five years after it had opened.  Yet another auditorium designed by the prolific C.J Phipps, the theatre reputedly cost £17, 000 to build.  

On February 15th 1893, Benson presented a week of plays including Merchant of Venice, Twelfth Night,  Richard III and Hamlet as well as ‘Old English’ comedies, The Rivals and School for Scandal.  The following week was a full week of A Midsummer Night’s Dream.  Benson had originally produced his ‘Grand Production’ of the Dream in 1889 for a six week season at the Globe Theatre where it had been very favourably reviewed by the national press.  The Pall Mall Gazette, in particular, praised Benson’s ambitious intentions: ‘There has been no ‘scamping’ behind the scenes at the Globe – no half measures in the matter of mounting.  On the contrary, the play has been put upon the stage with as much care as if it were intended run for a year.’  

Benson would go on to use the fact that this was a London production in much of his publicity for the play and would recruit local ‘elves and sprites’ from each town the production visited to be trained up for the performance.    Benson’s production obviously proved popular in Edinburgh, returning the following year for a further week’s performances.

Waterford, 1895

Given that so many of the theatres the Benson Companies visited became victims to fire, war, or the inner city developer, it is always wonderful to find a survivor!

The Theatre Royal Waterford is very much alive and well, and still operating as a theatre. What makes this even better is the fact that the theatre is such an old one: performances began there in 1787.  Benson's company made their first visit to Waterford in 1895.

According to its fascinating website, the Theatre Royal is 'the premiere venue in the South East of Ireland, plays host to the best national and international touring artists and companies and with the assistance of Waterford City Council and TheArts Council is increasingly seeking to mount its own productions for the people of the city and the region.'  It's a small venue, nowadays seating 430 patrons on three levels (although it would probably have held more in 1895!).

And what a stunning auditorium! Another one of C.J. Phipps's make-overs, it was recently refurbished  and given  a £4million face-lift. The auditorium is an elegant Georgian space, with horseshoe shaped balconies and a high proscenium.


I haven't been able find any period photographs of the theatre itself, which  includes an Assembly Rooms and the Corporation's Art Gallery. However, the postcards reproduced below were taken around 1900 and give something of the flavour of the city at the time, which, according to the  National Archives had an expanding population at this time.
  
According to the records I have, the Bensonians only visited seven times, all around the end of December or into January.  I've yet to unearth any repertory records for any of these engagements.  

I'm ashamed to admit that I didn't even really know where Waterford was until I started this project.  It's now on my 'bucket list' of theatres to visit!