Posts Tagged ‘theatre’
Billy Waters: The Busker of the West End
Thus poor Black Billy’s made his Will, His Property was small good lack, For till the day death did him kill His house he carried on his back. The Adelphi now may say alas! And to his memory raise a stone: Their gold will be exchanged for brass, Since poor Black Billy’s dead and gone.…
Read MoreIndigenous actors at the heart of empire: A letter from the Strand to Buffalo Creek
In 1818, seven members of the Seneca nation were in London performing in the Theatre Royal on Drury Lane. The Hartfort Courant, an American newspaper that ran in Connecticut, published a letter they intercepted from the performers to their families and friends. Through the words of the performers themselves, this article hopes to highlight their…
Read MoreDracula Stalks the Strand
On the back wall of the Lyceum theatre in Burleigh Street are three engraved names: Stoker, Irving and Terry. They honour three great characters of the British theatrical world in the late 19th century. Henry Irving was the actor/manager of the Lyceum from 1878 to 1902. Ellen Terry was one the most famous actors of…
Read MoreMlle. Sarah Bernhardt and the National Theatre
In Matthew Arnold’s essay on ‘The French Theatre’ (1879) he urges on the movement to found a national theatre and fancifully imagines French comediens departing for London and passing ‘along the Strand… I see a fugitive vision of delicate features under a shower of hair and a cloud of lace, and hear the voice of…
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