A theatre manager’s arsenal

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Following on from my earlier Melvillodrama post, we have one brief typescript reminiscence of Walter Melville of the dangers of weapons on stage which I’m desperate to share (0599807/19). I often get this out for seminars, but I think most people don’t get around to reading it, which is a shame because it shows all the trademark humour and eccentricity of the Melville family.

‘A Melodrama would be lost without a scene in which a dagger, revolver or gun is used’, according to Walter. In order to legally use a weapon on stage, a licence had to be granted; in one case, Walter ran up against problems due to the fact that a named person had to be granted the right to carry a revolver. Since Walter himself was not playing the part, and could not be sure that the same actor would be in that role on every night, the imaginative ‘…Inspector of police…decided to grant a licence…in the fictitious name of the villain in the play. Thus a non existing person possessed a licence to carry a revolver’.

Discussing the dangers of weapons on stage, Walter relates the tale of a faulty prop, which, unknown to the Property man  ‘continually misfired’ and so was

‘loaded…until the charges came to the mouth of the barrel. This gun…exploded with wonderful effect – it put out every gas light in the Theatre.’

Although it seems a fitting drama for a melodrama, you wonder whether the people nearby thought it was a wonderful effect!

Publicity postcard for The Worst Woman in London

Publicity postcard

Disasters with weapons didn’t always involve blood or explosions, however. During an 1899 production of ‘The Worst Woman in London’, the gun with which the villianess was supposed to kill her elderly husband failed to go off,

‘…and the man in the wings who is supposed to safeguard this happening, for some reason of another did not fire the deputy shot. The Villainess realising the old man’s death was desirable for the good of the Show, crossed to the bedside and stabbed him with the end of the revolver. The old gentleman seemed perfectly satisfied with the change in the method of his murder and spoke his usual line – “I am shot”.’

Walter’s story of how he came to be in possession of a revolver of his own is a real-life melodrama;

An acquaintance of mine, not in the Theatrical business, got himself into some difficulties and decided that the only way out of the scrape was to shoot himself. He came along to my office and making up his mind very suddenly – he pulled out this revolver, fully loaded, and said to me – “Goodbye Walter” Acting on the spur of the moment, I brought my fist into play and knocked the revolver out of his hand, telling him that if he claimed to be a friend of mine not to do this dirty business in my office, but to go into the Street and do whatever he liked to himself there.

Of course, the others of the Melville family seem just as unusual as Walter. Walter once mentioned to his ‘Brother’ (presumably wither Fred or Andrew II) the necessity of having a licence for his firearms, pointing out that he had none and owned ‘100 rifles, 30 revolvers and 3 machine guns’, a sizable arsenal for a theatre manager. When this brother finally asked for a licence, in a provincial town,

‘the Inspector told him he was only in the position to licence one article and as he was in possession of an armoury, he had better get out of the office and do what he liked in the matter’.

I look forward to discovering more of the dramatic life and times of the Melvilles as I continue to get out parts of the collection for researchers!

Delight…

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I am thrilled to report that the student feedback from the recent Drama module ‘British Theatre 1860-1940′ has assigned  an average satisfaction mark of 4.9 out of 5 to library services. This is a significant improvement on the previous average of 3 out of 5.

I am pleased to say that the hard-working students of the module enjoyed putting their exhibitions together as much as we in Special Collections and staff across the univeristy enjoyed visiting them.

We’re already gearing up to the next set of exhibitions, which will be opening to the public on Thursday 7th April. Please do drop in then to have a look! We’re only in the early stages of planning and it already looks as though we’re going to have some fascinating topics on display.

For more information on the autumn term’s exhibitions, and the three groups’ websites, have a look at the exhibitions pages on the Special Collections website.

Melvillodrama

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While getting out materials for researchers interested in pantomime and melodrama, I came across an interesting note, penned by Andrew Melville III while drafting his unpublished MS;

Today people look to the front-page of a newspaper for their melodrama

Publicity postcard

Publicity postcard for the Melvilles' The Girl Who Lost Her Character

I was intrigued by this opinion, suggesting that we still need that touch of the dramatic in our lives, even if melodrama is generally seen (within the theatrical industry as well, I believe) as second rate, over-acted and a generally primitive form of drama. When I started to think about it, though, I began to see what Andrew III meant.

After all, many newspapers and magazines rely on that sense of the over-dramatic to outdo one another and sell as many copies as possible.

There was fierce competition during the time of the Melvilles’ ownership of several London and provincial theatres, but this was not specifically from rival melodramas, nor from television or radio, but from music hall. ‘It is no good charging 6d when the opposition (possibly a Music Hall) can afford to do it for 2d’ Walter Melville explained in the September 1905 edition of Stageland (0600336). Despite this time of increasing competition for all forms of entertainment, especially before the time of any government subsidy, the Melville family were successful in their acting, writing and management of a number of theatres in London and the provinces. Perhaps the most spectacular success of the family was the partnership between Frederick and Walter Melville, who jointly ran the Lyceum, the Prince’s Theatre and other major theatres, mainly in London. Their melodramas, most notably the ‘Bad Women Dramas’, filled the Melville theatres after the pantomime season, continuing a long theatrical tradition well into the twentieth century.

Fred & Walter

This pair come across as a larger than life duo, with their entire lives revolving around the theatre. Walter was the senior, eldest son of Andrew Melville (I) and his wife Alice, born in 1875, with Frederick the next eldest son, born in 1877. There was a degree of seniority in Walter’s relationship with his brother; according to Andrew III, Walter tried to dominate his brother, but they were ‘twin spirits’ and their success was the result of their ‘mutual endeavour’ (Melville, 0599809/23).  The considerable size of their fortunes at the time of their death is testament to their success, but the relationship was fairly tempestuous. From 1921, the brothers were embroiled in a dispute with one another which spilled into a legal quarrel, with both posting notices to announce that the disagreement would force them to shut down the Lyceum at the close of the pantomime. On the last night of the pantomime, February 18th 1922, one of the stars called the brothers on stage, with the news that they were reconciled (0599809/9). The pair shook hands and appeared amicable; however, it is far from clear that they knew anything about this reconciliation before they set foot on the stage. They also had short shrift for any other person who they disapproved of. Walter recounts a trip to a ‘second rate Provincial theatre conducted by my young brother’, most likely Andrew II, who amassed a fortune of his own. The attitude of the eldest son to his siblings gives us some clues into the working and personal relationships of the Melville family.

Eccentricity

Walter Melville

Walter Melville

There was certainly a degree of eccentricity about the elder Melville brothers. Andrew III recalls his uncle Walter’s constant aura of theatricality, describing his ‘luxuriant’ overcoat and painstaking dress, including a wide brimmed black hat (599809/23). Walter himself recounts his father’s lessons in the ‘Dignity of the Theatre’, which ensured that he always wore his dark, ‘dress clothes’. Apparently the comedian Fred Leslie thought that Walter ‘was the funiest thing he had ever seen’, at which Walter commented ‘I cannot remember what there was particularly funny in my attire’ (599887/5). In contrast, Fred Melville was described in an obituary as having ‘cared nothing about dress’ (Daily Telegraph, 6 April 1938); he ‘rarely wore a coat to match his trousers or a waistcoat that went with either…wore low Byronic collars and frequently dispensed with a tie’ (599997/6). Fred was also had a ‘fanatical passion for physical fitness’ (599997/6), and a fear of draughts;

‘At panto rehearsals he would erect a shelter in the stalls from odds and ends of scenery, then stand outside it complaining of the cold, enveloped in two heavy overcoats, his trousers tucked into his socks’ (599809/9)

In contrast to Walter, who ‘never knew to what limit a practical joke should go’ (which cost him numerous friends), Andrew III recalls Fred’s ‘shrewdness with considerable wit and humour’ (599997/5). This is aptly illustrated in Fred’s speech Are Authors Cribbers? (0599809/12) which appears to have been written in connection with a legal case for copyright. In it, he states that authors are often the opposite of their heroes, perhaps referring to his own melodramatic plays, and that all known plots are to be found in the Bible, from which playwrights may copy if they choose. The case of Dion Boucicault, himself frequently bound up in litigation relating to copyright, is used as an illustration, and Fred goes on to recount his father’s anger at an unlicensed production of one of his own plays in America. Rather than pursue an expensive legal case, Andrew I put on three of the offending manager’s plays, unliscenced, in revenge. Fred’s own theatrical nature is revealed in the conclusion of his rousing defence. After relating a complaint he received from the famous Sir Herbert Beerbohm Tree, on the grounds that the Melvilles had stolen a scene from one of his plays, Fred wrote:

Frederick Melville as Reverend Knight

Frederick Melville as Reverend Knight

I was astounded – I had been accused of copying the French from the actual words. I am no cribber. As there had obviously been some mistake, what was I to do because I was certainly not going to submit to the terms of the letter. Just what I did is shown in a letter to Tree saying – “My sketch is taken from my play – A World of Sin – which was produced in 1890. Will you give me the date of the production of your play, because this is of great importance and if you find my play was produced earlier than the French play, you owe me an apology.”

There was no reply.

Oh Herbert, why did you not reply? Oh, Herbert!

The effect of this oration was no doubt similar to the popular reactions to the brothers’ plays.

Fred and Walter ran the Lyceum from 1910-1938, when they leased it to various managers. Andrew Melville III writes ‘in those days, Walter smoked a pipe and drank tea…until about 1910…he forsook the pipe for cigars and the tea for champagne’ (599809/23). This was hardly surprising, given the success of the partnership, but the Melvilles were always more concerned about business than celebrity. Walter’s motto was ‘give the public what they want’ (Stageland, September 1905), while at Fred’s last appearance in public, at the closing of Beauty and the Beast at the Lyceum in 1938, he expounded the principle of pleasing ‘the child that is in us all’ (599997/2). These principles and the brothers’ loyalty and commitment to their work and their employees, ensured that they were remembered with their brother Andrew II as the ‘three musketeers of melodrama’.

Reading the typescript reminiscences of Walter and Fred, including a humourous incident relating to weapons on stage, their theatrical and perhaps even melodramatic personalities spring from the page. Andrew III relates ‘it cannot be said that the Melvilles possessed the ‘charm of the Terrys’ or the ‘social standing of Irving” (599807/10), yet the three brothers, who died within a year of each other, were described as belonging ‘to one of the oldest theatrical families in London and the provinces’. One of Fred’s obituaries adds the accolade that Meville dramas had been played all over the world and acted in many languages. Perhaps there is more truth than eccentricity or melodrama in the plaque beneath the bust of Walter Melville which used to sit in the foyer of the Standard Theatre, Shoreditch:

There is Only One Shakespeare and the is Only One Walter Melville.

Perpetual exhibitions

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Well, today is the last official day of the British Theatre 1860-1940 Exhibition, curated by the 18 drama students of model DR575. Aside from the task of taking everything down and ensuring that it all ends up in the right place (especailly the captions and extra ‘dressing’ that the students provided themselves), that’s it until April. It will be very strange to have an open reading room again!

Interest in the exhibitions has led to a respectable number of visitors, including the entire drama department staff, all of whom have been impressed by the skills and knowledge (not to mention the sources) on display. From Monday, the exhibition will only exist in electronic form, on a new section of the Special Collections website which we have just completed, and on the websites which the groups put together to accompany their work. All of the students put a lot of time and effort into constructing their websites and we’ve linked these to the Special Collections pages to make it easy for anyone to have a look at the investigations which each of the students carried out.

If you didn’t manage to get to the Templeman to see the real thing, why not have a look at the webpages; there are links from the Special Collections homepage menu.

Of course, this exhibition was only the beginning. After all of the positive feedback we’ve had, there’s no doubt that student curated exhibitions using Special Collections material will become a fixture of the academic year. In fact, the next DR575 module starts on Monday 17 January, and we hope to open another student curated exhibition to the public on Thursday, 7 April, based on topics chosen within the broad theme of British theatre 1860-1940.

So all that remains is to say a big thank you to Helen Brooks, who teaches the module and came up with the idea for the exhibition, and the 18 students who spent (what probably seemed like endless) hours in Special Collections trawling through sources and produced such excellent work: Kelci, Olivia, Abaigael, Bryn, Jonathan, Katie, Amy , Rebecca, Daniel, Alexander, Charlotte, Stephanie, Richard, Rachel, Jade, Robin, Rebecca and Monique.

Watch this space for the next exciting exhibition…

Flu a hundred years hence

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Given that there’s so much in the news about flu outbreaks at the moment, I thought it would be interesting to look at some of the reactions to the influenza outbreak in 1919, from the Kingsley Wood scrapbook which covers the period November 1918 to October 1919. During this time, Sir Howard Kingsley Wood was involved in the setting up of the new Ministry of Health, as well as being part of the Local Government Board and M.P. for Woolwich.

The Spanish flu outbreak of 1918-1920 swept across the world with huge numbers of fatalities, particularly killing  younger victims through an overreaction of the immune system. Those with weaker immune systems were therefore more able to survive the virus. The devastating effects of the Spanish flu were exacerbated by the First World War, through lifestyle and the unusual population movement of seriously infected individuals.

The Daily Sketch published a self-congratulatory account of a ‘conference on influenza’ on 1st March 1919, which it claimed to have inspired. In the course of the public debate, the government’s advice to ‘keep fit’ was criticised, since fit people also fell ill. The chairman, Sir Malcolm Morris, also described the prescription of ‘a permanganate of potash and salt as a nasal douche’ as ‘”a horrible solution”‘. Dr Murray Lesli advised:

Start the day with a good breakfast ; have a brisk walk before starting work. Mental strain, lack of food and sleep, owing to the war are predisposing causes of influenza.

Oral cleanliness and good ventilation of public transport and public spaces were advocated; Dr Kirkhope, the Medical Officer for Health in Tottenham, advised that all badly ventilated cinemas should be closed. However, Kirkhope also argued that the disease was not influenza but a ‘continuation of many diseases’, since, at this time, scientists not yet conclusively discovered the causes of the flu virus.

‘Dr Lowe argued that we eat too much boiled food’

More ‘striking’ opinions included the demand by Sir St. Clair Thomson that anyone who coughed or sneezed on public transport ‘without putting a hand or handkerchief to the mouth should be prosecuted for indecency’. The possibility of taking ‘disciplinary measures’ against infected people who handled food and did not take precautions against infecting others seems to have been popular.

‘Persons with a cough should wear masks, but not the general public.’

According to this article, there was a difference of opinion amongst the experts about the ‘question of alcohol’; perhaps it is a coincidence that the lower section of the page is taken up by an endorsement of supplying whisky to those suffering with influenza!

As part of the ‘war on disease’, the first Minister for Health for England was appointed on 10th June 1919. Dr. Christopher Addison (1869-1951) had entered politics because he believed that governments were more able to change the health of the poor, and of society in general, than individual doctors. The Daily Mail announced Dr. Addison’s appointment in June 1919 as the start of a ‘war on disease’, where prevention was paramount in a country in which:

‘consumption is as prevalent today as smallpox in the seventeenth century.’

One of the many improvements associated with social welfare and efforts to improve the nation’s health following the First World War were housing reforms. As the cutting from Answers from 2nd August 1919 put it, the intention was to ‘Scoot that Slum!’ The Daily News had reported in May of the same year that over three million people were living in cramped conditions of two to a room, describing a ‘great breeding place of disease.’

‘Bred in towns, reared in alleys, mewed up in stuffy rooms, no wonder people became irreligious, bat-eyed, materialistic, and Bolshevik.’

Kingsley Wood’s opinion of the place of slums as the cause of all the country’s ills were popular amongst many public-spirited gentleman of the time, who also wanted to build for the future. However, this proved difficult for the people who wanted to live in the newly developed ideal homes. Ways and Means from 6th September 1919 describes a leaked interview which Kingsley Wood gave to the Observer, in which he claimed that the government was ‘to-day settling where the Englishman of a hundred years hence is to live.’ While we may be grateful in 2019, the people of 1919 were more concerned with the ‘leaky lodgings and lack of lavatories’ which they had to put up with while the building work progressed increasingly slowly.

The Kingsley Wood scrapbooks are not yet catalogued but are in date order. They consist of cuttings largely from Sir Kingsley Wood’s political career and items of interest from his work as a lawyer. If you would like to look at these scrapbooks, email us at specialcollections@kent.ac.uk for an appointment.