3. When Knights Were Bold - Reviews 2
(1914 - 1944)

[James Welch in When Knights Were Bold postcard]

The Stage (18 June, 1914 - p.25) 

THE APOLLO

“WHEN KNIGHTS WERE BOLD” REVIVED.

     On Thursday evening, June 11, 1914, was revived at the Apollo “Charles Marlowe’s” three-act farce entitled:—

When Knights Were Bold.

     All those who are fond of genuine fun gained by legitimate, if at times artless, means will welcome Mr. James Welch’s revival at the Apollo of “Charles Marlowe’s” ever-enjoyable farce When Knights Were Bold, It is now some seven years ago since this bright and clever satire upon chivalry and pride of birth first set the playgoing world a-laughing and provided “Jimmy” Welch with one of his most popular parts; and, if one is to judge by the unrestrained and continuous mirth it provoked on Thursday evening among a large audience, it should retain all its essential vitality for many another seven years to come! The reason for this, of course, is that, as has been said, the fun of When Knights Were Bold is perfectly legitimate fun. Mark Twain discovered the fraud of mediæval chivalry many years ago in that most delightful of all his books “A Yankee at the Court of King Arthur”—one remembers Morgan Le Fay’s castle, where the band played what seemed to be the crude first-draft of “In the sweet by-and-by,” and the Queen had the composer hanged after dinner, with peculiar relish—while the gentleman who thinks that he is great because his grandmother was great is, like the poor, always with us! In fact, the theme of “Charles Marlowe’s” evergreen farce is so delightfully fruitful of possibilities that the piece might almost be said to have written itself, and it goes without saying that those interpreting it must of necessity be infected by its high-spirited gaiety. This is especially the case with Mr. James Welch as the irrepressible Sir Guy de Vere, a part he plays with all his accustomed animation of style and gesture. Whether as the romp in the first act, with a “code id his dose,” the valiant fighting man in the second, or the apparently insane person in the third, the popular comedian carries all before him, and shows not a trace of his recent regrettable indisposition. Miss Isla Glynn, on the other hand, is a charmingly demure Lady Rowena, being particularly successful as the white-robed novice in the second act; while it would be difficult to find a better or more attractive Sara Isaacson than that of Miss Muriel Kidner—a remark which also applied to the taking Alice Barker of Miss Violet Graham. Mr. C. F. Lloyd as the Jew, Isaac Isaacson; Mr. George Desmond as that notable “silly ass,” Charles Widdicombe; Mr. Colin Johnstone as a lifelike Dr. Pottlebury; Mr. Denis J. Hogan as the scheming Sir Brian; Mr. Stanley Yourke as a capital Wittle; Mr. George Child as an amusing Barker; Mr. Herbert Ransom as the Herald; and Miss Mabel Younge as the Hon. Mrs. Waldegrave are all admirably in the picture, the cast being cleverly completed by Miss Peggy Kennedy as Lady Millicent, Miss Queenie Thomas as Lady Marjorie, and Miss Stephanie Bell as Kate Pottlebury. In response to loud demands for a speech on Thursday evening Mr. Welch stepped forward and said “Dear Boys and Girls, thank you so much. It is so nice to be with you all again”—a sentiment which should be uppermost at the Apollo for many weeks to come.

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Daily Express (Thursday, 12 April, 1917 - p.3)

DEATH OF JAMES WELCH.
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ACTOR OF INIMITABLE PATHOS AND HUMOUR.
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     Mr. James Welch, the actor, died on Tuesday night at Ringwood, New Forest, after a lingering illness. His age was fifty-two, and he had been thirty years on the stage. He will be deeply regretted, both for his fine personal qualities and for his great talents as a comedian.
     He had the most compelling of all stage gifts, the ability to command “the laughter that is akin to tears.” In that respect he could worthily be compared with the late John L. Toole. “Jimmy” Welch’s pathos was just as convincing as his laughter—and that was invariably uproarious. Nobody who saw him in “When Knights were Bold,” the mock-historical farce in which he acted more than a thousand times, is ever likely to forget the inimitable humour of his Sir Guy de Vere.
     That play was his greatest popular success, but Mr. Welch’s art was by no means confined to the domain of bustling farce. In his early days he acted many varied parts in Wilson Barrett’s dramas and tragedies, and later he made an enviable reputation in Ibsen plays and the comedies of Bernard Shaw.
     Thousands of playgoers will remember Mr. Welch for his comical cold in “When Knights were Bold.” It arose from a real cold. The audience roared at his wheezing and sneezing. They thought it was part of the play.

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The Stage (15 November, 1917 - p.14)

“When Knights were Bold.”

     The only change of bill in the West End this week will be the revival on Saturday afternoon, at the Kingsway, of “When Knights were Bold.” Ever since its production at Wyndham’s on January 29, 1907, Harriett Jay’s farce has enjoyed an immense amount of popularity, and has had several revivals in London. Criterion, January 17, 1910; Apollo, June 11, 1914; New, February 8, 1915. The popularity of the piece in the provinces as well as in London was, of course, largely due to the highly comic interpretation of the character of Sir Guy de Vere by the late James Welch. Mr. Welch played the part continuously from January, 1907, until July of the following year, and he subsequently went on tour, acting the character, almost without a break, for the next three years. Mr. Bromley Challenor, who will be the Sir Guy at the Kingsway, has appeared in the character for one thousand five hundred times. Miss Marjorie Bellairs will be the Lady Rowena.

[After the death of James Welch on 10th April 1917, Sir Guy de Vere’s armour was passed on to Bromley Challenor, who continued to play the role until 1932. Obituaries of both actors and the report of a 1917 court case over the rights to the play, are available in the When Knights Were Bold - Miscellanea section.]

The Times (19 November, 1917 - p.11)

“WHEN KNIGHTS WERE BOLD.”

SUCCESSFUL REVIVAL AT THE
KINGSWAY THEATRE.

BY CHARLES MARLOWE.

     It might perhaps have been thought that When Knights were Bold would hardly have survived Mr. James Welch, so dependent did it seem to be upon his peculiar personality and impish fun. But it is as true on the stage as elsewhere that il n’y a pas d’homme nécessaire, and Mr. Bromley Challenor, though he is not Mr. Welch, has a personality and a fun of his own, enough at any rate to keep the farce moving and the audience laughing. Indeed, the audience on Saturday was so obliging as to laugh loudly not only at the old jokes but at the rough-and-tumble tomfoolery—a circumstance which, however it might puzzle the philosophers from Hobbes to Bergson who have analysed laughter, undoubtedly justified the revival of the farce.

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The Stage (22 November, 1917 - p.18)

THE KINGSWAY.

“WHEN KNIGHTS WERE BOLD” REVIVED.

     There has been another change of bill and of management at the house in Great Queen Street, which was re-opened on Saturday, November 17, by Mr. Bromley Challenor, with a welcome and apparently acceptable revival of that piece admirably calculated to drive away dull care, “When Knights were Bold.” Mr. B. Challenor, whose business manager at the Kingsway is Mr. Yourke Challenor, has had a lengthy and successful association with this popular farce of “Charles Marlowe” (Harriett Jay), for he has been touring for a considerable period with this quasi-burlesque of “Ivanhoe,” and has, we understand, appeared as many as 1,500 times in the late James Welch’s old rôle of Sir Guy de Vere. That very modern and ultra-slangy descendant of the doughty Knights of Beechwood Towers is played, with some of the familiar “Jimmy Welch” tones and attitudes , by Mr. Bromley Challenor, but also with many original touches and diverting bits of acrobatic or semi-pantomimic bits of business, as well as with the introduction of numerous topical hits, such as references to Tanks, the Entertainments Tax, Sugar Cards, and so forth. This may be held justifiable in the case of an old favourite that has been played as frank farce for years past, although on the present revival the romantic element, which forms the all-important factor of designed contrast, has by no means been slurred over. Mr. B. Challenor is thus showing himself to West End audiences to be an energetic, adroit, and well-equipped comedian, and, besides giving a genuinely successful impersonation of Sir Guy, he is to be credited with the excellent and carefully-controlled production of the play, with the aid of the stage management of Mr. S. J. Chapman, who also makes a picturesque and stalwart exponent of the Herald. The effect of the ensemble is enhanced by the painstaking rendering of the vocal items and by the duly old-time costumes and accessories.
     Mr. Bromley Challenor is being supported by several of his former touring colleagues, notably, Miss Marjorie Bellairs, a Lady Rowena Eggington gently romantic and winsome in the scenes of the present day and full of spirit and fire in that “Dream of Ye Goode Old Times” on the Battlements at Beechwood after 721 years have “passed backwards.” The transformations in the various characters are indicated with skill also by the other members of the cast at the Kingsway. Mr. Annesley Hely who has played the part on tour is quite in the picture both as the card-sharping Sir Brian of the opening and the finale and as the blustering, bold, bad Baron of 1196, the date now assigned to Act 2; and similarly, the variations in the Jew and his daughter are brought out well by Mr. Ernest Legh, as Isaac Isaacson and the tortured Isaac of York, and by Miss Talbot-Daniel, an alluring Sarah. In like manner, the Abbey-restoring Dean and the persecuting Peter the Monk are differentiated ably, and with contrasted blandness and vigour, by that experienced player Mr. Edward Y. Rae; and capital studies of Charles Widdicombe, jester amateur and professional, Barker, dignified butler and cringing Seneschal, and Wittle, in his varied manifestations, are presented by Mr. Eric Howard, Mr. George Fytche, and Mr. James Craig. Miss Ruby Warneford is pleasingly vivacious as Alice Barker, new and old styles; Miss Violet Ellicott is stately and impressive as Mrs. Waldegrave and the fugitive Abbess; and Misses Elsye Gorse, Vanda Lalroi, and Joan Charteris act agreeably as the younger girls with whom Sir Guy disports himself, the Ladies Millicent and Marjorie, and Kate Pottlebury.  Thus revived, “When Knights were Bold” was received with warm favour at both performances on Saturday.

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Daily Express (10 March, 1920 - p.5)

“WHEN KNIGHTS WERE BOLD.”
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     Mr. Bromley Challenor, of the Scala Theatre, who has gained such renown for his performance of Sir Guy de Vere in “When Knights Were Bold,” is not the Mr. Frank Stanley Bromley-Challenor who was mentioned in the Divorce Court on Monday last.
     Few farces have gained such deserved popularity as “When Knights Were Bold,” and few actors have scored such a success as Mr. Bromley Challenor has done in London and the provinces, where all records have been broken—even that of Mr. James Welch, who first played the part. “When Knights Were Bold” reached its 2,500th performance under Mr. Bromley Challenor’s management at the Scala Theatre a few weeks ago, and Mr. Challenor and Miss Marjorie Bellairs have each appeared in the piece more than 2,400 times.

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The Times (29 June, 1920 - p.14)

SUMMER PLAYS IN BERLIN.

REIGN OF FARCE.
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.....     Yet mediocre as is much of the summer fare provided, the opening of the season in Berlin has been greeted with remarkable enthusiasm in many theatres, and numerous triumphs have been scored. They are chiefly the individual triumphs of a few footlight favourites, and it says much for their art and their temperament that they have succeeded in winning over a hypercritical public frequently in spite of the poor standard of play in which they have been employed. Much of the acting is undoubtedly first-rate, and one can see these popular mirth-provokers in a great variety of German and foreign pieces, among which an ever-increasing number of English comedies are being revived.

THE ENGLISH VOGUE.

     For the time has returned when your Berliner, discreetly forgetting that he ever uttered a “Gott strafe England,” washes again with English soap, cultivates an English vocabulary, and laughs again over Arms and the Man, Charley’s Aunt, and The Importance of Being Earnest. German critics never tire of gibing at the type of stage wit they consider specifically English—the humour still mainly connected with the Briton who boxes, chews an enormous pipe, mouths his words, drinks whisky-soda, and makes wagers about everything. But critics are inhuman beings the world over; and the Briton arriving in the German capital to-day may derive a degree of consolation from finding English comedies attracting big and appreciative audiences in half a dozen different playhouses nightly.
     All Berlin is at present tittering over the merry escapades of Sir Guy de Vere in Marlowe’s well-known burlesque, When Knights were Bold (Die goldene Ritterzeit). The audience at the Theater des Westens shakes with laughter from start to finish at the young aristocrat who has nothing of the dignity of the English lord or the romanticism of his ancestors, at his excursion into the Middle Ages, in a 20th-century dinner jacket and with only one cigarette in his case, at his donning a coat-of-mail and duelling with the rival Sir Brian, and, above all, at his return to realities, still declaiming the rhymed nonsense of A.D. 1200, and effectively demonstrating to his vexatious family the difference between the chivalry of the past and the chivalry of the present.
     It would be difficult to imagine a more irresistible performance, for the rôle of Sir Guy is played by Max Pallenberg, the wonderful little Austrian who, with a sudden leap to fame, electrified the first audiences of The Chocolate Soldier, Autumn Manœvres, and a dozen other Viennese successes. Everything funny in Germany to-day seems to centre in Pallenberg. His name is a household word; his imitators and parodists in suburban vaudevilles and provincial cabarets are legion. Funniest of funny men in summer, but a gifted character actor in winter, with the comedian’s proverbial ambition to become a great tragedian and with far more likelihood of realizing his ambition than the majority of comedians so disposed, he is inclined to apologize for his reputation for drollery, and is just now, they say, undecided whether his next part should be Shylock in a Reinhardt representation of The Merchant of Venice or that other Jewish acquaintance of ours, the junior partner in Potash and Perlmutter.

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The Times (11 December, 1920 - p.8)

“WHEN KNIGHTS WERE BOLD.”

     Revivals of farcical comedies, with thousands and thousands of past performances as their guarantee to amuse, are becoming a popular feature of the Christmas entertainment season. When Knights Were Bold, presented at the Duke of York’s Theatre last night, is not of the oldest vintage, but it has a lengthening record of success, and with a bad cold and the “good old days” as leading themes it seems peculiarly suited to appeal to audiences at this time of the year. Mr. Bromley Challenor is again the Sir Guy de Vere of the play, and is excellent all through. The character rather lends itself to “gagging,” and Mr. Challenor falls before temptation, but without spoiling his effects. Mr. Sydney Paxton and Miss Madge Compton are prominent for good work among the other members of the company.

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The Times (20 December, 1921 - p.8)

“WHEN KNIGHTS WERE BOLD.”

REVIVAL AT THE KINGSWAY.

     So many modern audiences have seen this play and made their comments upon it that the Lady Rowena, charming though she is, can no longer be allowed a monopoly in romance and miracle. He must face an Elizabethan audience; she—with a blessing upon the change in manners that changed the sex of her impersonator—must win the ear that attended Wycherley and look out an instant across the blur of periwigs that bobbed to the wit of Sheridan. Allow to these ghostly audiences that knowledge of topical allusions which we ourselves possess; preserve in them no strangeness but the strangeness of their own critical spirit. What then would they have said of this play that fills a theatre year by year, of Mr. Bromley Challenor’s untiring energy, of the Jester, the jousting, and the Jew? Would they have sat stolid and amazed? Would they have laughed? Would they have early departed?
     But even for the Lady Rowena’s sake we dare not venture so deeply into the psychology of the drama upon so slight an occasion. Yet, surely those audiences would have in common a particular astonishment which is a key to the play’s popularity in our own day. For the spirit of When Knights Were Bold is the spirit born in certain country house parties in this age of impatience, a spirit that drives men to the desperate expedient of noise, and women, tired of wit, to the sewing up of pyjamas. Extravagance our ancestors knew; romping they knew; laughter they knew better perhaps than we shall ever have time to learn it. But they were strangers to the amusement that we draw so happily from repetitions, from clumsiness for its own sake. They had not the gift of silliness.
     Mr. Challenor is greatly gifted. He makes of Sir Guy de Vere a fool so uproarious that the critical voice of Tudor or Stuart would be lost in the uproar. Having chosen his task, he performs it without faltering, and—greatest gift of all—with a seeming delight that influences the whole cast. Miss Enid Cooper, as the romantic Lady Rowena, would have certainly won the Restoration heart, and Mr. R. Tippett, as Wittle, would have earned a chuckle from the Elizabethans. But the Georgians, whose mentality was of rapiers rather than of wooden swords, would have climbed, perhaps, a little sadly into the chairs that bore them homeward.

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The Stage (22 December, 1921 - p.16)

THE KINGSWAY.

“WHEN KNIGHTS WERE BOLD.”

     Harriet Jay’s long-popular piece bobs up serenely nearly every Christmas season, and this year its local habitation is to be found at the Kingsway, where it is being presented, twice daily, by Mr. W. A. Evans. Mr. Bromley Challenor resumes, for the nth time, his pleasantly familiar rôle of Sir Guy de Vere, to a new Lady Rowena in that of Miss Enid Cooper, a niece of Miss Margaret Cooper, it is stated, who is pretty, graceful, and charming, and plays with much spirit in the, as ever, picturesquely presented second act, on the Battlements, A.D. 1196. Herein Mr. Challenor, who has abated nothing of the acrobatic exploits and really “monkey tricks” that have latterly marked his side-splitting embodiment of Sir Guy, is notably good in showing the baronet’s passing from the manners of modern days into the true mediæval atmosphere, and he thus continues to differentiate skilfully his performance from that given of old by the late James Welch. The company now supporting Mr. Challenor include several members long conversant with their rôles, Mr. G. F. Lloyd, for instance, presenting a by no means conventionally Hebraic assumption of Isaac Isaacson, whose daughter, Sara has an exponent new, we think, in Miss Doris Johnstone, notably good in the attempted love-making with Sir Guy and as the captive with dishevelled hair of “Ye Goode Olde Times.” Mr. Dennis Wyndham makes once again a specious and sufficiently truculent personage of Sir Brian, worsted so ignominiously in the combat with the at last roused descendant of the de Veres; Mr. George Childs begins by being quietly demure as the Peter Pottlebury of the present time; and capital and genuinely diverting work is done in the contrasted phases of their rôles by Mr. Leslie Francis, especially funny when Charles Widdicombe becomes the family jester; by Mr. George Fytche as Barker, butler, and Seneschal, and by Mr. R. Tippett as Wittle. The Herald is embodied befittingly by Mr. David Kemp, stage manager for Mr. Evans, whose general manager is Mr. Archie W. Chappell. Miss Violet Ellicott is seen again as a stately and imposing Mrs. Waldegrave, the impersonation of the Abbess being particularly excellent; Lady Millicent and Lady Marjorie have agreeable exposition from Misses Joan Charteris and Leslie Birks; and Kate Pottlebury and the coyly amenable Alice Barker are also represented pleasantly by Misses Sheila Birks and Ruby Warneford. Brigata Bucalossi’s tuneful music makes the due effect in the ensemble of this merry farce as rendered by the orchestra under the direction of Mr. J. H. Squire.

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The Times (19 December, 1923 - p.8)

“WHEN KNIGHTS WERE BOLD.”

REVIVAL AT THE CRITERION.

     When Knights Were Bold seems by now to have become the hardiest of all our “hardy annuals” at Christmas time, and this year Charles Marlowe’s farcical frolic is again as full of life as ever, in spite of its advanced theatrical age. When Mr. James Welch died it was promptly assumed that When Knights Were Bold would die with him, but at once Mr. Bromley Challenor came along, showed that he could worthily wear the preposterous armour that Mr. Welch had discarded, and made a new success of what had seemed to be a played-out part.
     Mr. Challenor is still as buoyant and as humorous as ever, and always manages to suggest that Sir Guy de Vere palls as little on him as it does on his audience. On Monday night, at the Criterion Theatre, the time-honoured jokes and “business” caused as much laughter as ever—and deserved it. Miss Enid Cooper is again an attractive Lady Rowena, and the remainder of the company enter into the fun of the thing with great spirit. It is nearly 17 years since the piece was first produced by Mr. Welch, and nearly half that time since Mr. Challenor stepped into his shoes. This latest revival seems to postpone to a very distant date the time when it will be necessary to leave one letter out of the titles and write as its epitaph “When Knights Were Old.”

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Programme for the Criterion Theatre, December, 1923.

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The Tech (Massachusetts Institute of Technology newspaper Vol. 44, No. 30: 29 May, 1924 - p.4)

DELIGHTFUL COMEDY AT
THE COPLEY THIS WEEK

     Mr. E. E. Clive, playing the part of “Sir Guy De Vere,” the happy and care-free heir to the De Vere estates, is the factor in making the presentation of the charming little farce “When Knights Were Bold” at the Copley Theater this week, one of the most delightful comedies seen in Boston stock productions for quite a while. The play is in three acts and is written by Charles Marlowe.
     Sir Guy has heard so much about the accomplishments of his ancestors during the middle ages that while slightly “under the weather” he dreams that he is master of his estates back in the year 1197. The result is that his friends think him crazy, but incidentally he defeats the intentions of Sir Bryan Ballymote to marry the charming Rowena whom he loves. Mr. Clive is a very versatile actor and provides excellent comedy throughout the play. He is equally pleasing in and out of armor, drunk or sober and carefree or serious.
     Katherine Standing as “Lady Rowena” is a beautiful and charming heroine. The remainder of the cast play their parts well but are necessarily subordinated to Mr. Clive and Miss Standing. This is the last appearance of Henry Jewett’s Repertory Company at the Copley Theater. They will be seen next season at  more commodious quarters in the Arlington Theater in Arlington Square.
                                                                                                                                              C. E. M.

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The Times (23 December, 1926 - p.8)

NEW SCALA THEATRE.

“WHEN KNIGHTS WERE BOLD.”

     Much play is made during this farce with a jest that Noah is supposed to have uttered during his cruise. One suspects that the general type of humour shown in the piece was already a precious memory to him when he embarked. But broad and venerable fun is not unpardonable at pantomime time; anyhow, the hearty audience at Mr. Bromley Challenor’s latest revival of Sir Guy de Vere’s burlesque adventures in the Middle Age had no complaint to proffer. We would only suggest that it seems hardly needful to underline the author’s points quite so loudly and industriously. For those who instinctively shiver a little when the institutions of chivalry and the shade of Sir Walter are thus handled, the only consolation is that (in England) such mockery usually disguises reverence.
     Apart from Mr. Challenor, whose stream of energy never runs dry, few of the performers have prominent parts. Mr. Stephen Adeson stands out with a genuine, if overdrawn, clerical character study as the Dean, and Mr. Derek Challenor as a credible young valet. Miss Enid Cooper has mainly to look lissom and elegant as the Lady Rowena of the fable, and fails not to do so.

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Programme for the New Scala Theatre, 22nd. December, 1926.

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The Stage (30 December, 1927 - p.30) 

CHRISTMAS PLAYS.

THE SAVOY.

“WHEN KNIGHTS WERE BOLD.”

     That popular all-the-year-round as well as Christmas show “When Knights were Bold” has, after all, managed to find a West End home these holidays, Mr. Bromley Challenor opening with it once more with a matinée, at the Savoy, on December 22, Harriett Jay’s farce then going into the evening bill, and the afternoons being reserved for Mr. Hugh Marleyn’s production of another welcome visitor, “Alice in Wonderland.” Mr. Bromley Challenor and his son Derek are, respectively, director and manager, and assistant manager, for Famous Plays Syndicate, by which the Charles Marlowe “Dream of Ye Goode Olde Tymes” is being presented. The latter now plays the manservant Wittol, and the former, of course, resumes the rôle of Sir Guy de Vere, which since James Welch’s death he has made his own. Mr. Challenor still embroiders his performance with those simian and Calibanesque manifestations which thousands of amusement-seeking playgoers have enjoyed so vastly of late years. As aforetime, he is most funny of all in the second act, with the plunge 731 years backward to the Battlements, 1196. Here, with as picturesque display of mediæval pageantry as of old, we see the originally feeble Sir Guy performing doughty deeds in complete steel against the suitably truculent Sir Brian of Mr. Arthur Jenner, and rescuing from that ruffian fair ladies in distress.
     Once again, Miss Enid Cooper is a romantic and impassioned Lady Rowena, both in modern times and in the Middle Ages, with agreeable exponents of the skittish damosels Ladies Millicent and Marjorie Eggington in Misses May Vernon and Marjorie Lloyd. Chances for vivid and emotional playing are afforded to Miss Gwen Llewellyn, when Sarah Isaacson reverts to the Rebecca of “Ivanhoe,” and both phases of her sire and of Peter Pottlebury are duly contrasted by Mr. C. F. Lloyd and Mr. Stephen Adeson. Miss Violet Ellicot is once more a stately Mrs. Waldegrave, alike as Society lady and as Abbess. The witticisms of that chartered libertine, Charles Widdicombe are divertingly set forth by Mr. Cameron Hall, and Barker, the butler transformed into Seneschal, and his daughter, Alice, are represented befittingly by Mr. George Fytche and Miss Sheila Crawford. Mr. Annesley Hely is a stentorian Herald. It will be noted that there are several newcomers among the members of Mr. Bromley Challenor’s company. Brigata Bucalossi’s familiar and always welcome music is rendered ably under the direction of Mr. Philip Braham. Mr. Jackson Hartley and Mr. L. Osbourne are stage director and stage manager.

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Daily Express (18 January, 1928 - p.11)

Actor’s Long, Long Trail.

     Bromley Challenor starts off again on his tour of England next Monday. For twelve Christmases, now, he has come to London with “When Knights Were Bold,” which he has produced at ten different theatres. He arrives in London just before Christmas, and then, after trying to find a play suited for the West End, goes on the road, after six weeks in the city of his dreams.
     This year, after missing the Lyric and the Apollo by about an hour—there is always a wild scramble for London theatres at Christmas time—he suddenly got the Savoy, when “The Cave Man” fell down.

Two Plays a Day.

     Two years ago Challenor played in “When Knights Were Bold,” at the Princes, in the afternoons, and in “Are You a Mason?” at the Fortune, every evening.
     That year the Fortune fell suddenly vacant, almost on Christmas Eve.
     All this Christmas time, as has happened in the previous eleven years, he has been searching for a new play, one that will keep him in London.
     He does not complain about touring. Theatrical lodgings, nowadays, are better than they used to be. You can play golf now, you can motor from town to town, and people do not scowl at actors when they arrive on a strange station.
     Mr. Challenor feels, though, that London is the place to stay. If you have a comedy or a farce, do not send it to Al Woods, but to Bromley Challenor.

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Daily Express (6 November, 1928 - p.9)

Motorists in “When Knights Were Bold.”

     A production such as “When Knights Were Bold,” which is being undertaken this week by the Motor Union Athletic Club (Dramatic Section) at the Guildhall School of Music Theatre, interests me greatly. It is not only a dramatic production in the limited sense; it requires a stage crowd as well.
     Moreover, it contains one or two musical numbers. This has the great advantage of securing the interest of musical members and assists in achieving the object of securing legitimate stage experience for the members of a society’s chorus.

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The Argus (Melbourne, Australia) (17 November, 1928 - p.10)

STAGE GOSSIP
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Author of Palace Play
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“Charles Marlowe” and
Buchanan
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By FIRST-NIGHTER

     CHARLES MARLOWE is the programme name of the author of “When Knights Were Bold,” the amusing piece which has been revived at the Palace; but there was a time when the writer was known to theatre-goers and readers not as Mr. Marlowe, but as Miss Harriett Jay, actress, novelist, and dramatist. Robert Buchanan, who wrote many novels, poems, and plays, married Miss Jay’s sister, and he collaborated with his sister-in-law in the writing of eight stage pieces. The first was “The Queen of Connaught,” founded on a novel by Miss Jay which was published anonymously and was attributed by too-knowing reviewers to Charles Reade. No objection was made to this by Reade; he read the novel, saw its possibilities for the stage, and took interest in the progress of its dramatisation. Financially the most successful of the plays in which Buchanan and Miss Jay collaborated was the melodrama “Alone in London,” which is still revived by touring companies. In the original production Harriett Jay appeared at first as the boy who has much to do with the plot, and later in the season she took the place of another actress in the leading emotional part. Though the play did remarkably well always, Buchanan, who could write much better things, regarded it with contempt. “Taking my consent for granted,” says Miss Jay in her interesting biography of Buchanan, “he sold the piece for an absurdly small sum to Messrs. Miller and Elliston, and so parted with the goose which laid the golden eggs.”

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     Buchanan made large amounts by the success of other pieces, but he threw thousands away in theatre speculation and on the racecourse. He began racegoing when well advanced in middle age, and ended the experience in the unprofitable way that might have been expected. Among plays by Buchanan which had long runs were those of an eighteenth-century series adapted from noted novels. “Sophia” was founded on Fielding’s “Tom Jones,” and “Joseph’s Sweetheart” was from the same author’s “Joseph Andrews.” In Australia the Brough Boucicault company did excellent work in costume pieces of this type. Miss Jay appeared in a number of London productions, and her authorship as “Charles Marlowe” proved that she knew how to keep theatre-goers well entertained. In one city or another audiences have laughed at “When Knights Were Bold” many times since 1907, the year of its first production. At the Palace they are laughing still.

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The Times (24 December, 1929 - p.10)

THE PLAYHOUSE.

“WHEN KNIGHTS WERE BOLD”
BY CHARLES MARLOWE

     When Knights Were Bold is simple to the point of crudity. It is based on the assumption that a confession of folly is as good as a proof of wisdom and certainly better then any pretence of cleverness. So invincible is such modesty that even when the hero is, in a dream, transported to the 12th century, he is as successful as if he had been the greatest of champions instead of an amiable imbecile of modern times. But in this revival of the play for the Christmas season its weaknesses are scarcely relevant. For the hero confesses his folly and so prepares the way for Mr. Bromley Challenor, who confesses even more clamorously and persistently, and with unflagging vivacity, that his jokes are perfectly foolish.
     He rattles continuously from the beginning of the play to the end, and yet not one word could be called witty. Every speech is the antithesis of an epigram. He is in perpetual and violent movement, but not one action is not utterly absurd. But this, of course, is the point both of his words and of his actions. They are the pure froth of nonsense, but of their kind very good indeed. There is nothing that requires the slightest exercise of the intelligence, and this is apt to be very exhausting.
     But if one does try to think about Mr. Challenor’s art, one becomes exhausted for another reason. Its structure is so curious, the jokes are so intricately pointless and elaborately absurd, that the whole performance appears to be the last and logical development of an entirely artificial tradition, rather than the creation of one man. This, indeed, it probably is, but Mr. Challenor is not encumbered by so much elaboration and artifice. It may be that he only just succeeds in manipulating his impossible medium, and at every point seems about to fall into dull absurdity, the artifice of which is only too obvious. But he contrives a hairbreadth escape, and, chiefly by means of his untiring vitality, just makes the artificial alive. The result seems to be a very formal and sophisticated art, which is an odd thing to be given in the disguise of a very simple play for the festive season.

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The Times (10 December, 1931 - p.12)

     The hardy Christmas annual, When Knights were Bold, with Mr. Bromley Challenor in his old part of Sir Guy de Vere, will be revived this year at the Duke of York’s Theatre, where it will be presented for matinées only, beginning on Monday, December 21. Mr. Challenor first played Sir Guy de Vere in 1915, and has appeared in the part over 5,000 times.

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The Times (22 December, 1931 - p.8)

DUKE OF YORK’S THEATRE

“WHEN KNIGHTS WERE BOLD”

     With slight variations in jest and circumstance When Knights Were Bold lives on. Why it should is not at first easy to be seen. In the humours of a modern knight translated into the Middle Ages there would seem no greater warrant of immortality than that of a tale well worn. Nor is there much more in the anachronisms, the puns, and the acrobatics of Mr. Bromley Challenor and his friends. The secret—if secret there be, and it be not rather a matter of the mood of an audience—is in that particular form of English humour which consists in being silly, and of which Mr. Challenor is an exponent unexcelled.
     Though Mr. Bert Beswick as Charles Widdicombe, Mr. George Mitchell as the Rev. Peter Pottlebury, and Mr. George Fytche as Barker all play their parts with skill, Mr. Challenor is the play, a fact which some other members of the cast sometimes acknowledged too freely with broad smiles. After heaven knows how many years of playing the same part, he plays it still with zest, and with every appearance of a magnificently whole-hearted enjoyment of the fun he is making and giving. Whether he fight Sir Brian with wooden sword; reflect on the misfortune of a tobacco-lover born before Sir Walter Raleigh; or mock a gloomier Dean, the play, you feel, is a play, and nothing more. Which is also to say that it is nothing less, and an admirable entertainment for those who would laugh without effort.

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The Times (27 December, 1932 - p.6)

FORTUNE THEATRE

“WHEN KNIGHTS WERE BOLD”
BY CHARLES MARLOWE

     One good reason, among a multitude, for the revival of When Knights Were Bold each Christmas may be found in Sir Guy de Vere’s celebrated cold in the head. To those who have been suffering similarly or feel themselves about to suffer (and these two categories together compose a good majority of any winter audience) there is comfort in Mr. Bromley Challenor’s power between sneezes to wave his handkerchief into a rabbit, and magic in the manner of his falling asleep with his mustard bath untouched, only to awake an hour later without a snuffle.
     The Knight’s Room at Beechwood Towers, where we saw him fall asleep, is, as it happens, a notoriously draughty place, protected from the open air only by a tapestry. It is clear then that Sir Guy de Vere has really taken his stroll back to the year 1196, and that the cure is due to that vigorous half-hour upon the battlements in which he has frightened his retainers (Mr. George Fytche and Mr. Derek Bellairs), suffered his jester, rescued Isaac of York and his daughter, and finally pummelled the heavy-sworded Sir Brian Ballymote into subjection.
     That faint whiff of a chill which so often accompanies the first five minutes of a one-man farce when the one man has not yet appeared has already been long driven out of the auditorium. We have melted to Mr. Challenor as he sprang four-legged for the family tree, warmed with him as he clasped his fur rug for the drive back to the past, and glowed finally when he added up seven knights to make a week. The half-hour upon the battlements has made us almost feverish, not merely because Mr. Challenor is now scarcely ever off the scene, but because his attendants, livelier and richer-spirited in their medieval costumes, surround him and feed him with humour as well as sack. Miss Mary Gannon as the Lady Rowena looks fair enough for any knight to win, Miss Gwen Llewellyn and Miss Phyllis Eck proper objects for a lady’s jealousy. Nor does the warmth of the comedy pass away when Sir Guy’s actions are repeated with variations upon his return in the third act to the present day. That nip from the spirit of the past leaves Mr. Challenor vigorous enough to play the double bass with his two-handed sword for a bow.

[From The Daily Express (6 December, 1933 - p.8)]

The Times (23 December, 1933 - p.8)

FORTUNE THEATRE

“WHEN KNIGHTS WERE BOLD”
BY CHARLES MARLOWE

     It is obvious that the small number of really successful farces must have some quality, though it is not always easy to discover, which distinguishes them from those which last a far shorter time. To judge by this example it is the presence of an idea sufficiently robust, and sufficiently clearly presented, to stand any amount of wear and tear. For the dialogue is nothing and in this performance was readily used as a framework for gags and topical interpolations.
     The framework is provided, but a very great deal is left to the ingenuity of the chief actor. Mr. Jackson Hartley took the part in the manner of the music-hall comedian, and in this style he was not unsuccessful.

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The Stage (29 December, 1933 - p.16)

THE FORTUNE.

“WHEN KNIGHTS WERE BOLD.”

     The late Harriet Jay’s long-popular piece, which has for years taken its place as one of the diverting and attractive farces of the contemporary stage, has once more been revived as seasonable holiday fare by Mr. Caspar Middleton, with the production-work shared by Mr. Jackson Hartley and Mr. Charles F. Lloyd, the latter giving an effective and not obtrusively Hebraic impersonation of Isaac Isaacson and Mr. Hartley representing Sir Guy de Vere on the familiar lines laid down by James Welch, followed and enlarged upon by Mr. Bromley Challenor with various feats in animal-impersonation performance. Brigata Bucalossi’s tuneful incidental music enhances the effect of Ye Good Old Times scenes, with foresters and coif-wearing damosels filling in the picture on the Battlements of Beechwood Towers. The effectively carried out stage management is shared by Mr. Edmund S. Phelps, who also plays Barker, butler, and Seneschal, and by Mr. Jack Morris, and the acting manager is Mr. Charles Milton.
     Mr. Hartley’s Sir Guy has a blonde yet haughty vis-à-vis in the attractively played Lady Rowena of Miss Peggy Ford-Carrington, fittingly contrasted with the duly emotional Sarah Isaacson of Miss Diane de Bret, seen to special advantage in the twelfth-century passages, where also the wonted effect is given to Peter Pottlebury, Charles Widdicombe, and Sir Brian Ballymote by Messrs. Stephen Adeson, Bertram Maurice, and Eric Weatherell, who makes an imposing figure of the recreant knight. The various phases of Wittol are shown clearly by Mr. Leslie Sparkes. A stately Abbess of the Middle Ages is found in the Mrs. Waldegrave of Miss Dorothy Fane, and the young women, Ladies Millicent and Marjorie Eggington, Katie Pottlebury, and Alice Barker, have their progress backwards shown effectively by charming Misses Elizabeth Grayson, Betty Rudder, Marcia Mayhew, and Phyllis Eck. The Herald has a stalwart representative in Mr. Clyde Melnotte. “Romance, Adventure, Laughter All the Way” is the description given to the farce in the programme at the Fortune, where it is being played twice daily for a short season.

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The Times (27 December, 1934 - p.6)

FORTUNE THEATRE

“WHEN KNIGHTS WERE BOLD”

     There are, we are told, only two—or is it three?—stories in the world—all the rest are merely variations of them. The Cinderella story is one, and surely the story of the man who finds himself in the wrong period of time is the other. The opportunities either for profundity or for fun are inexhaustible, and, if Mr. H. G. Wells and Henry James, to take two modern names at random, have done their bit for profundity, Mr. Charles Marlowe strikes year after year a shrewd blow for fun.
     Even if his play was less well-contrived than it is and the proportion of poor jokes to good ones higher, it would still, in all probability, continue to amuse, for there is something intrinsically amusing in the position in which Sir Guy de Vere finds himself. At the beginning of the first act he is in the entrance hall of Beechwood Towers, the second act finds him on the battlements of the same house in the year 1196, and the third act sees him restored to his proper century. Mr. Jackson Hartley, as last year, takes the part made famous by Mr. Bromley Challenor and decorates it with a jovial heartiness, Mr. Frank Foster lives up to his name as Isaac Isaacson, and the rest of the cast enter into the farce with a spirit that suggests they enjoy it almost as much as those on the other side of the footlights.

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Daily Express (18 December, 1935 - p.5)

[Bromley Challenor’s obituaries are available in the When Knights Were Bold - Miscellanea section.]

Daily Express (20 December, 1935 - p.19)

     Advertising on the Underground still announces Bromley Challenor to play “When Knights Were Bold” at the Fortune. Jackson Hartley has taken it over. He played last year when Challenor was in Australia.

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The Times (27 December, 1935 - p.5)

FORTUNE THEATRE

“WHEN KNIGHTS WERE BOLD”
BY CHARLES MARLOWE

     Certainly the moral of When Knights Were Bold would be badly missed by anyone who should draw invidious comparisons with the “good old days” of the play. James Welch and Bromley Challenor—multis ille bonis flebilis—had each his own conception of the part of Sir Guy de Vere, and even of the text of his lines. Mr. Jackson Hartley, valiantly buckling on their armour at short notice, has every right to wear it with a difference. This Sir Guy frankly tumbles through the part in the music-hall manner, or at least in that variant of it which is annually furbished up for pantomime. His colleagues automatically fall into the normal groupings of back-chat comedy, and collaborate in a rollicking, boisterous display which wins continuous laughter from that section of the audience whose recent studies predispose them to enjoy the roughest possible handling of the history book. The knockout blow on Sir Bryan’s helmet is delivered with no less crushing effect than of yore; and Sir Guy’s return to the twentieth century achieves new effects of riotous fun.
     The play, in fact, wears well—so well, that in the midst of recent glosses about sanctions and Belisha beacons one is almost surprised to observe fossil relics of the age of horse transport and luxuriant female tresses. Of course, the part of Rowena is the most conspicuous fossil of all: even in farce not much except a stage convention can be made in 1935 of the ardent young dreamer over Ye Goode Olde Dayes of Chivalrie; but what can be done Miss Joan Panter does with suitably romantic hauteur. The knockabout atmosphere does not prevent Mr. Lionel Gadsden from playing Isaac Isaacson intelligently; Miss Margaret Leona is sympathetic as Sarah; and the three servants are all well played by Mr. Edmund S. Phelps, Mr. Derek Bellairs, and Miss Carol Tennant.

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The Times (28 December, 1936 - p.15)

FORTUNE THEATRE

“WHEN KNIGHTS WERE BOLD”
BY CHARLES MARLOWE

     “Acts One and Three, Present Day.” But there the programme is wrong. It is true there are the modern evening dresses and a few near-topical jokes, but this is otherwise a period piece in all three acts; and when in the intervals the orchestra jumps forward into jazz it merely underlies the gap between “Present Day” and the opening years of our century, when the play was written. And, since no fashions seem quite so stale as those of the day before yesterday, so “Act Two, Anno Domini 1196,” which is the meat in the sandwich, comes fresher to the palate today than the rest of it. The players themselves are most at home on the battlements of Beechwood Towers in the twelfth century. The white nuns’ robes of the Lady Rowena and her handmaidens set off their good looks to perfection. The male members of the cast are palpably more real, more characteristically themselves, in medieval garb than in the tails or dinner jackets that belong to the present. So with the acting. If the company are adequate in modern dress they are more than adequate in the trappings of chivalry. “Dressing up” is clearly half the battle in playing the fool.
     The old farce, then, became really enjoyable once Sir Guy’s dream had transported him back to the period and into the skin of one of those valiant ancestors whom Lady Rowena was so exasperatingly fond of throwing at him. Mr. Jackson Hartley, though denied the spiritual stimulus of fancy dress till he donned his armour for the combat with Sir Bryan, could none the less have his boisterous way with the audience, now they were warmed to enthusiasm. His part has been a-building for many years now. It is tempting to try to remember—or guess—whether this bit of business is as old as the farce itself, whether that was inserted by James Welch or Bromley Challenor, whether the other is Mr. Hartley’s personal gloss. All three have helped to shape the play, but Mr. Hartley has by this time made it his own, and so effectively that Sir Guy, like Charley’s Aunt, may well continue to please uncritical people through a further eternity of Christmases. Apart from Mr. Hartley, the cast is substantially new since last year. But Mr. Phelps is still playing Barker, butler and seneschal, and looking incredibly like him in both incarnations.

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The Times (28 December, 1937 - p.7)

FORTUNE THEATRE

“WHEN KNIGHTS WERE BOLD”
BY CHARLES MARLOWE

     It is scarcely possible to understand what will make one or two, among innumerable farces survive for so many years. No doubt after a while they can live by their momentum alone, but even so it is a great mystery. As time goes on they have almost everything against them; the tempo of humour alters and quickens, a social milieu that once seemed exhilarating grows frowzy and down-at-heel, and no topical allusions—there are a good many in this production—can alter the unimaginable touch of time. But here it is at least possible to perceive some content in the farce which may have a permanent interest; there is a certain genuine criticism of life, crude enough, but quite sensible and not ungenerous, in this contrast between the present and the past. And the very simplicity of its statement at any rate ensures that the point of the play will not be missed. Moreover, the bathos of modern manners introduced among the grandeurs—here it is explicitly stated that every one in the thirteenth century spoke in blank verse—is a mysteriously lasting joke.
     Mr. William Daunt, in the part of Sir Guy de Vere, carries the main burden of the play with untiring energy and considerable resource. It is a perfectly flat character, but vitality can do much to compensate for the absence of life. Miss Furley takes the part of the romantic heroine with charm and restraint.

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The Stage (30 December, 1938 - p.17)

     In presenting “When Knights Were Bold,” at the Playhouse, Newcastle, Donald Gilbert follows his usual practice in offering something different as Christmas entertainment. This delightful piece has been making a great hit since it began its fortnight’s run on Boxing Day, and as there are thrills galore and side-splitting comedy—it should suit all tastes. Desmond Walter Ellis has a part that suits his gifts for the ludicrous as Sir Guy de Vere. Alexander Gauge, Hereward Russell, Hugh Butt, Marion Brignall, Lois Sutherland, Hugh Paddick, Helen Sessions, Lawrence Rushworth, and Ross Duncan give talented support, and Alexander Gauge is responsible for the production.

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Daily Express (9 November, 1939 - p.11)

Daily Express (13 March, 1944 - p.3)

Pay Corps gives ‘Box Office’ show

     The Leicester theatre group of the Royal Army Pay Corps came to London last night to perform “When Knights Were Bold” at the Comedy Theatre, W.
     It was one of a series of three Sunday shows for Allied Forces. The house was packed.

(Advert from The Stage - 19 October, 1950 - p.9)

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