 |
|
|
|
|
ROBERT WILLIAMS BUCHANAN (1841-1901) |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
THEATRE REVIEWS 49. The Mariners of England (1897)
The Mariners of England A letter from Harriett Jay to The Era (30 April, 1898) announces that she and Buchanan are disassociating themselves from all future productions of the play on the grounds that “the attempt to celebrate the achievement of a real national Hero has been construed, in some quarters, into sympathy with more ignoble manifestations of the national (or Jingo) spirit”.
The Era (14 November, 1896 - Issue 3034) “THE MARINERS OF ENGLAND,” the new nautical drama by the authors of Alone in London, is in active preparation for early production in London and the provinces. It is founded on new and as yet unpublished facts connected with Lord Nelson, whose full and definitive biography is announced for publication in March next; and the same materials have been used by Mr Robert Buchanan for a new story, which is now in the press. Nelson is a leading character in the play, the scene of which is laid at the beginning of the present century. The scenery is already in hand, and a copyright performance will take place in a few days. ___
The Pall Mall Gazette (18 November, 1896 - Issue 9875) As usual, there are few interesting announcements to make this week. We read that Mr. Buchanan has collaborated with Miss Harriett Jay in a nautical “drama,” and we hope it will be rollicking. Also that Mr. Buchanan’s “Sweet Nancy” will be revived in the afternoon at the Criterion by Miss Annie Hughes. ___
The Era (6 March, 1897 - Issue 3050) “THE MARINERS OF ENGLAND.” A New and Original Nautical Drama, Lord Nelson and Bronte Mr W. L. ABINGDON (FROM OUR OWN CORRESPONDENT.) Admiral Field’s conclusion that Lord Nelson’s memory had been treated with but scant respect in a recently-produced drama and the same gallant officer’s subsequent fiery question in the House of Commons as to what the Government were going to do about it, followed up by his forcible remark at the North London Rifle Club that “he would before long have the Lord Chamberlain’s department on toast,” will, no doubt, be a splendid advertisement to any play having among its dramatis personæ the hero of Trafalgar, and people will flock to the theatre if only to witness the treatment accorded in the new piece and apart from its merits as a work of dramatic art. The Mariners of England, in the words of one of the authors, “does not touch in any way on the Lady Hamilton intrigue, and, indeed, the great naval commander is rather the deus ex machinâ than the hero of the drama, which may be described as a simple story of original invention with an historical background.” No ideals are shattered by the authors of this piece, Messrs Robert Buchanan and Charles Marlowe; in fact, Nelson is just pictured as most of his admirers have from boyhood upwards fondly regarded him—a brave sailor, a beloved captain, and a man who made it possible for Englishmen to sing “Britannia Rules the Waves,” and who, in the end, gave his life for his country. All that is best worth remembering in the admiral’s life has been focussed into The Mariners of England, and the only regret is that the picture thrown upon the stage is not a larger one. With the exception of the one great incident, “The Death of Nelson,” the authors make no pretence to actual fact, and, truth to tell, the story might just as well have been written round any other naval character. For the greater part of the play Nelson is outside it altogether. ___
The Guardian (10 March, 1897 - p.7) A personage bearing the name of “Lord Nelson and Bronte” is the central figure of an exceedingly feeble melodrama by Mr. Robert Buchanan and “Charles Marlowe,” produced this evening at the Olympic Theatre, under the title of “The Mariners of England.” The villain, one regrets to observe, is a captain in the Royal Navy, who, being in the pay of France, makes a plot to murder Nelson. The hero, the long-lost son of an admiral, who is in the meantime serving as a foremast hand, rescues Nelson, but is accused of having been his chief assailant. He is court-martialled on board the Victory, and acquitted, of course, through the intervention of Nelson himself. Then we have the obligatory tableaux of the Battle of Trafalgar and the death of Nelson, which Mr. Abingdon and the limelight man succeeded in rendering melodramatic and ridiculous. As a drama the play is devoid of merit, and the figure of Nelson is introduced without either taste or skill. Mr. Charles Glenny played the hero, and Miss Wakeman the heroine, while Mr. E. M. Robson provided the comic relief. The production was favourably received. ___
The Scotsman (10 March, 1897 - p.9) The fashion for nautical plays continues, and after a short trial in the country a new piece by Mr Robert Buchanan and “Charles Marlowe,” called “The Mariners of England,” was given this evening at the Olympic Theatre. What may be deemed the chief feature of the work is the introduction of the character of Lord Nelson. The play in style is melodrama of the simplest and most ordinary character, in which there is little pretence of novelty. Nelson is not really the principal person, for the hero is a sailor named Harry Dell, who rescues Nelson from some scoundrels who, acting in the pay of the French, attack the great Admiral when on shore in England. However, the villain of the play, in customary fashion, accuses the hero of the crime, and his guilt is immediately assumed by most of the characters, and he is forced to hide; but he surrenders himself for trial, and, after an absurd burlesque of a court-martial, is acquitted. Two effective tableaux are given in the piece; one represents the moment when Nelson was shot at Trafalgar, and the other his death in the cockpit. The piece has been very well mounted, and a good company has been engaged. Graceful work is done by Miss Edith Wakeman, and Miss Edith Bruce acts cleverly in a soubrette part. As chief villain Mr Herbert Sleath played with considerable force, and in good if somewhat rough style the parts of Nelson and the hero were represented by Mr. Abington and Mr Glenny in a fashion that seemed to please the house. ___
The Times (11 March, 1897 - p.14) OLYMPIC THEATRE. As the hero of Mr. Robert Buchanan and “Charles Marlowe’s” new play, The Mariners of England, it cannot be said that Nelson stands at present in any want of recognition on the stage; for this is his second reincarnation, so to speak, within the few months that have elapsed since the celebration of the Trafalgar anniversary. Nelson No. 2, it may be well to say at once, is as unlike No. 1 as both are probably unlike the original. But as embodied by Mr. Abingdon, No. 2 has this in his favour—that he displays some degree of personal dignity and authority if only in dismissing from the service an unworthy officer who has been conspiring against his admiral’s life. Of the notorious Lady Hamilton who is so much in evidence at the Avenue Theatre there is not a word, save in the historical dying speech which is delivered in the cockpit of the Victory. In fact the new Nelson is rather chary of speech at the best. More than once his entrance upon the scene is the signal for the curtain to come down, and in this respect the authors have done wisely, inasmuch as they leave one’s sense of the hero’s greatness comparatively undisturbed. Perhaps a still better effect would have been produced had the part been designed exclusively as what Mr. Puff would call a “thinking” one, though this would have been hard upon Mr. Abingdon, who really enacts the hero, empty sleeve and all, remarkably well. ___
The Stage (11 March, 1897 - p.12) THE OLYMPIC. On Tuesday evening, March 9, 1897, was produced at this theatre a new and original romantic drama, in four acts and two tableaux, by Robert Buchanan and “Charles Marlowe,” entitled:— The Mariners of England. Lord Nelson and Bronte Mr. W. L. Abingdon After a trial trip at Nottingham last week, particulars of which were duly recorded in the last number of THE STAGE by our local correspondent, The Mariners of England, with Horatio, Lord Nelson, as the central figure in the story, has been submitted to a London audience, and successfully so submitted, we make haste to say. No purpose would be served by drawing any comparison between this second of the Nelson plays and that produced a few weeks ago at the Avenue. It will suffice to tell such playgoers as having seen Nelson’s Enchantress, may think that they do not need to see another production on the same theme, that there is no similarity whatever between the two pieces. Even Nelson’s death in the cockpit of the “Victory,” which is the only scene represented in both plays, is differently presented, the death taking place at the Olympic towards the footlights, in full view of the house, whereas, in the Avenue play, it will be remembered, it was represented behind a gauze as in a dream (Lady Hamilton’s). There is a distinct and very welcome salt flavour about The Mariners of England, which will no doubt go far to ensure its success with popular playgoers who enjoy the salt of the sea just as they do the scent of the new-mown hay when it is wafted across the footlights to them. Nor can anybody’s susceptibilities be hurt in this production by the picture drawn by the authors of the greatest of England’s admirals. The good name of Nelson is upheld throughout, for he is presented to us as a man imbued with the idea of his country’s greatness, and, as a consequence, beloved and honoured by his men. Of Lady Hamilton we see nothing; nor, indeed, is any mention made in the course of the drama of the fascination this beautiful woman exercised over England’s naval hero. We hear the name only on the lips of the dying admiral when he says, “Take care of Lady Hamilton.” But, if we have no skeletons unearthed, the play contains, nevertheless, sufficient love interest to satisfy the average playgoer, whose taste, let the advanced psychologists say what they will, still lies in the direction of honest love rather than lawless passion. And the love interest in The Mariners of England is of the kind beloved by the patrons of melodrama, its course temporarily ruffled by the machinations of the villain, who seeks to fasten upon an innocent man a crime of which he knows him to be innocent. There is, perhaps, a little too much of the comic love scenes between Polly Appleyard and Tom Trip, and too little of Lord Nelson himself in Mr. Buchanan’s play. And this will be the more felt by the serious-minded portion of the audience, because the interpretation given of Nelson by Mr. W. L. Abingdon is in every way one of the best conceptions this actor has presented to the stage. Generally associated with villainy, it comes as a relief to see so clever an actor playing in a different vein in the masterly manner he does. The Olympic Nelson is a completely sympathetic character. There is, in turn, gentleness, as well as the tone of command in his voice, besides a happy blend of kindness and dignity, in his manner, according to whether Nelson is engaged in talking to pretty women or merely issuing orders to his men. And this being so, the spectator could well have seen more of Nelson. Mr. Abingdon’s make-up, too, no less than his acting, deserves a word of praise. He has managed to copy the portraits of the great Admiral, the matter even of his armless coat-sleeve being most perfectly arranged. Mr. Charles Glenney is the most manly and loyal of “salts,” besides being a true-hearted lover and staunch supporter of the wronged woman. As the sailor wrongly accused of attempting the life of Lord Nelson—which, as a matter of fact, he is instrumental in saving—Mr. Glenney obtains the full sympathy of the house, and deserves it; whilst execration is as legitimately bestowed upon, and merited by, Mr. Herbert Sleath for his impersonation of the gentlemanly villain, Captain Lebaudy. A villain of a totally different character falls to Mr. Tom Taylor, whose John Marston is an extremely well-thought-out performance. Another cleverly-portrayed character is that of the blind Admiral Talbot, furnished by Mr. Frederick Stanley. Not a very prominent part, perhaps, as the authors wrote it, but it becomes so in the actor’s hands. The Admiral Collingwood of Mr. W. H. Brougham forms also an agreeable adjunct to the picture, the chief characteristic of the impersonation being—and rightly so—dignity; this same quality being likewise contributed by Mr. Geoffrey Weedall and Mr. Adam Alexander, who appear respectively as Admiral White and Captain Hardy. Comic relief is afforded by Mr. E. M. Robson, whose Tom Trip, whether by the seashore, when he talks about Harry Dell, the waif, as his “son,” or in full regimentals on board H.M.S. “Victory,” is a very amusing performance. The smaller parts of Lieutenant Portland, two midshipmen, and others played by Messrs. Ernest Mainwaring, Gilbert Wemys, Cyril Catley, Julius Royston, Charles H. Fenton, George Hareton, and Frank Stribly are all in good hands, the cast generally having been well selected. Despite the number of names on the programme, only three are those of women. But there is none the less a deal of feminine interest in The Mariners of England. Admiral Talbot’s niece, Mabel, and the good-hearted Polly Appleyard furnishing the happy love scenes of the story; whilst disappointment and despair are very befittingly portrayed by Miss Florence Turner, who, as Harry’s foster-sister, Nelly, appeals in turn pleadingly and reproachfully to the villainous Captain Lebaudy to acknowledge her as his wife. The Mabel Talbot of Miss Keith Wakeman is a very pretty picture to gaze upon, for the actress looks quite charming in her high-waisted, clinging dresses. She plays, too, with the requisite grace and abandon, and gives and receives kisses in turn from Lord Nelson and her sweetheart, Harry Dell, in truly delightful fashion. What, however, would make Miss Keith Wakeman’s impersonation more agreeable would be a better control over her voice, the deeper tones of which sometimes prove a little trying to the audience. This slight drawback is partly natural, no doubt, but as we think with care it can be modified, we venture to draw the young actress’s attention to it. The mounting of the play has been very well carried out indeed, the coast scene of the old town of Dover of the first act, no less than the cliffs of the same town in the next act being such as to show the work of the scenic artist at his best. Whilst the exact reproduction of the deck of H.M.S. “Victory” and the place where Nelson fell, will afford huge delight to all who have gone over his historic vessel in Portsmouth Harbour. ___
The Graphic (13 March, 1897 - Issue 1424) The Theatres BY W. MOY THOMAS IF Nelson’s Enchantress was but a succession of episodes in the private and public life of Nelson, the new Nelson drama with which Mr. Robert Buchanan and his collaborator, “Charles Marlowe,” have furnished the management of the OLYMPIC belongs emphatically to the old school of melodrama which regards a “plot,” as it used to be called, as an indispensable condition. Clearly the authors of The Mariners of England have no faith in the formless play, and look with distrust upon the impressionist method. So, after the good old fashion of Douglas Jerrold, Thomas Dibdin and the late Mr. Pettitt, they have constructed a piece in which virtue and romantic ardour once more contend for four long acts with villainy, subtle daring, and unscrupulous, till in the dramatists’ own good time the wrongdoer is confounded and the hero triumphantly vindicated. They set but little store upon absolute freshness in their materials, as is evident from the fact that their hero, rushing forward to prevent murder, is, through an unhappy combination of circumstances, mistaken for the assassin; for this, it will be remembered, was the cardinal situation in the play called One of the Best, brought out at the ADELPHI a year or two ago; but originality is not looked for in plays of this class. That the authors have set forth a plausible story will hardly be said. It is not easy to conceive a young officer of Nelson’s own ship, and a nephew of a venerable English admiral to boot, conspiring with a scoundrel and spy in the employment of Bonaparte’s Government to stab the hero of the Nile as he is taking a walk by moonlight on the cliffs at Deal, and then cast his body into the sea. Still more difficult to imagine is the notion of making Nelson condone this murderous attack upon himself lest the news of his young officer’s terrible depravity should distress the feelings of the latter’s venerable uncle. Anomalies, however, abound in the OLYMPIC piece, not the least being the free and easy fashion in which the old Admiral’s beautiful niece, Mabel Talbot, gives her heart to Harry Dell, an honest, able-bodied seaman, of the Victory, and spends her time in promenading with him upon the cliffs by moonlight, not to speak of the rustic dances in which the great folk of the neighbourhood and the honest peasantry mingle with a disregard of social distinctions that recalls Mr. Gilbert’s Bab Ballads. Nelson, it will have been perceived, has little to do with all this beyond the fact that he is supposed to be the object of the wicked plot and the murderous attack; but all this furnishes the excuse for an exciting court-martial scene, which has some affinity with the famous episode in Black Ey’d Susan, and prepares the way for the two tableaux of the third act, in one of which Nelson is beheld shot down on the deck of his ship in the moment of his triumph, and in the other is seen dying in the cockpit of the Victory. With all its large admixture of make-believe, however, the new drama appeared to greatly excite and please the first night audience. It is, on the whole, well acted; though Mr. Charles Glenney is hardly sufficiently romantic of aspect for the part of the young man-o’-war’s man, whose high-sounding speeches cast such a spell upon the Admiral’s niece in the comely person of Miss Keith Wakeman. Mr. Abingdon’s Nelson, though hardly so convincing as Mr. Forbes Robertson’s, is a well-studied and highly finished portrait, and other parts are cleverly played by Mr. Herbert Sleath, Mr. E. M. Robson, Miss Florence Tanner, and Miss Edith Bruce. ___
The Era (13 March, 1897 - Issue 3051) THE OLYMPIC. On Tuesday, March 9th, the Romantic Drama, Lord Nelson and Bronte Mr W. L. ABINGDON Mr Robert Buchanan and Miss Harriett Jay in concocting The Mariners of England have done a bold, clever, and ingenious thing. They have simply turned H.M.S. Pinafore back from roguish travestie to sober earnest. In the Olympic piece there is a “common” sailor—“Oh, the irony of the word!”—who loves his admiral’s niece; there is a Dick Deadeye of the most repulsive type; and there is a dénouement similar to that in which the bumboat woman with gipsy blood in her veins confesses that she “mixed the children up, and not a creature knew it.” The expedient adopted by the authors was completely successful, and The Mariners of England was received on Tuesday evening with every symptom of enthusiastic satisfaction. ___
From The Theatrical ‘World’ of 1897 by William Archer (London: Walter Scott, Ltd., 1898 - p.81) “THE MARINERS OF ENGLAND.” As I can find nothing praiseworthy in the conception, construction, or writing, and nothing noteworthy in the acting, of The Mariners of England, by Mr. Robert Buchanan and “Charles Marlowe,” and as, on the other hand, it is too puerile to call for serious condemnation, I prefer to pass it over in silence. It was cerainly rather painful to see the death of Nelson treated as a limelit scene of vulgar melodrama; but fortunately one had long ago ceased to associate, even in make-believe, the figure on the stage with the name in the playbill. ___
The Penny Illustrated Paper (20 March, 1897 - p.177) |
|
|
|
 |
|
|
|
“The Mariners of England,” by Mr. Robert Buchanan and “Charles Marlowe,” is a robust melodrama of the Nelson period, remarkably well mounted and played at the Olympic. Indeed, it would be hard to excel the dramatic strength of the Court-Martial Scene, in which the brave and innocent Harry Dell (like another William Terriss) is wrongly accused of an attempt to murder Nelson, but is nobly vindicated by the great Admiral in person, who is impersonated with dignity by Mr. W. L. Abingdon. Nor would it be easy to beat for stirring effect and vraisemblance the deck of the Victory at the Battle of Trafalgar, or the pathos of Nelson’s death. A story of love and treason is interwoven with these historic scenes, and in the end the faithful lovers are made happy in approved fashion. The treasonable Lebaudy is a character rendered with incisive force by Mr. Herbert Sleath, who reminded me of Sir Henry Irving in his early days of melodrama in town. Harry Dell has a brave exponent in Mr. Charles Glenney. Irresistibly funny are Mr. E. M. Robson and Miss Edith Bruce in their comic courting scenes. Miss Keith Wakeman is a rich-voiced heroine; and the other chief parts are exceptionally well played. ___
The Stage (25 March, 1897 - p.13) It is pleasant to hear of the success of an actor who has had the courage to break new ground in his career. Mr. W. L. Abingdon, successful as a heavy man, boldly undertook a new line of business in Nelson in The Mariners of England at the Olympic, and the result proves how right he was in estimating his own powers. All the papers have been unanimous in praise of his performance, and his portrait of the grand old naval hero stands out as a masterpiece of the actors’ art. There is always an inclination to follow in a groove, and, too frequently, actors are even compelled to stick to one line of business in consequence of their success in one part. Mr. Abingdon may congratulate himself on his pluck in striking out a new career for himself. ___
The Stage (24 July, 1902 - p.11) THE BRITANNIA. Good audiences are being drawn to the great Hoxton playhouse during this, the second, week of the stock season, the drama chosen being The Mariners of England. This successful work, by the late Robert Buchanan and his sister-in-law, loses none of its popularity as presented at the Britannia, the picturesqueness of the staging reaching its height, of course, in the various scenes on the Victory, with the closing tableau representing the death of Nelson in the cockpit of his ship at Trafalgar. The famous Admiral receives a capital character sketch from Mr. Algernon Syms, whom Britannia audiences love to see acting as well as stage managing. Made up according to the accepted portraits, Mr. Syms gives a very effective, impressive, and dignified impersonation of Nelson. Mr. Ernest E. Norris is a bluff and breezy tar as Harry Dell. The wronged Nellie Dell is played feelingly by Miss Judith Kyrle, and Miss Louisa Peach is a graceful and charming Mabel Talbot. Mr. W. S. Hartford successfully makes an out-and-out villain of the treacherous Captain Lebaudy, and Mr. Arthur St. John gives a strong representation of the spy, “Black Jack” Marston. Miss Marie Brian is as bright and vivacious as usual as Polly Appleyard, and Mr. Fred Lawrence, an amusing Tom Tripp, does especially well in the ditty, “The Wonderful Crocodile.” The esteemed Mr. G. B. Bigwood’s grandson, Mr. Jack Bigwood, acts in a praiseworthy manner as Bill Buckett, an old salt. Admiral Talbot and Captain Hardy are played with effect by Mr. Edwin Bennett and Mr. Edwin Fergusson, and other parts are filled capably by Messrs. James Dunlop, W. Barrett, and so on. In the music hall section of the programme a new series of pictures is being exhibited on Forster’s Cinematograph; and other varieties are by Charles Bignell, the Great Zarmo, Minnie Palmerston, Cassie Walmer, Payne’s Vagabonds, and Read and Wright. _____
Next: Two Little Maids From School (1898)
Back to the Bibliography or the Plays or Harriett Jay Theatre Reviews
|
|
|
|
|
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||