Read Ebook {PDF EPUB} Queen of by Kurt Gänzl Lydia Thompson, the “Father of All Drag Kings”? ‘Lydia’ was (in spite of all that has been written to the contrary) born in the parish of St Paul’s, , on 19 February 1838, the second daughter of Cumberland-born Philip Thompson, sometime publican of London’s ‘Sheridan Knowles’ public house in the now defunct Brydges Street, other-timesan account agent, other-times probably something else, and his wife Eliza née Cooper, previously the widow Griggs . Mythology says that mother Eliza was ‘a Quaker lady who was fond of the stage’. She was, in fact, whether Quaker or not, a pub landlady. Mythology also says, with meaningful whiffs of a gentlewoman in tight straits, that ‘Lydia went on the stage after her father died’. Well, that she certainly did, for Philip Thompson gave up the ghost in 1842, when Eliza junior was just four years old. Mother Eliza, however, with enormous promptitude, tied herself up with another publican, Edward Hodges of the Canonbury Tavern. Whose surname makes you wonder just whose child Lydia (like her younger brother, Alfred Hodges Thompson) really was. But the young Lydia wasn’t so precocious as to hit the stage at four. She was actually quite fourteen years old (and not ten or eleven as often related) when she joined the dancing chorus at Her Majesty’s Theatre in 1852. Lydia Thompson in a variety of different roles, cross-dressed and in women’s attire. She appeared thereafter with the kiddie-show the ‘Living Marionettes’ at the Linwood Gallery (1853), but she first won critical and public notice playing the part of Little Silverhair (with pieces of silver thread woven into her hair) in the pantomime Harlequin and the Three Bears at the Haymarket Theatre at Christmas that year. In 1854 she featured at the Haymarket as a solo dancer in the Grand Oriental Spectacle of Mr Buckstone’s Voyage Round the Globe , before going on to play a season at the St James’s Theatre where her appearances included the Ganem, the Slave of Love and Charles Selby’s The Spanish Dancers in which she caused a small sensation with her imitation-cum- parody of the extraordinary Spanish dancer Perea Nina. At Christmas, she returned to the Haymarket in the title-rôle of the pantomime Little Bo Peep . Lydia Thompson, heralded as the “Star of Bluebeard,” Offenbach’s successful sex-farce. In 1855 she crossed to Europe and for more than three years performed her speciality dances before audiences which, if the reports are to be believed, included both Russian and German students who pulled her unhorsed carriage through the streets of Moscow and Berlin respectively in homage to her talent and sex appeal. She appeared billed as `first danseuse of the Drury Lane Theatre, London’, with obvious success both as an act and also as an interpolated item in such theatre pieces as Karl Gross’s Eine kleine Kur in Hungary (Budai Színkör), Russia (where she was ‘personally introduced to the Emperor’ and the St Petersburg Theatre burned down publicity-worthily during her stay), Germany (Berlin went mad for her ‘saylorboys dance’), Austria (where the Theater an der Wien produced a Schwank called Miss Lydia in memoriam), France, Scandinavia – ‘Miss Lydia Thompson the danseuse formerly well known in London has after a most wonderfully brilliant tour of Germany, visited Copenhagen (Casino), Stockholm (King’s), and lately astonished the good people of Riga, Finland, with her Highland fling, hornpipe &c. She is a favourite wherever she goes but Germany appears to be her trysting place..’ – and as far afield as Constantinople, before eventually returning to London. Lydia Thompson as Offenbach’s Robinson Crusoe, on Broadway. There she was re-engaged at the St James’s Theatre under Chatterton, where her rôles included `a Mysterious Stranger’ in Lester Buckingham’s Virginus burlesque, Valentine, the magician’s son (`who will introduce a Sailor’s Hornpipe, les Juinea, grand Pas Seul, and Pas Demon’) in the hugely successful ballet-farce Magic Toys , Dolly Mayflower in the drama of Black-Eyed Susan and Young Norval in the ballet-burlesque My Name is Norval . In 1860 she appeared at the Lyceum where she played again in her favourite vehicle, Magic Toys , as Abdallah, Captain of The Forty Thieves in the Savage Club burlesque, in the farce The Middy Ashore (‘in the course of which she will dance her famous sailor’s hornpipe’), as Fanchette in George Loder’s The Pets of the Parterre ( Les Fleurs animées ), in the drama The House on the Bridge of Notre Dame and at Christmas as Mephisto in the fairy extravaganza Chrystabelle, or the Rose Without a Thorn . In 1861 the Lyceum cast her in a soubrette rôle in the drama Woman, or Love Against the World in a comedy-with-dance-solo roles in The Fetches , and as Blondinette in Little Red Riding Hood , and in 1862 she mixed the dances and the plays with an appearance in the Brough burlesque The Colleen Bawn Settled at Last but, having married in 1863, she then took a little time off from the stage to give birth to the daughter who was to become the actress Zeffie [Agnes Lydia] Tilbury. She was widowed fifteen months after her marriage when, whilst she was playing in The Alabama at Drury Lane, her riding-master husband was rolled on by his horse in a steeplechasing accident. By that time, however, she was already back on the stage, In the years that followed, Lydia mixed London engagements with appearances, most often in burlesque, in the major (and some not so major) provincial towns. She made what would prove the most far-reaching such appearance at the Theatre Royal in Birkenhead in 1864, playing the burlesques Perdita and Ixion for manager Alexander Henderson. She subsequently played at Henderson’s new Liverpool Prince of Wales Theatre in a series of rôles including Brough’s Ernani alongside the Iago of (1865), the title-rôle of the new burlesque Papillionetta, and Mercury in Paris (1866). She returned to the West End at the famous Prince of Wales Theatre under Marie Wilton performing a ‘Rifle Dance’ as Max in the burlesque of Der Freischütz (1866). She also appeared in pantomime and as Sophonisba in Drury Lane’s production of Delibes’ Wanted Husbands For Six ( Six Demoiselles à marier ), but for Christmas 1867 she again visited Henderson’s theatre in Liverpool where she appeared as Prince Buttercup in The White Fawn, Massaroni in the burlesque The Brigand and Prince Florizel in Perdita. In early 1868 she created the rôle of Darnley in the burlesque The Field of the Cloth of Gold at the Strand Theatre. The show was a remarkable hit, but Lydia did not stay with it till its end. After 104 nights she quit the cast, and three days later she left England for America. Along with her went manager Alexander Henderson (to whom she was subsequently married), a trio of British burlesque actresses and a chief comedian, all of whom who within weeks would be famous. Lydia Thompson, surrounded by her troupe of “British Blondes.” After a well-publicized arrival, Lydia Thompson made her first appearance on the American stage under the management of local manager Samuel Colville and of Alexander Henderson at Wood’s Museum and Metropolitan Theater, New York, on 28 September in Burnand’s burlesque Ixion . She made an enormous effect with her extremely sexy (but never vulgar) comic performances, her dazzling dancing, and her extraordinary merry and warm stage presence, Wood’s Museum became the hottest ticket in town and what had been intended to be a six-month tour eventually developed into one of more like six years. Lydia Thompson as Ixion. Within nights, Lydia Thompson became the unquestioned burlesque queen of her period, leading her company of ‘British Blondes’ (several of whom were not one or the other) around the country – with frequent returns to Broadway – playing pieces such as Ixion , The Forty Thieves , Bluebeard , Aladdin , Robin Hood , Kenilworth , Mephisto , Lurline , Sinbad , La Sonnambula , Robinson Crusoe, Ivanhoe a burlesque La Princesse de Trébizonde and Pippin (i.e. Byron’s The Yellow Dwarf) . If the blondes’ trademarks were short trunks and shapely thighs, many of them were, however, by no means devoid of talent and several, including Pauline Markham, Alice Atherton, Camille Dubois, Carlotta Zerbini, Eliza Weathersby, Alice Burville and Rose Coghlan went on to fine careers. Amongst the male members of her company were such top comic talents as Harry Beckett, Bill Cahill, John L Hall, Willie Edouin and Lionel Brough. Nevertheless, the company thrived – to begin with, at least – on a slightly scandalous reputation which Lydia’s managers fostered finely, winning nationwide publicity with the tales of her ‘lesbian attacker’ and of her public horsewhipping of the ungentlemanly proprietor of the Chicago Times who had published a piece reflecting on the virtue of the ‘blondes’. In 1874 she returned to Britain and played in London and the provinces in Bluebeard , Robinson Crusoe , Piff-Paff ( Le Grand Duc de Matapa ), Oxygen , The Lady of Lyons , Pluto!, Carmen and other burlesque entertainments, but in the years to come she made regular return trips to America, where she remained a hugely popular and always newsworthy figure in the musical theatre. Photograph of Lydia Thompson, signed on verso ” To Captain Little in Remembrance of- Lydia Thompson, Dublin, Nov 28, 1861. Backmark of Granfield, Dublin. Her days of playing in burlesque were done when in 1887 she took a turn in direction and mounted a revival of ’s The Sultan of Mocha in London, but her voice proved far from up to the task when she starred in the French vaudeville-opérette Babette (1888, Antonio) and in later days she found herself in no position to produce, and jobs harder to come by. Although she appeared in America in 1894 as an actress in The Crust of Society , and , hearing of her plight, used her briefly the following year in An Artist’s Model , she was badly enough off in 1899 for a benefit to be staged for her at the Lyceum Theatre. She made her last stage appearance in 1904. Advertisment for the British Blondes burlesque troupe. A phenomenon in the American theatre, where she gave general popularity to a superior brand of song and dance show with extravagant comedy which remained popular for many many years, at home she was – although recognised at her peak unqualifiedly as the ‘queen of burlesque’ – just one of a number of fine leading burlesque actresses of the period. However, her skilful management, the adept casting of her troupe, her knack for publicity, her own exceptional charms and talents, and the fact that she spent the most blooming of her blooming years on the American stage, built a special place for her in American theatre history. Lydia’s half-sister, Clara THOMPSON [Clara Rose Hodges], one of the children of Edward Hodges and Eliza née Cooper, ex-Griggs, ex- Thompson, made a very considerable career as a vocalist and actress both under her own name and under her married name of ‘Mrs Bracy’ (she was the wife of tenor ‘’ né Dunn), in Britain, Australia and America. Daughter Zeffie Tilbury played mostly in the non-musical theatre, but can be seen in a supporting rôle as the Princess in the Hollywood version of Balalaika (1939). Several other theatrical Thompsons claimed, over the years, to be related to the meteoric Lydia, but it seems that Clara was the only genuine sibling to go on the stage. Lydia Thompson Queen of Burlesque Forgotten Stars of the Musical Theatre Online PDF eBook. DOWNLOAD Lydia Thompson Queen of Burlesque Forgotten Stars of the Musical Theatre PDF Online . Streetswing s Burlesque History Archives Lydia Thompson Lydia Thompson The First Lady of Burlesque and sex symbol of the Victorian age was born in the parish of St. Paul s, Covent Garden. She was just fourteen years old when she joined the dancing chorus at Her Majesty s Theater in 1852 Lydia Thompson ebook by Kurt Ganzl Rakuten Kobo Read "Lydia Thompson Queen of Burlesque" by Kurt Ganzl available from Rakuten Kobo. Sign up today and get $5 off your first purchase. First Published in 2002. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor Francis, an informa company. Lydia Thompson Wikipedia Lydia Thompson (born Eliza Thompson; 19 February 1838 – 17 November 1908), was an English dancer, comedian, actress, and theatrical producer. After dancing and performing in pantomimes in Britain and then in Europe as a teenager in the 1850s, she became a leading dancer and actress in burlesques on the London stage. She introduced Victorian . Lydia Thompson Queen of Burlesque, 1st Edition (e Book . First Published in 2002. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor Francis, an informa company. "This is a thorough biography, chronicling the life of an important though somewhat neglected figure and rich in data. It introduces valuable information about Thompson as well as a wealth of primary source . Lydia Thompson Queen of Burlesque CRC Press Book Lydia Thompson Queen of Burlesque CRC Press Book. First Published in 2002. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor Francis, an informa company. × Close Attention India Customers! Welcome to CRCPress.com! . Lydia Thompson, queen of burlesque worldcat.org Get this from a library! Lydia Thompson, queen of burlesque. [Kurt Gänzl] Biography of 19th century musical theatre star Lydia Thompson, detailing her life as an actress, dancer, and singer. NAKARAJAN LYDIA THOMPSON ,DANCER,COMEDIAN,ACTRESS DIED . Lydia Thompson (born Eliza Thompson; 19 February 1838 – 17 November 1908), was an English dancer, comedian, actress, and theatrical producer. After dancing and performing in pantomimes in Britain and then in Europe as a teenager in the 1850s, she became a leading dancer and actress in burlesques on the London stage. Re LYDIA THOMPSON AND SAMUEL Genealogy.com I did see somewhere that Lydia, upon her marriage to Samuel, was said to not have parents in the area of Montgomery Co., Va., where she married. I believe she is somehow connected to the Archibald Thompson, b. 1736, line which settled on the Cumberland River abt 1796. The area is now Monroe Co., Ky., which is also where Samuel and his line settled. Lydia Thompson Queen of Burlesque (Forgotten Stars of the . Lydia Thompson Queen of Burlesque (Forgotten Stars of the Musical Theatre Book 1) 1st Edition, Kindle Edition PDF [FREE] DOWNLOAD Lydia Thompson Queen of Burlesque . Do you want to remove all your recent searches? All recent searches will be deleted A tribute for burlesque stars (from Madame Vestris to Dita Von Teese) I d be very grateful if you guys rated left a comment ; ) Paying my tribute video to very talented, gorgeous burlesque dancers Madame Vestris Lydia Thompson Mae West Josephine Baker Gypsy Rose . Download Lydia Thompson Queen of Burlesque (Forgotten . PDF Download PDF Full Ebook. E Haal. 016. Read EBooks Online. Oncerwefv. 007 [PDF Download] Lydia Thompson Queen of Burlesque (Forgotten Stars of the Musical Theatre) Lydia Thompson Wikipedia Republished WIKI 2 Lydia Thompson, born Eliza Hodges Thompson (19 February 1838 – 17 November 1908), was an English dancer, comedian, actress, and theatrical producer.. After dancing and performing in pantomimes in Britain and then in Europe as a teenager in the 1850s, she became a leading dancer and actress in burlesques on the London stage. She introduced Victorian burlesque to America with her troupe the . Strange Company The Fatal Obsession of Lydia Thompson The Fatal Obsession of Lydia Thompson Lydia Thompson In Turkey shortly after the end of World War I, a British military officer named Louis Thompson met a pretty young woman named Lydia Shevchenko, a nurse who had fled her native Russia during the Revolution. gmerbbook.ga Textbook Pdf Download Site. Electronic books pdf download Lydia Thompson Queen of Burlesque (Forgotten Stars of the Musical Theatre) in Spanish PDF ePub MOBI 0415937663. Details . Pdf download books AMERICAN WHOLEFOODS CUISINE B0016BYPKS på dansk PDF. Details . Books downloadable kindle Old Rabbit, The Voodoo and Other Sorcerers PDF RTF DJVU. The Forty Thieves (1869 play) Wikipedia The Forty Thieves, subtitled Striking Oil in Family Jars, is an 1869 Victorian burlesque that Lydia Thompson s company debuted at Niblo s Garden on February 1, 1869. It ran for 136 performances. The work was written by though it was primarily a "reconstructed" version of Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves, or Harlequin and the Genii of the Arabian Nights, which played at . Amazon.com lydia thompson Amazon.com lydia thompson. Skip to main content. Try Prime All Go Search EN Hello, Sign in Account Lists Sign in Account Lists Orders Try Prime Cart. Your Amazon.com Today s Deals . Brenda Lydia Thompson | Facebook Brenda Lydia Thompson is on Facebook. Join Facebook to connect with Brenda Lydia Thompson and others you may know. Facebook gives people the power to. Episode 11 Lydia Thompson Godmother of Burlesque. Download Lydia Thompson is one of the legends of the music hall and considered by many to be THE original Queen of Burlesque. Lydia and her chorus line, The British Blondes, electrified the stages of British Victorian Muisc Halls and introduced Burlesque to American audiences with their bawdy and sensational extravaganzas and they went on to . Victorian Vocalists by Kurt Ganzl Books on Google Play Victorian Vocalists Ebook written by Kurt Ganzl. Read this book using Google Play Books app on your PC, android, iOS devices. Download for offline reading, highlight, bookmark or take notes while you read Victorian Vocalists. Download Free. Lydia Thompson Queen of Burlesque Forgotten Stars of the Musical Theatre eBook. Lydia Thompson Queen of Burlesque Forgotten Stars of the Musical Theatre eBook Reader PDF. Lydia Thompson Queen of Burlesque Forgotten Stars of the Musical Theatre ePub. Lydia Thompson Queen of Burlesque Forgotten Stars of the Musical Theatre PDF. eBook Download Lydia Thompson Queen of Burlesque Forgotten Stars of the Musical Theatre Online. F. C. Burnand’s “Ixion”: The Original British Burlesque Hit Of 1863. Ixion and Nephele, painted by Peter Paul Rubens in 1615. Here’s a little piece I wrote about the two girls in question: Sophia Pelham (1837-1913) and Harriet Pelham (1840-1876). The Misses Pelham hold a quaint little place in the history of theatre and music in England, which has earned them a mention in a number of books, the authors of which (myself included) really had and have no idea who they were. So I thought I had, finally, better find out. The aristocratic names were, of course, too good to be true, echoing those of the seriously social Ladies Sophia and Harriet Pelham, but although the ‘Pelham’ was indeed fake, the Christian names were, actually, real. The Misses Pelham were the Misses Parker, daughters of one Benjamin Parker from Kettlesing Bottom, Yorks, and his wife Harriet Beckett née Bamford. And therein hangs a vast tale. Harriet Parker was, if not exactly an heiress, the subject of various trusts and properties, as the youngest daughter of her mother, Mrs. John Bamford née Sophia Beckett, and the granddaughter of a certain John Beckett who counted his fortune in thousands. Benjamin, son of another Benjamin and his wife Sarah, of Hampsthwaite, was a plausible, good-looking fellow ‘of a gentlemanly appearance’, who turned out to be, at best, a rogue and, at worst, a villain. Harriet bore him three children (a son died, aged 12) and stuck with him, through more thin than thick, for more than 20 years. The details of Benjamin’s misdeeds, and his countless appearances in every kind of British court, Criminal to Chancery, aren’t very exciting. Regular bankruptcies, sometimes tactical (the main ‘creditor’ was the widow Bamford, who seems to have harassed her trustees into lending him impossible sums), fraud, forgery of bills of exchange, conspiracy and the like, all under a variety of names. Like his name and his crime, his profession changed, each time he came up in court. So much so, that a judge was reduced to unkindly laughter. Wholesale tea dealer, wholesale grocer, a builder and architect in Hastings, dealer, contractor, starch manufacturer, merchant. When he filled in the 1841 census (shortly after a bankruptcy), from a three-servant home in Hampstead, he called himself ‘independent’, when the 1851 census came round, he was doing a turn in Queen’s prison, labeled ‘gentleman’. So, Benjamin’s two daughters – ‘showy, good-hearted girls’, a contemporary described them – grew up in an atmosphere of disarray, moving from one home to another as the former address became too hot. But somewhere in all this strange life, Sophia and Harriet had music lessons, and they developed into pretty fair amateur vocalists. They first appear, to my eyes, on the platform as a pair, opening the program at one of Howard Glover’s mega concerts (3 January 1863), singing ‘I would that my love’ well enough to be brought back at the next (7 February) to give ‘The autumn song’ and no less than ‘Giorno d’orrore’. In March, they appeared at the Vocal Association, with Samuel Glover’s ‘I heard a voice’. Then fate intervened, in the person of a certain Sarah Susannah Wilson née Prynne, previously Jarvis, otherwise ‘Mrs. Charles Selby’, a former burlesque and character actress grown, in her sixties and now an acting teacher. Mrs. Selby became ‘vastly interested’ in the two girls, took them up, and introduced them to the stage, on 18 May, at her Benefit. ‘The two sisters must go to school again for another season; the stage fright had such an effect on them that we were expecting them to break down every moment’, wrote a reviewer. But, only a few months later, the recently widowed Mrs. Selby (d. 8 February 1873) announced that she had taken the Royalty Theatre for a season, and the Misses Pelham were to be in the company. The truth? They were in the company, because Mrs. Selby was nothing but a figurehead, paid 5 pounds a week and a split of the profits to be ‘directress’. The money was coming from somewhere in the Parker-Bamford- Beckett purse. Was it coincidence that Sophia Beckett Bamford had died weeks earlier? Harriet Pelham as Prince Lollius. (Photo: Kurt Gänzl Archive) The situation and the season would have been banal, except in that, during the said season, the theatre had a very big hit. After Sophia had appeared as Mme de la Fleury ‘a rich young widow’ in the play Court Gallants, on a program including ‘a duet by the Misses Pelham’, Harriet came out in the supporting role of Jupiter in a new burlesque, penned by the young F. C. Burnand, entitled Ixion . F. C. Burnand in the 1870s. There was no talk of nerves this time: ‘Miss Pelham’s clear and correct reading is a fine thing for this class of performances’. Sophia was Diana. And Ixion was a major hit. Soon, the Royalty was coining it. And the Misses Pelham were getting exposure. In Madame Berliot’s Ball ‘the sweet voices of the two Misses Pelham’ got special mention, and come Easter 1864, when Ixion finally gave way to a successor in the same line, Rumpelstiltskin, Harriet was the Prince Lollius and Sophia the heroine, Roseken. And discontent brewed in the lap of success. Mrs. Selby wanted more. More money, more credit. And the girls responded by billing themselves, on the occasion of their Benefit, as ‘responsible manageresses of this establishment’. So, it all ended up in court, and, when the Royalty reopened, it was now under the management of the Misses Pelham, who were by this time playing Ixion (Harriet) and Mercury (Sophia) in Ixion. ‘The part of Ixion is sustained with great spirit by Miss H Pelham, whose comic dancing is of the most unexceptionable kind, and she is most efficiently supported by Miss Pelham as Mercury, a character that demands a similar talent’. And meanwhile the court cases ran on, with much dirty washing getting an airing. Mrs. Selby in “Rumpelstiltskin.” (Photo: Kurt Gänzl Archive) On 22 November 1864, the girls came out as Perky and Flipperta in Snowdrop (‘excellently fitted in their parts’), took part in several plays and then produced another burlesque, Pirithous . All seemed hunk dory. In June, the Royalty closed for the season. And that was that. The girls were declared bankrupt for 1,544 pounds. Well, it ran in the family. They must still have had an interest in Ixion , for they were subsequently to be seen at the Haymarket, at Astley’s and on the road in the various leading roles of the piece (‘the performances of the Misses Pelham gave every satisfaction for which they were well applauded’). But otherwise, apart from Harriet’s appearance in the 1865 Astley’s panto, they seem to have faded from the stage. I see them running a stall at the Fancy Fair at the Crystal Palace in 1867, but on stage – in 1868/69 they gave a two handed entertainment Two Does It (‘The dancing of Miss Harriet and the singing of both sisters were much applauded’) which played the Liverpool Monday Evenings, 6 April 1868 – but, otherwise, mostly, starring with the amateurs of the Phoenix Dramatic Club, the Vaudeville Club, and in local concerts. Harriet shows up as a soloist with the Walworth Choral Union, in 1872 they are playing The Waterman with amateurs at Sydenham alongside one G. H. Snazel, and, in 1873, they are on the bill at Wade Thirlwall’s concerts. Harriet sang ‘Una voce’, Sophia ‘Should he upbraid’ and they performed The Woman of Samaria and operatic excerpts. Harriet takes part in the duet ‘Ai nostri monti’. My last sighting of the girls ‘of the Royalty Theatre’ is in an amateur ballad concert at the Horns, Kennington. Back in the amateur world they should never really have left. But for Ixion . I don’t know what happened to mother and father Parker. Father is still alive in 1878, somewhere, under one of his names. Mother vanishes, but not completely. In 1891 she resurfaces, living with Sophia, and a family historian tells us she died in 1895. Sophia did all right. On 1 June 1878, 40 year-old former ‘Miss S. Pelham’, now billing herself as an ‘authoress of light literature’, married a 24 years-young civil service clerk, John Forsey. They would have 35 years of married life, during which Forsey rose to be director of the naval stores at the Admiralty and Sir John, Commander of the Royal Victorian Order. And Sophia, thus, Lady Forsey. Sophia died in 1913, her husband 21 February 1915. Half a century on from Ixion . Harriet was less fortunate. She married the first, in 1875, to a young Wiltshire cheese monger, Edward James Pocock Francis (1845-1925). She died the following year, I assume, in childbirth. So, Ixion . It’s referred to a lot in theatrical histories. Does anyone know what it, truthfully, was like? Has anyone read it? Has anybody tried to match the lyrics (all printed in the script) to the indicated second-hand tunes? They range from a chunk of Sonnambula and one of Ballo in maschera to old tunes and pop ballads. Oh, I should say that it is drenched in wordplay and rhymes. Well, here’s the script … have a read! (Click here for the complete free facsimile download.) And here is the original cast. The cast list for the original “Ixion; Or: the Man at the Wheel” production. Not a lot of names in there that mean much to most people. And even fewer that would have meant anything to an audience in 1863. Unless they’d been kibbutzing at Mrs Selby’s acting classes, whence almost all the damsels came from. But there were some professionals there: [John] Felix Rogers, who played the grande-dame Minerva, and his wife Jane (Jennie) Willmore who took the title-role. Felix Rogers as Minerva. (Photo: Kurt Gänzl Archive) A memorist related: ‘The success of the evening was Felix Rogers, as Minverva, a spectacled old crone with a scholarly look about her. I’m afraid to say how many times Burnand’s happy parody of Dr. Watts’s hymn “Let dogs delight to bark and bite” was encored.’ Comic actor Joe Robins, who played Ganymede as the naughty little fat boy, was another who had had a career before and would have more, after Ixion. And the most durable of them all, the established danseuse Rosina Wright, who seems to have been a pal of Mrs. Selby, and who here lead the dancing as Terpsichore. Then, there was the young actor, Mr. D. James [né David Belasco], born in Eagle Court, the son of a Jewish tobacconist. He had been on the stage for a couple of years, as an extra and then at the Royalty, the previously year (‘plays fops and exquisites very well’), with Joe Robins, and in Jack the Giantkiller, the pantomime, and plays at Birmingham Operetta House, but, cast here as a lively Mercury, he made his mark. However, he jumped ship three months into the run to go to the opposition Strand Theatre, and to jump on the fast track to a famous career. David Belasco as Mercury. (Photo: Kurt Gänzl Archive) And now, the girls. Apart from Jenny Willmore, Rosina Wright, and Mrs. Selby herself, it seems all the girls were neophytes. Burnand, decades on, gave some delightful Reminiscences of the Royalty, in Theatre magazine, and it really does seem that he was presented with Mrs. Selby’s ‘class’ and told to pick which ones he wanted for which parts. Of course, the Pelham girls came first, and Harriet was given the important part of Jupiter. Clara got the much lesser one of Diana. Harriet Pelham as Jupiter. (Photo: Kurt Gänzl Archive) Venus, Cupid, Apollo, Juno … the last-named, Mrs. Selby wanted for another of her pals. Burnand chose for his Venus a lass who insisted that Ada Cavendish was her real name. It almost certainly wasn’t, but I’ve never found out what it was. What also wasn’t real was the mass of long blonde hair which she wore in the role. What was real, was the daringly slit skirt Goddess of Love sported. Ada had stepped on the stage already, in the company at Mr. Nye Chart’s Theatre Royal, Brighton, playing, amongst others, Titania in the Christmas pantomime, so she was a smidgin more experienced than many of her colleagues. Ada Cavendish as Venus. (Photo: Kurt Gänzl Archive) The other featured part was cast with the lass named ‘Lydia Maitland’. Real name? Don’t think so. She got the part because Burnand thought her ideal for the boy’s role in the accompanying play. He was right. But she made much more effect as Apollo in the burlesque. Lydia Maitland as Apollo. (Photo: Kurt Gänzl Archive) Lydia too had ventured on to the stage before (although her ‘of the Theatre Royal, Derby’ was a bit of a fraud … one night amateur Benefit!) but she had a decade of career before her. Alas, she also apparently had a decade of ‘living’ – Burnand relates a sad meeting – and she was ultimately reduced to the odd guest appearance with amateurs. I last spot her in 1873, touring in Mazeppa. And then I lose her. Lydia Maitland and Sophia Pelham in “Rumpelstiltskin.” (Photo: Kurt Gänzl Archive) Little Marie or Maria Longford was give the role of Cupid. She played it right through the run and I never see her again. Maria Longford as Cupid. (Photo: Kurt Gänzl Archive) The role of Juno, that Mrs. Selby had earmarked for her friend, Mrs. St. Henry, went, instead, to one Blanche Elliston. Mrs. St. Henry, who was no slouch as an actress, would get to play it in revival. Oh, plenty more Gods and Goddesses to come! Mars was played by a Mr. F. Olivier, who I otherwise spot only in Richardson’s Show at the Crystal Palace, and maybe at Doncaster with ah! Mrs. St. Henry and Joe Robins. Mr. F. Olivier as Mars. (Photo: Kurt Gänzl Archive) However, he was another early departure, and his role was taken over by the much more appreciable Fred Hughes, who’d been an auctioneer’s clerk before this, had a good career as a comic actor, as a theatre manager, and as a playwright, and allegedly ‘retired from the stage on the acquisition of a fortune’. That’s almost my lot, pictorially. But I did dig up a few crumbs on the peasants, villagers and minor deities, down the cast list. Mr. Charles Lambert, who was cast as Bacchus, was an amateur. He put his nose into the Grecian Theatre for one night, mendaciously billed as ‘of provincial celebrity’, in a famous role, and got torn to tatters by the critics. He went back to Mrs. Selby and the amdrams. Mr. Phelps, cast in a tiny role, was a loyal company member who got his reward. On the opening night of Rumpelstiltikin , the new actor, hired to play the role of the miller, fell down in a fit backstage and died. Mr. Phelps went on with the book … and kept the part. Miss Clara Granville (and her brothers), and doubtless al, were Selby pupils, but here’s a surprise … Miss Emily Turtle. That name! Surely Mrs. Selby couldn’t have invented that! And she didn’t. Miss Emily Mary Elizabeth Turtle was the daughter of one John Turtle of Covent Garden. Mama was a dresser and supernumary in a theatre, brother Willie was a gasman in the theatre. Papa was dead. Emily, born 1837, got a job at the Strand Theatre in 1860 (with Marianne Lester!), then progressed to the Royalty … look! Here’s a picture of her. It’s Rumpelstiltskin and that’s Mrs. Selby as the hag. Emily is on our left! Why do I persist on Emily? Because Emily stuck doggedly to her ‘career’. 1861, 1871, 1881 she is ‘actress’: and by golly she got there. Princess’s Theatre, Adelphi, Crystal Palace and Criterion with in the Dickens plays, Aquarium … still going in the profession in 1895, when most of her little Ixion mates were dead, long-retired, vanished … hurrah! for Emily Turtle! Puzzle. Emily and her old Mum lived together at 17 Henrietta Street, Covent Garden. Is it just coincidence that ‘Mrs. Selby’ died at: 17 Henrietta Street, Covent Garden? Burlesque is More. Kurt Gänzl launches the ''Forgotten Stars of the Musical Theatre'' series with a bio of Lydia Thompson. Plus, it's a really fun book. Maybe you've never heard of Lydia Thompson (I sure hadn't), but that's why they call them "forgotten stars." Gänzl, who writes in a charming and cheeky tone, rediscovers not only the tumultuous career and love life of this sex symbol of the Victorian age but also the lost world in which she operated--all the archaic theatrical conventions, rambunctious audiences, and behind-the-scenes chicanery. One story of many: In 1860, early in her touring career, Thompson played Dublin and encountered the so-called "gallery boys," who were "accustomed to demand payment from visitors for their applause. Anyone who was brave enough to refuse them their customary blood money would, of course, be given a rough time, on stage and off." Thompson refused this blackmail and therefore spent her Dublin run hustling out a side door post performances to avoid getting beaten up. Somewhat frustratingly, Gänzl doesn't provide a full description of what is meant by "burlesque," or what was meant by that term in Thompson's era, until well into the story. The occasion is the American debut in the late 1860s of Thompson and the rest of a five-person British company managed by the producer Alexander Henderson (an important character in Thompson's life, both professionally and personally). Installed at New York's newly opened Wood's Museum and Metropolitan Theater, the troupe was a phenomenon, in part because American audiences had only seen sorry, piecemeal burlesque until then and were hungry for the real thing. They got it, with Thompson in the lead of something called Ixion, or The Man at the Wheel . This success was to be a turning point in Thompson's career, vaulting her from popular British star to international sensation. Ixion was archetypal burlesque, "a kind of entertainment that parodied or burlesqued the subject and characters of its target tale or play." In this case, the subject was the Greek story of the King of Lapiths, who angers Zeus. The form allowed its writers and performers "the wildest of extravagances, the vastest of exaggerations, the most over-the-top incongruities." Other hallmarks of burlesque included pointedly terrible puns (Gänzl explains that the scripts would actually put the puns in italics, so the performers wouldn't fail to grind them home) and shapely actresses in tights. Gänzl reprints the entire program and scene order of Ixion , which is not unusual. He also provides an incredibly detailed, at times even overwhelming, account of Thompson's touring schedules, the parts she played, and, later, her financial status. Yet he never manages to delve into the star's interior life, her emotional journey, her private fantasies and despairs. (This may be due to a dearth of first-hand sources like diaries or journals.) The only time we hear Lydia speak to us is tangentially, as in a letter to the editor of the New York Herald in which she denies dying her hair. The author is a keen researcher, clearly, and seems to take particular delight in biographical detective work; this allows for illuminating if slightly self-congratulatory passages like the following, which relates to the philandering Henderson, who had angrily denied a press rumor that he was married to Thompson: "Alex's career as a cruising Casanova would have taken a distinct knock had it been known for certain that he was a married man. Was he? Well, it took me many years to find out, but I did. And the answer is. he wasn't. Not yet." Indeed, many of the book's best sections deal not with Lydia but with Henderson, who eventually did number Thompson among his several wives and, as Gänzl would have it, "six miles of bedmates." The section where Henderson gets into a public feud with a theater critic, who then threatens him with a pistol, is priceless. But whether Gänzl is walking us through the business arrangements of the 1870s stage, imagining what performances by Thompson and Her Blondes looked like to the SRO crowds, or speculating on which starlet was married to which producer and when, the author's personable style--coupled with a sincere enthusiasm for his subject--is infectious. GÄNZL, Kurt (Friedrich) GÄNZL, Kurt (Friedrich). (originally Brian Roy Gallas). New Zealander, b. 1946. Genres: Plays/Screenplays, Songs/Lyrics and libretti, Music, Theatre, Reference. Career: New Zealand Opera Company, basso soloist, 1968; writer, 1976-; Talent Artists Ltd., theatrical agent and casting director, 1981-89. Lecturer and broadcaster. Publications: Elektra (play), 1966; The Women of Troy (play), 1967; British Musical Theatre, 2 vols., 1986; (with A. Lamb) Ganzl's Book of the Musical Theatre, 1988; The Complete "Aspects of Love," 1990; The Blackwell Guide to the Musical Theatre on Record, 1990; The Encyclopaedia of the Musical Theatre, 2 vols., 1994, rev. ed., 3 vols., 2001; Ganzl's Book of the Broadway Musical, 1995; Musicals (in US as Song & Dance), 1995, 2nd ed., 2001; The Musical: A Concise History, 1997; Lydia Thompson, Queen of Burlesque, 2002; William B Gill, from the Goldfields to Broadway, 2002. Address: Talent Artists Ltd, 59, Sydner Rd., London N16 7UF, England. Online address: [email protected] Cite this article Pick a style below, and copy the text for your bibliography. MLA Chicago APA. "Gänzl, Kurt (Friedrich) ." Writers Directory 2005 . . Retrieved June 18, 2021 from Encyclopedia.com: https://www.encyclopedia.com/arts/culture-magazines/ganzl-kurt-friedrich. Citation styles. 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