John Watson

Theatricals John Watson

The idea of retelling theatre stories began with a second-hand copy of Donald Sinden's Theatrical Anecdotes. Other anthologies, biographies and histories followed. Widening circles of biblio-graphies soon spread out into earlier anthologies and accounts, from practitioners within the theatre - Oxberry, Bunn, Wilkinson, Macready - as well as from the memoirs of ardent theatregoers - Pepys, Hunt, Moore, Haydon... But the remarkable degree to which certain stories are repeated again and again makes specific acknowledgment of sources impossible. For example, Macklin's final octogenarian appearance as Shylock, Barrymore's hurling of a fish from the stage, Charles Kemble's treatment of a crying child in the audience, Garrick's parsimony, Ralph Richardson's parrot, Barry's and Garrick's competing Romeos - these are typical of hundreds of set pieces which recur almost obsessively. And the same blunder or witticism may well be attributed to a surprisingly large cast.