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Sans Pareil Theatre
The Adelphi Theatre is a West End theatre, located on the Strand in the City of Westminster, central London. The present building is the fourth on the site. The theatre has specialised in comedy and musical theatre, and today it is a receiving house for a variety of productions, including many musicals. The theatre was Grade II listed for historical preservation on 1 December 1987. History 19th century It was founded in 1806 as the Sans Pareil ("Without Compare"), by merchant John Scott, and his daughter Jane (1770–1839). Jane was a British theatre manager, performer, and playwright. Together, they gathered a theatrical company and by 1809 the theatre was licensed for musical entertainments, pantomime, and burletta. She wrote more than fifty stage pieces in an array of genres: melodramas, pantomimes, farces, comic operettas, historical dramas, and adaptations, as well as translations. Jane Scott retired to Surrey in 1819, marrying John Davies Middleton (1790–1867 ...
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Strand, London
Strand (or the Strand) is a major thoroughfare in the City of Westminster, Central London. It runs just over from Trafalgar Square eastwards to Temple Bar, where the road becomes Fleet Street in the City of London, and is part of the A4, a main road running west from inner London. The road's name comes from the Old English ''strond'', meaning the edge of a river, as it historically ran alongside the north bank of the River Thames. The street was much identified with the British upper classes between the 12th and 17th centuries, with many historically important mansions being built between the Strand and the river. These included Essex House, Arundel House, Somerset House, Savoy Palace, Durham House and Cecil House. The aristocracy moved to the West End during the 17th century, and the Strand became known for its coffee shops, restaurants and taverns. The street was a centre point for theatre and music hall during the 19th century, and several venues remain on the St ...
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Surrey
Surrey () is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan county in South East England, bordering Greater London to the south west. Surrey has a large rural area, and several significant urban areas which form part of the Greater London Built-up Area. With a population of approximately 1.2 million people, Surrey is the 12th-most populous county in England. The most populated town in Surrey is Woking, followed by Guildford. The county is divided into eleven districts with borough status. Between 1893 and 2020, Surrey County Council was headquartered at County Hall, Kingston-upon-Thames (now part of Greater London) but is now based at Woodhatch Place, Reigate. In the 20th century several alterations were made to Surrey's borders, with territory ceded to Greater London upon its creation and some gained from the abolition of Middlesex. Surrey is bordered by Greater London to the north east, Kent to the east, Berkshire to the north west, West Sussex to the south, East Sussex to ...
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1848 ILN The Haunted Man
1848 is historically famous for the wave of revolutions, a series of widespread struggles for more liberal governments, which broke out from Brazil to Hungary; although most failed in their immediate aims, they significantly altered the political and philosophical landscape and had major ramifications throughout the rest of the century. Ereignisblatt aus den revolutionären Märztagen 18.-19. März 1848 mit einer Barrikadenszene aus der Breiten Strasse, Berlin 01.jpg, Cheering revolutionaries in Berlin, on March 19, 1848, with the new flag of Germany Lar9 philippo 001z.jpg, French Revolution of 1848: Republican riots forced King Louis-Philippe to abdicate Zeitgenössige Lithografie der Nationalversammlung in der Paulskirche.jpg, German National Assembly's meeting in St. Paul's Church Pákozdi csata.jpg, Battle of Pákozd in the Hungarian Revolution of 1848 Events January–March * January 3 – Joseph Jenkins Roberts is sworn in, as the first president of the ind ...
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The Haunted Man And The Ghost's Bargain
''The Haunted Man and the Ghost's Bargain, A Fancy for Christmas-Time'' (better known as ''The Haunted Man and the Ghost's Bargain'' or simply as ''The Haunted Man'') is a novella by Charles Dickens first published in 1848. It is the fifth and last of Dickens's Christmas novellas. The story is more about the spirit of Christmas than about the holiday itself, harking back to the first in the series, ''A Christmas Carol''. The tale centres on a Professor Redlaw and those close to him. Plot summary The Gift Bestowed Redlaw is a teacher of chemistry who often broods over wrongs done him and grief from his past. He is attended to by his servants Mr. Swidger and his 87-year-old father who helps the cook, Milly William, decorate Redlaw's rooms with holly. He is haunted by a spirit, who is not so much a ghost as Redlaw's phantom twin and is "an awful likeness of himself...with his features, and his bright eyes, and his grizzled hair, and dressed in the gloomy shadow of his dress... ...
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A Christmas Carol
''A Christmas Carol. In Prose. Being a Ghost Story of Christmas'', commonly known as ''A Christmas Carol'', is a novella by Charles Dickens, first published in London by Chapman & Hall in 1843 and illustrated by John Leech. ''A Christmas Carol'' recounts the story of Ebenezer Scrooge, an elderly miser who is visited by the ghost of his former business partner Jacob Marley and the spirits of Christmas Past, Present and Yet to Come. After their visits, Scrooge is transformed into a kinder, gentler man. Dickens wrote ''A Christmas Carol'' during a period when the British were exploring and re-evaluating past Christmas traditions, including carols, and newer customs such as Christmas cards and Christmas trees. He was influenced by the experiences of his own youth and by the Christmas stories of other authors, including Washington Irving and Douglas Jerrold. Dickens had written three Christmas stories prior to the novella, and was inspired following a visit to the Field Lan ...
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Benjamin Webster
Benjamin Nottingham Webster (3 September 17973 July 1882) was an English actor-manager and dramatist. Early life Webster was born in Bath, the son of a dancing master. Career First appearing as Harlequin, and then in small parts at Drury Lane, he went to the Haymarket Theatre in 1829, and was given leading comedy character business. Webster was the lessee of the Haymarket from 1837 to 1853; he built the new Adelphi Theatre (1859); later the Olympic Theatre, Princess's Theatre, London and St James's Theatres came under his control; and he was the patron of all the contemporary playwrights and many of the best actors, who owed their opportunity of success to him. He wrote, translated or adapted nearly a hundred plays. As a character actor he was unequalled in his day, especially in such parts as Triplet in ''Masks and Faces'', Joey Ladle in ''No Thoroughfare'', and John Peerybingle in his own dramatization of ''The Cricket on the Hearth''. Webster took his formal farewe ...
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The Old Curiosity Shop
''The Old Curiosity Shop'' is one of two novels (the other being ''Barnaby Rudge'') which Charles Dickens published along with short stories in his weekly serial ''Master Humphrey's Clock'', from 1840 to 1841. It was so popular that New York readers stormed the wharf when the ship bearing the final instalment arrived in 1841. ''The Old Curiosity Shop'' was printed in book form in 1841. The plot follows the life of Nell Trent and her grandfather, both residents of The Old Curiosity Shop in London. Queen Victoria read the novel in 1841 and found it "very interesting and cleverly written". Plot Background The events of the book seem to take place around 1825. In Chapter 29, Miss Monflathers refers to the death of George Gordon Byron, 6th Baron Byron, Lord Byron, who died on 19 April 1824. When the inquest rules (incorrectly) that Quilp committed suicide, his corpse is ordered to be burial at cross-roads, buried at a crossroads with a stake through the heart, a practice banned ...
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The Life And Adventures Of Nicholas Nickleby (play)
''The Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby'' is an 8½ hour-long adaptation of Charles Dickens’ 1839 novel, performed in two parts. Part 1 was 4 hours in length with one interval of 15 minutes. Part 2 was 4½ hours in length with two intervals of 12 minutes. It was originally presented onstage over two evenings, or in its entirety from early afternoon with a dinner break. Later it was presented on television over four evenings. The opening night was on 5 June 1980. The show ran for an 8-week season at the Aldwych Theatre, playing Part 1 on some nights and Part 2 on others with both parts playing together on matinée and evening performances. It was revived for two further 8-week runs at the Aldwych in the autumn season of 1980 and the spring season of 1981 before being filmed for Primetime TV at the Old Vic Theatre and transferring to Broadway for the autumn season of 1981. A further revival with a substantially different cast played at the Royal Shakespeare Theatre in Str ...
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Frederick Henry Yates
Frederick Henry Yates (4 February 1797 – 21 June 1842) was an English actor and theatre manager. Life Yates was born in London, the youngest son of Thomas Yates, a tobacco manufacturer, of Thames Street and Russell Square. Frederick was educated at a preparatory school at Winchmore Hill and at Charterhouse School (at the former meeting John Reeve, whom he would later work with) before joining the commissariat department. In that job he was with Wellington in the Peninsular War and possibly at the battle of Waterloo. When peace came, he met Charles Mathews at a fancy ball before accompanying him on a trip to France in winter 1817/18 and becoming an actor on his advice (his first stage appearance was in Boulogne during the trip). He then appeared at Edinburgh before making his London debut on 7 November 1818 at the Theatre Royal, Covent Garden, where he remained until 1824/25. Through his marriage he was related to the Robertsons who ran the Lincoln and Stamford theatrical c ...
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William Leman Rede
William Leman Rede (31 January 1802 – 3 April 1847), often referred to as simply Leman Rede, was one of the many prolific and successful playwrights who composed farces, melodramas, burlettas (light musical and comedies) and travesties, primarily for theatres such as the Olympic, Strand, and Adelphi, in the early nineteenth century. He proudly proclaimed himself a follower of Thomas Frognall Dibdin, W. T. Moncrieff, James Robinson Planché, Douglas William Jerrold and John Baldwin Buckstone—writers who established the "minor drama". This term referred to plays that were produced at venues other than Covent Garden, Drury Lane and the Haymarket, the "patent theatres" that had a legal monopoly on the presentation of serious, non-musical productions. The minor dramas did so well, however, that the patent theatres soon augmented their own bills with the same type of fare. Family Rede's father, Leman Thomas Rede, was a barrister and member of the Inner Temple.''The Times'', 21 Octo ...
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The Pickwick Papers
''The Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club'' (also known as ''The Pickwick Papers'') was Charles Dickens's first novel. Because of his success with ''Sketches by Boz'' published in 1836, Dickens was asked by the publisher Chapman & Hall to supply descriptions to explain a series of comic "cockney sporting plates" by illustrator Robert Seymour (illustrator), Robert Seymour, and to connect them into a novel. The book became a publishing phenomenon, with bootleg copies, theatrical performances, Sam Weller (character), Sam Weller joke books, and other merchandise. On its cultural impact, Nicholas Dames in ''The Atlantic'' writes, “'Literature' is not a big enough category for ''Pickwick''. It defined its own, a new one that we have learned to call “entertainment.” Published in 19 issues over 20 months, the success of ''The Pickwick Papers'' popularised Serial (literature), serialised fiction and cliffhanger endings. Seymour's widow claimed that the idea for the novel was or ...
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John Baldwin Buckstone
John Baldwin Buckstone (14 September 1802 – 31 October 1879) was an English actor, playwright and comedian who wrote 150 plays, the first of which was produced in 1826. He starred as a comic actor during much of his career for various periods at the Adelphi Theatre and the Haymarket Theatre, managing the Haymarket from 1853 to 1877. Biography Buckstone was born in Hoxton, London, the son of John Buckstone, a retired shopkeeper, and his wife Elizabeth (née Baldwin).Roy, Donald"Buckstone, John Baldwin (1802–1879)" ''Oxford Dictionary of National Biography'', Oxford University Press, 2004; online edn, January 2008, accessed 3 January 2015 He was educated at Walworth Grammar School and was briefly apprenticed on a naval ship at age 10 but returned to school. He studied law and was articled to a solicitor but turned to acting by age 19.''The Times'', 1 November 1879, p. 5 Early career Buckstone first joined a travelling troupe in 1821 as Gabriel in ''The Children in the Wood''. ...
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