Aldwych Farcical

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Aldwych Farcical is a term coined by the artist and author Osbert Lancaster for a style of English interior design fashionable in the 1920s and 1930s. Lancaster devoted a chapter of his 1939 book Homes Sweet Homes to the style, taking the name from the popular series of farces starring Tom Walls and Ralph Lynn at the Aldwych Theatre in London. Plays in the series, including Rookery Nook , Thark and Plunder , were set in houses built and decorated in faux-antique rustic style, mostly on the fringes of London. Along with other terms coined by Lancaster, Aldwych Farcical has entered the language and is recorded in the Oxford English Dictionary .

Contents

Background

Aldwych farces

Rookery Nook, Aldwych Theatre, 1926: from left Tom Walls, Ralph Lynn, Stella Bonheur and Ena Mason Rookery-Nook.png
Rookery Nook , Aldwych Theatre, 1926: from left Tom Walls, Ralph Lynn, Stella Bonheur and Ena Mason

Between 1923 and 1933 the actor-manager Tom Walls presented a series of twelve farces at the Aldwych Theatre in the West End of London, co-starring with the comedy actor Ralph Lynn. Most of the plays were written by Ben Travers, and revolved around a series of preposterous incidents involving a misunderstanding, borrowed clothes and lost trousers, and featuring the worldly Walls character, the innocent yet cheeky Lynn, the put-upon Robertson Hare, the beefy, domineering Mary Brough, the lean, domineering Ethel Coleridge, and the ingénue Winifred Shotter. [1] The theatre historian Ronald Strang writes that the farces were "Loosely plotted around the suspicion of sexual improprieties, but enlivened by Travers's playful language, eccentric characters and deft routines". Strang adds that the plays enjoyed "accumulated popular goodwill and an almost legendary theatrical status". [2]

Some of the most popular plays in the series, including Thark and Plunder , were set in houses built in rustic style on the fringes of London, in locations such as Horsham and Walton Heath, [3] or sometimes, as in Rookery Nook , further away. [4] In The Cambridge Illustrated History of British Theatre (2000), Simon Trussler writes of "incipient tumult fed by a commodious stairway and lots of practical entrances ... characteristic of a genre whose no less incipient (but usually just avoided) combination of social and sexual disasters Coward had also exploited in Hay Fever (1924)". [5]

Homes Sweet Homes

In 1938 the artist, cartoonist and author Osbert Lancaster had a critical and popular success with his book Pillar to Post , in which he drew and commented on building styles from ancient times to the present day. The tone was light and humorous but Lancaster's purpose was serious: to encourage readers to appreciate the best architecture and reject the worst. [6] He followed this in 1939 with Homes Sweet Homes , which focused on the interiors of old and new buildings. He became known for coining terms for architectural styles. [7] In Pillar to Post he either invented or popularised "Pont Street Dutch", "Stockbrokers Tudor" and "By-pass Variegated"; [8] for Homes Sweet Homes he added, in addition to "Aldwych Farcical", "Curzon Street Baroque" and an interior version of "Stockbrokers Tudor". [9]

In 1959 Lancaster published Here, of All Places, which combined most of Pillar to Post and all of Homes Sweet Homes, with additional text and drawings. Some drawings were redone for the new book but Aldwych Farcical was retained with the original text and drawing unchanged. [10]

Style

"A wealth of old oak panelling ... long lines of sporting prints, punctuated here and there by a barometer or a warming-pan": Lancaster's illustration of "Aldwych Farcical", showing the features discussed in Homes Sweet Homes and by the historian Clive Aslet Aldwych-farcical-1 (1).jpg
"A wealth of old oak panelling ... long lines of sporting prints, punctuated here and there by a barometer or a warming-pan": Lancaster's illustration of "Aldwych Farcical", showing the features discussed in Homes Sweet Homes and by the historian Clive Aslet

The Oxford English Dictionary defines the term as "Of or relating to an Aldwych farce ... designating a type of architecture or interior design resembling the upper-middle-class domestic setting of this genre". [11] Lancaster wrote of Aldwych Farcical:

[T]he country-house atmosphere is even more overwhelming within than without. Here the lounge-hall reaches the ultimate peak of its development. From an impressive landing, always referred to as the gallery, a flight of polished oak stairs lead down to a gleaming parquet sea on which float a variety of rich Turkey rugs. Light and air, the former in small quantities, the latter in unlimited supplies, are admitted through a bewildering selection of doors and French windows which one constantly expects (such is the theatrical complexity of their arrangement) to fly open and reveal the pyjama-clad forms of Mr Robertson Hare or Mr Ralph Lynn. On the walls, or rather such part of them as is not covered by a wealth of old oak panelling, hang long lines of sporting prints, punctuated here and there by a barometer or a warming-pan, testifying to the strong sporting instincts of the squirearchy of Metroland. [12]

The lounge-hall to which Lancaster refers was typical of the style. In The Last Country Houses Clive Aslet writes, "The informality and half-timbered cosiness suited an upper middle-class ideal". [13] He quotes Travers's description of the setting of Rookery Nook":

The front door gives entrance to spacious hall, suited to additional living room and containing fine old open fireplace in Jacobean style with rich oak overmantel. Parquet flooring, valuable Turkey matting, oak-panelled walling and mullioned windowing. [13]

The historian Rosemary Hill suggests that Lancaster was taking a swipe at the architect Augustus Pugin, whose house in Ramsgate "reinvented the Gothic as a new style for the nineteenth century ... the prototype for hundreds of country rectories and suburban houses". [14]

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Turkey Time is a farce by Ben Travers. It was one of the series of Aldwych farces that ran nearly continuously at the Aldwych Theatre in London from 1923 to 1933. The story concerns two guests, staying at the Stoatt household for Christmas, who offer shelter to a pretty concert performer left stranded when her employer absconds, leaving his cast unpaid.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Aldwych farce</span> Series of twelve stage farces presented at the Aldwych Theatre, London

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<i>Thark</i> (play) Play written by Ben Travers

Thark is a farce by the English playwright Ben Travers. It was first given at the Aldwych Theatre, London, the fourth in the series of twelve Aldwych farces presented at the theatre by the actor-manager Tom Walls between 1923 and 1933. It starred the same cast members as many of the other Aldwych farces. The story concerns a reputedly haunted English country house. Investigators and frightened occupants of the house spend a tense night searching for the ghost.

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A Cuckoo in the Nest is a farce by the English playwright Ben Travers. It was first given at the Aldwych Theatre, London, the second in the series of twelve Aldwych farces presented by the actor-manager Tom Walls at the theatre between 1923 and 1933. Several of the cast formed the regular core cast for the later Aldwych farces. The plot concerns two friends, a man and a woman, who are each married to other people. While travelling together, they are obliged by circumstances to share a hotel bedroom. Everyone else assumes the worst, but the two travellers are able to prove their innocence.

<i>Plunder</i> (play)

Plunder is a farce by the English playwright Ben Travers. It was first given at the Aldwych Theatre, London, the fifth in the series of twelve Aldwych farces presented by the actor-manager Tom Walls at the theatre between 1923 and 1933. Several of the actors formed a regular core cast for the Aldwych farces. The play shows two friends committing a jewel robbery, for arguably honourable reasons, with fatal results.

<i>A Cup of Kindness</i> (play) Play written by Ben Travers

A Cup of Kindness is a farce by the English playwright Ben Travers. It was first given at the Aldwych Theatre, London, the sixth in the series of twelve Aldwych farces presented by the actor-manager Tom Walls at the theatre between 1923 and 1933. Several of the actors formed a regular core cast for the Aldwych farces. The play depicts the feud between two suburban families.

<i>A Night Like This</i> (play)

A Night Like This is a farce by Ben Travers, written as one of the series of Aldwych farces staged nearly continuously at the Aldwych Theatre, London, from 1923 to 1933. The farces were directed by Tom Walls, who co-starred in most of them with Ralph Lynn, and a supporting cast of regular Aldwych performers. The play is a spoof of detective plays and thrillers, with the two stars successfully taking on a criminal gang. Eventually, the gang is rounded up, and the jewels taken from the heroine are restored to their proper owner.

<i>Fifty-Fifty</i> (play)

Fifty-Fifty is a farce by H. F. Maltby, adapted from a French original, Azaïs, by Louis Verneuil and Georges Berr. It was the penultimate work of the series of Aldwych farces that ran nearly continuously at the Aldwych Theatre in London from 1923 to 1933. The play centres on the sudden rise of an impoverished music teacher to become manager of a grand casino.

<i>Marry the Girl</i> (play)

Marry the Girl is a farce by George Arthurs and Arthur Miller. It was one of the series of Aldwych farces that ran at the Aldwych Theatre in London nearly continuously from 1923 to 1933. The play centres on a breach of promise case brought before a British court of justice.

<i>Dirty Work</i> (play)

Dirty Work is a farce by Ben Travers. It was one of the series of twelve Aldwych farces that ran in uninterrupted succession at the Aldwych Theatre in London from 1923 to 1933. The play depicts the maladroit but ultimately successful efforts of a shop-walker to outwit a gang of jewel thieves.

References

  1. ↑ Smith, pp. 50ff
  2. ↑ Strang, p. 17
  3. ↑ Travers (1976), pp. 1 and 32
  4. ↑ Travers (2014), unnumbered introductory page
  5. ↑ Trussler, p. 281
  6. ↑ Knox, p. 41
  7. ↑ Boston, p. 98
  8. ↑ Lancaster (1938), pp. 68, 76 and 82
  9. ↑ Lancaster (1948), pp. 64, 68 and 70
  10. ↑ Lancaster (1959), pp. 140–141
  11. ↑ "Aldwych-farcical" . Oxford English Dictionary (Online ed.). Oxford University Press.(Subscription or participating institution membership required.)
  12. ↑ Lancaster (1948), p. 68
  13. 1 2 Aslet, p. 65
  14. ↑ Hill, pp. 152 and 559

Sources

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