Frederick Fenn (6 November 1868 – 2 January 1924) was an English playwright, journalist and drama critic. He was the librettist for one of the last Savoy Operas, A Welsh Sunset (1908), and had his greatest success with the musical comedy The Girl in the Taxi (1912).
Fenn was born in Bishop's Stortford, Hertfordshire, a son of the novelist George Manville Fenn and his wife Susanna, née Leake; he was educated privately. [1] His early works included Judged by Appearances, a one-act play, produced at the Comedy Theatre, London in 1902. Another one-act piece, The Honourable Ghost, was played on tour as a curtain raiser to The Bishop's Move, 1902. During the next four years Fenn had three more full-length plays staged: A Married Woman (1902), The Age of Innocence (1904) and The Convict on the Hearth (1906).
The Times considered Fenn's 1904 one-act play 'Op o' Me Thumb his best. [2] In the West End, Hilda Trevelyan had a great success in the leading role, and Fenn adapted it for the cinema in 1920 under the title Suds , a film that starred Mary Pickford. [1] [2] Of Fenn's later plays, the one that made most impression was The Girl in the Taxi (1912), a collaboration with Arthur Wimperis (libretto) and Jean Gilbert (music), an adaptation of a German piece, Die keusche Susanne (1910), which was based on Antony Mars and Maurice Desvallières's play, Le Fils à papa (1906). Starring Yvonne Arnaud, Arthur Playfair and C. H. Workman, it ran at the Lyric Theatre, London for 385 performances. [3]
In 1906 Fenn collaborated as librettist with the composer Philip Michael Faraday on the comic opera Amisis, produced at the New Theatre. The two worked together again on one of the last Savoy Operas, A Welsh Sunset , which ran at the Savoy Theatre for 85 performances in 1908. [1]
Fenn was for many years assistant editor of The Graphic and dramatic critic of The Daily Graphic . [1] He died in the London suburb Isleworth, on 2 January 1924, aged 57. [2]
Savoy opera was a style of comic opera that developed in Victorian England in the late 19th century, with W. S. Gilbert and Arthur Sullivan as the original and most successful practitioners. The name is derived from the Savoy Theatre, which impresario Richard D'Oyly Carte built to house the Gilbert and Sullivan pieces, and later those by other composer–librettist teams. The great bulk of the non-G&S Savoy Operas either failed to achieve a foothold in the standard repertory, or have faded over the years, leaving the term "Savoy Opera" as practically synonymous with Gilbert and Sullivan. The Savoy operas were seminal influences on the creation of the modern musical.
Arthur Reed Ropes, better known under the pseudonym Adrian Ross, was a prolific writer of lyrics, contributing songs to more than sixty British musical comedies in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. He was the most important lyricist of the British stage during a career that spanned five decades. At a time when few shows had long runs, nineteen of his West End shows ran for over 400 performances.
Sir Henry Lytton was an English actor and singer who was the leading exponent of the starring comic patter-baritone roles in Gilbert and Sullivan operas from 1909 to 1934. He also starred in musical comedies. His career with the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company spanned 50 years, and he is the only performer ever knighted for achievements in Gilbert and Sullivan roles.
Rutland Barrington was an English singer, actor, comedian and Edwardian musical comedy star. Best remembered for originating the lyric baritone roles in the Gilbert and Sullivan operas from 1877 to 1896, his performing career spanned more than four decades. He also wrote at least a dozen works for the stage.

Richard Barker Cobb Temple was an English opera singer, actor and stage director, best known for his performances in the bass-baritone roles in the famous series of Gilbert and Sullivan comic operas.
Charles Herbert Workman was a singer and actor best known as a successor to George Grossmith in the comic baritone roles in Gilbert and Sullivan operas. He was variously credited as Charles H. Workman, C. Herbert Workman and C. H. Workman.
Walter Henry Passmore was an English singer and actor best known as the first successor to George Grossmith in the comic baritone roles in Gilbert and Sullivan operas with the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company.
Leo Sheffield, born Arthur Leo Wilson, was an English singer and actor best known for his performances in baritone roles of the Savoy Operas with the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company.
Basil Willett Charles Hood was a British dramatist and lyricist, perhaps best known for writing the libretti of half a dozen Savoy Operas and for his English adaptations of operettas, including The Merry Widow.
Charles Hallam Elton Brookfield was a British actor, author, playwright and journalist, including for The Saturday Review. His most famous work for the theatre was The Belle of Mayfair (1906).
Louisa Emma Amelia "Louie" Pounds was an English singer and actress, known for her performances in musical comedies and in mezzo-soprano roles with the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company.
Walter Alfred Slaughter was an English conductor and composer of musical comedy, comic opera and children's shows. He was engaged in the West End as a composer and musical director from 1883 to 1904.
A Welsh Sunset is a one-act comic opera composed by Philip Michael Faraday, with a libretto by Frederick Fenn. It was produced at the Savoy Theatre from 15 July 1908 and played with revivals of H.M.S. Pinafore and The Pirates of Penzance until 17 October 1908, and from 2 December 1908 until 24 February 1909, a total of 85 performances. A copy of the vocal score, but no printed libretto, is found in the British Library. The score contains all the dialogue.

William Greet was a British theatre manager from the end of the 19th century and into the 20th century. Originally a business manager for other theatre licensees in the 1880s, he branched out as an independent manager in the 1890s and was associated with various London theatres, principally the Lyric, the Savoy and the Adelphi Theatres.
Lawrence Randall Grossmith was an English actor, the son of the Gilbert and Sullivan performer George Grossmith and the brother of the actor-manager George Grossmith Jr.
Reginald Somerville was an English composer and actor. He is known for writing many drawing-room ballads such as "God Sends the Night", "Yestereve", "Zaida: A Song of the Desert" and "The Lark and the Nightingale", as well as a handful of operas.

Philip Michael Faraday was an English lawyer, surveyor, composer, organist and theatrical producer. He composed one of the last Savoy operas, staged several long-running shows in the West End of London, and wrote a book about local taxation that was for many years the standard work on the subject. After sustaining financial losses on shows that he produced in the 1910s, Faraday declared bankruptcy in 1914. In later years he rebuilt his fortune through his legal and valuation work and resumed theatrical production.
Austen Hurgon was an actor, singer, theatre director and librettist for several successful Edwardian musical comedies of the 1900s and 1910s.
Frederick Strafford Moss was a British tenor and actor. He appeared in the Savoy operas of Gilbert and Sullivan from 1897 to 1913, mainly in touring companies of the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company, following which he had a career in musical theatre on the West End stage until 1931.
Agnes Fraser Elder Fraser-Smith was a Scottish actress and soprano, known as Agnes Fraser, who appeared in the later Savoy Operas and in Edwardian musical comedy. She married the Gilbert and Sullivan performer Walter Passmore, with whom she frequently appeared on stage.