The gallery was built in the 1820s by the architect John Nash as part of his own house, to display his considerable collection of paintings. In 1850 the building was named the Gallery of Illustration, and between then and 1855 it housed a diorama created and run by the theatrical scene-painters Thomas Grieve and William Telbin.
From 1856 to 1873 the gallery was in the hands of the singer and actress Priscilla Horton and her husband German Reed. Their entertainments developed from songs and comedy with piano accompaniment to programmes of short plays and operettas. In deference to respectable mid-Victorian doubts about the propriety of theatres, the Reeds called their productions "entertainments", and avoided the use of the words "theatre", "play" and other theatrical terms. Under the Reeds the gallery played an important part in the development of a new generation of authors, composers and performers. Among the writers whose works the Reeds staged were W. S. Gilbert and F. C. Burnand, and their composers included Arthur Sullivan, Frederic Clay and Alfred Cellier. The performers Arthur Cecil, Corney Grain and Fanny Holland made their names at the gallery early in their careers.
The lease of the building expired in 1873, and it ceased to be used as a performance venue. The Reeds moved to another theatre, and the gallery became a banqueting hall.
History
1824–1855
Nash's original gallery
The gallery was built by the architect John Nash, designer of Regent Street, Regent's Park, and other urban improvements undertaken to the commission of King George IV. The gallery was part of Nash's own residence at 14 Regent Street, completed in 1824. It originally housed copies of paintings by Raphael in the Vatican, which Nash arranged, with papal permission, to be copied by top Roman artists of the time.[1] He allowed members of the public to view the gallery by appointment.[2] After his death the pictures were sold.[n 1] The house was bought by an auctioneer called Rainy, who made it his business premises and used the gallery to display his wares in the 1830s and 1840s.[4]
In 1850 the theatrical scene-painters Thomas Grieve and William Telbin took on the lease of the building. They opened it in March as the Gallery of Illustration, offering a diorama display with expert commentary and music.[5] The first show, "Diorama of the Overland Route to India", opened in March 1850 and was a success with critics and public. A reviewer wrote:
This diorama is accompanied by appropriate music, comprising popular melodies from the best English, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Sicilian, Moorish, Egyptian, Arabian, and other sources. The entire journey is graphically described, as well as pictorially delineated, combining both amusement and instruction.[6]
The Morning Chronicle reported in October that the show "continues to attract overflowing audiences to the Gallery of Illustration in Regent-street. Its extensive popularity, however, is no matter for wonder, as the subject treated is perhaps the finest that can be conceived for the purposes of scenic illustration".[7] Grieve and Telbin followed this with "Diorama of Our Native Land" (1851),[8] "Campaigns of the Duke of Wellington" (1852),[9] "Diorama of the Arctic Regions" (1853),[10] and "The Seat of War" (1854).[11] The prefix "Royal" was added to the title of the establishment by late 1852, but it is not clear on what authority, if any.[12]
Early in 1856 the singer and actress Priscilla Horton began to perform at the venue. Her entertainments given at St Martin's Hall had been popular, and with her husband, German Reed,[n 2] at the piano and "the pictorial aid of Messrs Grieve and Telbin", she started giving what The Morning Chronicle called "her very clever impersonations" at the Royal Gallery of Illustration.[14] The Reeds continued to perform at the gallery for seventeen years, in what were first billed as "Miss P. Horton's Illustrative Gatherings" and then "Mr and Mrs German Reed's Entertainments".[13][n 3] They quickly became public favourites: in 1859 The Daily News observed:
Since Messrs Grieve and Telbin have given up painting panoramas of historical events or travelled interest, and since Mr Stocqueler – undoubtedly the clearest, pleasantest, and most succinct lecturer of the day – has confined himself to the superintendence of young gentlemen's military education, the public has come to look upon the Gallery of Illustration as the special home of Mr and Mrs German Reed, and to regard them as the sole persons with any right to be there. When these pleasant entertainers are away on their provincial tour their room is sometimes let to a wandering amusement-provider with a panorama interspersed with comic songs, or some other exhibition, but he obtains but little attention, and the Gallery fades out of the list of amusements to be watched, until its legitimate and favourite occupants return.[16]
In 1860 the Reeds were joined by John Parry, a former concert singer and subsequently an entertainer known for his impressions of popular performers. The historian Jane W. Stedman writes that the Reeds' playbills "settled into a format, which continued even after Parry retired in 1869: a musical monologue to piano accompaniment by Parry ... preceded and/or followed by a musical piece, later two, often farcical, often a pocket operetta".[13]
In the 1850s and 1860s theatres were regarded by a substantial part of society as not respectable. The historian Andrew Crowther writes, "Many who would gladly attend a concert, a lecture or an exhibition at a gallery would not think of setting foot in a theatre".[18] The Reeds did not to refer to the Gallery of Illustration as a theatre, and they called their productions "illustrations" or "entertainments", acts were "parts", and roles were "assumptions", avoiding conventional theatrical terms. Stedman comments that the accompaniment of piano, harmonium, and at times a harp "also emphasized the presumably untheatrical nature of the entertainment".[13] The author F. Anstey recalled that in his Victorian childhood there was no question of being taken to a theatre,
... but we were taken to the old Gallery of Illustrations, which was not considered a theatre, and very delightful it was. The auditorium was narrow and rather stuffy, the seats sloped in a steep rake down to the tiny stage. Gilbert, Burnand, and the à Becketts wrote the plays, which were not called plays but 'illustrations', so that the strictest could see them without offence.[19]
The stage was tiny because the long, narrow gallery could not accommodate a larger one. This restricted the Reeds to a cast of at most five performers.[n 4] Much doubling of parts and quick changes were called for. The Era reported on a typical production in July 1868:[13][n 5]
Mrs German Reed personates successively a Scotch housekeeper, Mrs McCraggie; a flirting spinster, Miss Rougemel, with a capital "song about Cheltenham"; and the loquacious busy body Mrs Meddle. Mr German Reed makes a series of rapid changes as an enthusiastic flute-player named Chirriper, with the infirmity of deafness; a speech-making Deputy Lieutenant, Orpheus Rougemel, who sets his oration to music; the accepted lover, Lieutenant Robert Barton, RN; and a fussy elderly solicitor, called William Prynne, who discovers in Miss Rougemel an old sweetheart.[20]
Reed experimented with what he called chamber opera – opera di camera – simplified versions of operas for his usual small forces. The first was Jessy Lea (1863), a retelling of L'elisir d'amore, with words by John Oxenford and music by George Macfarren.[21] After seven further productions of the same nature, with original music by Macfarren and Virginia Gabriel and adaptations of Offenbach and Michael Balfe the experiment came to an end.[13][22]
The Reeds' lease of the gallery expired at the end of July 1873, and the building ceased to be used as a performance space. The programme for the last night there, on 31 July, comprised Mildred's Well; or A Romance of the Middle Ages by Burnand and Reed, Very Catching by Burnand and Molloy, and Our Garden Party by Corney Grain.[23] The Reeds moved to St George's Hall at the opposite end of Regent Street; the gallery became the banqueting hall of the Pall Mall Restaurant, which occupied the site until 1883, when the building was leased by the new Constitutional Club.[36]
Legacy
The historical importance of the gallery is chiefly its role in the early careers and development of leading authors, composers and performers. Several future stars had their start in the Reeds' company, including Arthur Cecil, Corney Grain and Fanny Holland.[13] Few of the shows presented at the gallery have remained in the repertory. Gilbert's Ages Ago has been revived occasionally.[21] Burnand and Sullivan's Cox and Box was taken up by later managements including the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company,[37] and has continued to be revived regularly in the 21st century.[38][39]
↑ The Brough works, with music composed or arranged by Reed, were Holly Lodge, and The Enraged Musician (both written with his brother Robert and staged by the Reeds at St Martin's Hall before being revived at the gallery)[23] A Month From Home (1857),[24] My Unfinished Opera (1857),[24] Our Home Circuit 1859),[25] Seaside Studies (1861),[16] The Rival Composers (1861),[26] The Bard and his Birthday (1864),[27] and A Peculiar Family (1865).[17]
Sir Alexander Campbell Mackenzie KCVO was a Scottish composer, conductor and teacher best known for his oratorios, violin and piano pieces, Scottish folk music and works for the stage.
Sir Francis Cowley Burnand, usually known as F. C. Burnand, was an English comic writer and prolific playwright, best known today as the librettist of Arthur Sullivan's opera Cox and Box.
Cox and Box; or, The Long-Lost Brothers, is a one-act comic opera with a libretto by F. C. Burnand and music by Arthur Sullivan, based on the 1847 farce Box and Cox by John Maddison Morton. It was Sullivan's first successful comic opera. The story concerns a landlord who lets a room to two lodgers, one who works at night and one who works during the day. When one of them has the day off, they meet each other in the room and tempers flare. Sullivan wrote this piece five years before his first opera with W. S. Gilbert, Thespis.
Frederic Emes Clay was an English composer known principally for songs and his music written for the stage. Although from a musical family, for 16 years Clay made his living as a civil servant in HM Treasury, composing in his spare time, until a legacy in 1873 enabled him to become a full-time composer. He had his first big stage success with Ages Ago (1869), a short comic opera with a libretto by W. S. Gilbert, for the small Gallery of Illustration; it ran well and was repeatedly revived. Clay, a great friend of his fellow composer Arthur Sullivan, introduced the latter to Gilbert, leading to the Gilbert and Sullivan partnership.
The German Reed Entertainments were founded in 1855 and operated by Thomas German Reed (1817–1888) together with his wife, Priscilla German Reed (1818–1895). At a time when the theatre in London was seen as a disreputable place, the German Reed family provided family-friendly entertainments for forty years, showing that respectable theatre could be popular.
The Contrabandista, or The Law of the Ladrones, is a two-act comic opera by Arthur Sullivan and F. C. Burnand. It premiered at St. George's Hall, in London, on 18 December 1867 under the management of Thomas German Reed, for a run of 72 performances. There were brief revivals in Manchester in 1874 and America in 1880. In 1894, it was revised into a new opera, The Chieftain, with a completely different second act.
Henry Pottinger Stephens, was an English dramatist and journalist.
A Sensation Novel is a comic musical play in three acts written by the dramatist W. S. Gilbert, with music composed by Thomas German Reed. It was first performed on 31 January 1871 at the Royal Gallery of Illustration. Only four of German Reed's songs survive. Nearly 25 years later, the music was rewritten and published by Florian Pascal. The story concerns an author suffering from writer's block who finds that the characters in his novel are dissatisfied.
Thomas German Reed, known after 1844 as simply German Reed was an English composer, musical director, actor, singer and theatrical manager of the Victorian era. He was best known for creating the German Reed Entertainments, together with his actress wife, a genre of musical plays that made theatre-going respectable at a time when the stage was considered disreputable.
Ages Ago, sometimes stylised as Ages Ago! or Ages Ago!!, is a musical entertainment with a libretto by W. S. Gilbert and music by Frederic Clay that premiered on 22 November 1869 at the Royal Gallery of Illustration. It marked the beginning of a seven-year collaboration between Gilbert and Clay. The piece was a critical and popular success and was revived many times, including at St. George's Hall, London in 1870 and 1874, and in New York in 1880.
No Cards is a "musical piece in one act" for four characters, written by W. S. Gilbert, with music composed and arranged by Thomas German Reed. It was first produced at the Royal Gallery of Illustration, Lower Regent Street, London, under the management of German Reed, opening on 29 March 1869 and closing on 21 November 1869. The work is a domestic farce of mistaken identities and inept disguises, as two men desperately compete to marry a wealthy young lady. One is young and poor, and the other is a rich miser. Each disguises himself as her guardian.
Fanny Holland was an English singer and comic actress primarily known as the creator of principal soprano roles in numerous German Reed Entertainments.
This is a selected list of W. S. Gilbert's works, including all that have their own Wikipedia articles. For a complete list of Gilbert's dramatic works, see List of W. S. Gilbert dramatic works.
Our Island Home is a one-act musical entertainment with a libretto by W. S. Gilbert and music by Thomas German Reed that premiered on 20 June 1870 at the Royal Gallery of Illustration. The piece has five characters and is "biographical", in that the characters in the original production played themselves, except that they were given personalities opposite to their actual personalities.
Happy Arcadia is a musical entertainment with a libretto by W. S. Gilbert and music originally by Frederic Clay that premiered on 28 October 1872 at the Royal Gallery of Illustration. It was one of four collaborations between Gilbert and Clay between 1869 and 1876. The music is lost. The piece is a satire on the genre of pastoral plays in which the characters, who each wish that they could be someone else, have their wish granted, with unhappy results.
Priscilla Horton, later Priscilla German Reed, was an English singer and actress, known for her role as Ariel in W. C. Macready's production of The Tempest in 1838 and "fairy" burlesques at Covent Garden Theatre. Later, she was known, along with her husband, Thomas German Reed, for establishing and performing in the family-friendly German Reed Entertainments. There, she was a mentor to W. S. Gilbert, and her performances inspired Gilbert to create some of his famous contralto roles.
The Queen's Theatre was a London theatre established in 1867 on the site of St Martin's Hall, a large concert room that had opened in 1850. It stood on the corner of Long Acre and Endell Street, with entrances in Wilson Street and Long Acre. The site is within the modern Camden, part of Covent Garden.
Arthur Cecil Blunt, better known as Arthur Cecil, was an English actor, comedian, playwright and theatre manager. He is probably best remembered for playing the role of Box in the long-running production of Cox and Box, by Arthur Sullivan and F. C. Burnand, at the Royal Gallery of Illustration.
Richard Corney Grain, known by his stage name Corney Grain, was an entertainer and songwriter of the late Victorian era.
Thomas Grieve (1799–1882) was an English scene-painter.
Anstey, F. (1936). A Long Retrospect. Oxford: Oxford University Press. OCLC917214233.
Crowther, Andrew (2011). Gilbert of Gilbert & Sullivan: His Life and Character. Stroud: The History Press. ISBN978-0-7524-6385-8.
Lubenow, William C. (2010). Liberal Intellectuals and Public Culture in Modern Britain, 1815–1914. Woodbridge: Boydell Press. ISBN978-1-84383-559-2.
Pugin, Augustus; John Britton (1838). Illustrations of the Public Buildings of London (seconded.). London: Weale. OCLC664399053.
Rollins, Cyril; R. John Witts (1962). The D'Oyly Carte Opera Company in Gilbert and Sullivan Operas: A Record of Productions, 1875–1961. London: Michael Joseph. OCLC504581419.
Summerson, John (1935). John Nash: Architect to King George IV. London: Allen & Unwin. OCLC1150082194.
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