Samuel Weller, or, The Pickwickians is an 1837 comedy in three acts adapted from Dickens's novel The Pickwick Papers by William Thomas Moncrieff. It was first performed at the Royal Strand Theatre in London on 17 July 1837.
W. T. Moncrieff's 'Farcical Comedy' Sam Weller; or the Pickwickians opened at the Royal Strand Theatre in 1837 in a production directed by William John Hammond (1797–1848) [1] and that ran for 80 performances before touring the provinces. [2] The production was memorable for the Alfred Jingle of John Lee and the Sam Weller of Hammond. [3] [4] In the same year a production opened in New York and Philadelphia where it had a good run despite poor reviews. [5]
Dickens complained against this adaptation [2] with Moncrieff defending his plagiarism in a long advertisement on the playbill in which he stated, 'Late experience has enabled him to bring Mr. Pickwick's affairs to a conclusion rather sooner than his gifted biographer has done, if not so satisfactorily as could be wished, at all events quite legally.' [1] [6] While Moncrieff had apologised to ‘Boz’ in his notes on the playbill this failed to placate Dickens, who caricatured Moncrieff as the 'literary gentleman' and actor-manager Vincent Crummles in his novel Nicholas Nickleby "who had dramatized in his time two hundred and forty-seven novels, as fast as they had come out – some of them faster than they had come out". [7] Moncrieff's response was to plagiarise Nickleby in another production in 1839. [1]
At least four productions of Pickwick were being performed on the London stage while the novel was still being serialised, with Moncrieff's adaptation described as the most successful. [8] As the title suggests, Moncrieff decided to focus on Sam Weller, the main comic character in the novel, rather than on Samuel Pickwick himself. [9] [10] [11]
The play had a revival at the New Strand Theatre in May and July 1838 with largely the original cast. [12] [13]
The play was adapted in 1850 by Thomas Hailes Lacy as The Pickwickians; or the Peregrinations of Sam Weller as a comic drama in three acts in prose. [8] [14]
Honorable Simon Slumkey; Horatio Fizkin, Esq.; Rackstraw, a patent Cabman; Dogsflesh, a Waterman; Canteen, a Suttler; Alleycampain, his man; Two-Good, a Drunken Liberal; Catnach, a Ballad Singer; Allpine, a Match Seller; Roker, a Turnkey; Grammer; and numerous other characters by Messrs Dearlove, Burton, Searle, Chapman, &c. &c. and numerous Supernumeraries engaged for the occasion. [1]
Mrs Barclay, Landlady of White Horse, Boarders, Visitors, Servants, &c. &c. [16]
Sam Weller is a fictional character in The Pickwick Papers (1836), the first novel by Charles Dickens, and the character that made Dickens famous. A humorous Cockney bootblack, Sam Weller first appeared in the fourth serialised episode. Previously the monthly parts of the book had been doing badly, selling only about 1,000 copies a month — but the humour of the character transformed the book into a publishing phenomenon, raising the sales by late autumn of 1837 to 40,000 a month.
The Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club was the first novel by English author Charles Dickens. His previous work was Sketches by Boz, published in 1836, and his publisher Chapman & Hall asked Dickens to supply descriptions to explain a series of comic "cockney sporting plates" by illustrator Robert Seymour, and to connect them into a novel. The book became a publishing phenomenon, with bootleg copies, theatrical performances, 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'." The Pickwick Papers was published in 19 issues over 20 months, and it popularised serialised fiction and cliffhanger endings.
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William Thomas Moncrieff, commonly referred as W. T. Moncrieff, was an English dramatist and author.
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The Pickwick Papers is a twelve-part BBC adaptation of the 1837 novel The Pickwick Papers by Charles Dickens. The series was first broadcast in 1985. It starred Nigel Stock, Alan Parnaby, Clive Swift and Patrick Malahide, with narration by Ray Brooks.
Alfred Jingle is a fictional character who appears in the 1837 novel The Pickwick Papers by Charles Dickens. He is a strolling actor and an engaging charlatan and trickster noted for his bizarre anecdotes and distinctive mangling of English syntax.
The Adventures of Mr. Pickwick is a 1921 British silent comedy film directed by Thomas Bentley based on the 1837 novel The Pickwick Papers by Charles Dickens. As of August 2010, the film is missing from the BFI National Archive, and is listed as one of the British Film Institute's "75 Most Wanted" lost films.
Mary Merrall, born Elsie Lloyd, was an English actress whose career of over 60 years encompassed stage, film and television work.
Pickwick is a British television musical made by the BBC in 1969 and based on the 1963 stage musical Pickwick, which in turn was based on the 1837 novel The Pickwick Papers written by Charles Dickens. It stars Harry Secombe as Samuel Pickwick and Roy Castle as Sam Weller.
The Pickwick Papers is a 1913 three-reel silent film based on the 1837 novel of the same name by Charles Dickens. The film was produced by Vitagraph Studios and features John Bunny in the title role of Samuel Pickwick.
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William John Hammond was a British actor-manager and singer of comic songs of the early 19th-century. He played Sam Weller in Samuel Weller, or, The Pickwickians in 1837.
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George Cooke was an English actor.