I have family connections with Birmingham.
I come from four generations of theatricals. My mother's great aunt was Marie Longmore, an actress who was connected with the Birmingham Theatre Royal from the 1860's. She married FW Humphreys, the conductor of the orchestra there. Fred (as he was known) also co-wrote pantomimes and composed the music at the theatre. They are quite a fascinating pair and I have almost completed a book about Marie's life.
My great grandmother Eleanor Longmore, later Pickles, was also an actress. She often joined the companies of portable theatres, a long forgotten form of working class entertainment closely associated with fairgrounds. She was widowed quite young and married my great great grandfather James, a theatrical musician, in 1854. James had two brothers who were the proprietors of portable theatres. One of these brothers, Stephen, who often styled himself Pickuls, travelled around Birmingham and Staffordshire in the late 1840's and early 1850's and I am putting the finishing touches to a book about this part of the family too!
Portable theatres varied greatly and many people thought them the devil's work. There was a lot of prejudice against them, although they had their supporters too, for they took drama to small towns and were affordable entertainment for people with little money.
Theatrical performances had to be licensed and Stephen sometimes flouted the law and ended up before the magistrates. His first appearance in a courtroom scene in which he was the chief character, was in Birmingham where had been charged with keeping an unlicensed theatre.
‘… A shabby looking individual, who answered to the rather unclassical name of Stephen Pickles … had for several months found a resting place, (for his portable theatre), in New John Street …’
Sergeant Dutton of the Detective Force said in evidence that he had visited Stephen’s booth and found between eleven and twelve hundred people in the audience, most being boys and girls. “The Lonely Man of the Ocean, or the Night Bridal’ was being played. The sergeant testified that ..
‘… It was a regular dramatic performance, with dialogue, shifting scenes, sword combats, blue fire, fiddle accompaniment and etcetera …’
The admission charges were threepence and tuppence and Stephen and his wife were taking money at the door. Stephen offered him free admission and to treat him to some beer, but he would have neither. (Whether this was as a bribe is not clear). Despite the efforts of the solicitor for the defence Stephen had to agree to move “the nuisance” at peril of the imposition of a whopping £10 fine if he failed to do so!
Stephen's “ Temple of Thespis” was at the Whitsun Fair in Birmingham in 1850,
‘… But look at the style in which the temples of Thespis muster. There Bennett and Douglas, and Pickuls, or some other equally famed histrionic name, gives that affecting tragedy “Alonzo the Brave and the Fair Imogene”, and a pantomime, all in the astonishing space of five minutes, and for a lamentably small charge of one penny - the principal incident being the dire appearance of a mysterious spirit in blue fire, which has no connection, earthly or heavenly, whatever with the piece …’ This spectre then exclaims that “ … the tyrant sleyw - basely sleyw - me sister, and plunged his dagger into - me bozum.’
I come from four generations of theatricals. My mother's great aunt was Marie Longmore, an actress who was connected with the Birmingham Theatre Royal from the 1860's. She married FW Humphreys, the conductor of the orchestra there. Fred (as he was known) also co-wrote pantomimes and composed the music at the theatre. They are quite a fascinating pair and I have almost completed a book about Marie's life.
My great grandmother Eleanor Longmore, later Pickles, was also an actress. She often joined the companies of portable theatres, a long forgotten form of working class entertainment closely associated with fairgrounds. She was widowed quite young and married my great great grandfather James, a theatrical musician, in 1854. James had two brothers who were the proprietors of portable theatres. One of these brothers, Stephen, who often styled himself Pickuls, travelled around Birmingham and Staffordshire in the late 1840's and early 1850's and I am putting the finishing touches to a book about this part of the family too!
Portable theatres varied greatly and many people thought them the devil's work. There was a lot of prejudice against them, although they had their supporters too, for they took drama to small towns and were affordable entertainment for people with little money.
Theatrical performances had to be licensed and Stephen sometimes flouted the law and ended up before the magistrates. His first appearance in a courtroom scene in which he was the chief character, was in Birmingham where had been charged with keeping an unlicensed theatre.
‘… A shabby looking individual, who answered to the rather unclassical name of Stephen Pickles … had for several months found a resting place, (for his portable theatre), in New John Street …’
Sergeant Dutton of the Detective Force said in evidence that he had visited Stephen’s booth and found between eleven and twelve hundred people in the audience, most being boys and girls. “The Lonely Man of the Ocean, or the Night Bridal’ was being played. The sergeant testified that ..
‘… It was a regular dramatic performance, with dialogue, shifting scenes, sword combats, blue fire, fiddle accompaniment and etcetera …’
The admission charges were threepence and tuppence and Stephen and his wife were taking money at the door. Stephen offered him free admission and to treat him to some beer, but he would have neither. (Whether this was as a bribe is not clear). Despite the efforts of the solicitor for the defence Stephen had to agree to move “the nuisance” at peril of the imposition of a whopping £10 fine if he failed to do so!
Stephen's “ Temple of Thespis” was at the Whitsun Fair in Birmingham in 1850,
‘… But look at the style in which the temples of Thespis muster. There Bennett and Douglas, and Pickuls, or some other equally famed histrionic name, gives that affecting tragedy “Alonzo the Brave and the Fair Imogene”, and a pantomime, all in the astonishing space of five minutes, and for a lamentably small charge of one penny - the principal incident being the dire appearance of a mysterious spirit in blue fire, which has no connection, earthly or heavenly, whatever with the piece …’ This spectre then exclaims that “ … the tyrant sleyw - basely sleyw - me sister, and plunged his dagger into - me bozum.’
