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Passage Referenced in "Astley's," Chapter 11 in "Scenes"

Did any of our readers ever notice the class of people, who hang about the stage-doors of our minor theatres in the daytime? You will rarely pass one of these entrances without seeing a group of three or four men conversing on the pavement, with an indescribable public-house-parlour swagger, and a kind of conscious air, peculiar to people of this description. They always seem to think they are exhibiting; the lamps are ever before them. That young fellow in the faded brown coat, and very full light green trousers, pulls down the wristbands of his check shirt, as ostentatiously as if it were of the finest linen, and cocks the white hat of the summer-before-last as knowingly over his right eye, as if it were a purchase of yesterday. Look at the dirty white Berlin gloves, and the cheap silk handkerchief stuck in the bosom of his threadbare coat. Is it possible to see him for an instant, and not come to the conclusion that he is the walking gentleman who wears a blue surtout, clean collar, and white trousers, for half an hour, and then shrinks into his worn-out scanty clothes: who has to boast night after night of his splendid fortune, with the painful consciousness of a pound a-week and his boots to find; to talk of his father’s mansion in the country, with a dreary recollection of his own two-pair back, in the New Cut; and to be envied and flattered as the favoured lover of a rich heiress, remembering all the while that the ex-dancer at home is in the family way, and out of an engagement?

Next to him, perhaps, you will see a thin pale man, with a very long face, in a suit of shining black, thoughtfully knocking that part of his boot which once had a heel, with an ash stick. He is the man who does the heavy business, such as prosy fathers, virtuous servants, curates, landlords, and so forth. — "Scenes," Ch. 11, "Astley's," 51.

Commentary: Astley's as an Entertainment Venue and a Subject

Until 1875 theatres were the chief form of entertainment for Londoners of all social classes, and Dickens as a young man knew the theatres of the City (central London) extremely well, even agreeing (in the months prior to his bursting on the literary scene as "Boz") to an audition which he was fortuitously compelled to cancel because of a head cold. That was in March 1832, when the twenty-year-old law clerk, hoping to begin a career on the stage, had written to George Bartley, the manager of the Covent Garden Theatre.

The article entitled "Astley's" originally appeared as "Sketches of London No. 11" in The Evening Chronicle on 9 May 1835, under the pseudonym "Boz," which Dickens had been using in that journal since August 1834. The performances in the large equestrian amphitheatre must have been spectacular, and attending one would certainly have been a memorable childhood experience:

The large size of the stage space meant that it could produce huge military extravaganzas with hundreds of soldiers, horses and cannons. Astley himself performed as the primary trick rider. To add novelty to his performances, he hired other equestrians, musicians, clowns, jugglers, tumblers, tightrope walkers, and dancing dogs, thus laying the foundations of the modern circus, as we know it today. He continued to manage the productions until his death in 1814, after which his son took over. — "Astley's Amphitheatre" in Regency World.

The frontispiece for the Household Edition volume of Sketches by Boz Illustrative of Every-day Life and Every-day People (the thirteenth in the new Chapman and Hall uniform edition, 1871-79) shows the young writer's knowledge of the theatrical scene even in childhood, undoubtedly a reminiscence of the golden time when he came up from school in Kent and everything about the metropolis amazed and intrigued him. In particularly, he seems to have had fond memories of visits (undoubtedly accompanied by his jovial father, John) to Astley's Amphitheatre and Hippodrome, located in Lambeth, a working-class area south of the Thames on the "Surrey side," just a few hundred metres from Westminster Bridge. Although retired cavalry officer Philip Astley founded the circus in 1773, the original structure burned down twenty years later, so that it would have been the second iteration of the Amphitheatre with which Dickens was familiar. As "Sanger's Amphitheatre" it continued operation for over twenty years after Dickens's death, but was demolished in 1893. Since Dickens specifically mentions visiting Astley's before "Ducrow [had] arisen to shed the light of classic taste and portable gas over the sawdust" (49), we can assume that the sketch recalls the days of the theatre's administration under Philip Astley's son after the senior Astley's death in 1814. Since Ducrow, a famous equestrian performer, took over the management in 1824, Dickens is recording impressions derived from his earliest days in London when, only eight, he saw the great Grimaldi, the quintessential Clown, perform in 1820. He later described an evening at Astley's in Chapter 39 of The Old Curiosity Shop, and referred to its circus acts in conjunction with Sleary's circus acts performed in "Coketown" (Preston) in the third book of Hard Times (Chapter 7) in 1854.

Bibliography

" Astley's Amphitheatre." Regency World. First accessed 8 April 2017. Last updated 11 April 2023.

Bentley, Nicolas, Michael Slater, and Nina Burgis. The Dickens Index. New York and Oxford: Oxford U. P., 1990.

Davis, Paul. Charles Dickens A to Z: The Essential Reference to His Life and Work. New York: Checkmark and Facts On File, 1999.

Dickens, Charles. "Astley's," Chapter 11 in "Scenes." Sketches by Boz. Illustrated by George Cruikshank. London: Chapman and Hall, 1836; rpt., 1890. Pp. 76-81.

Dickens, Charles. "Astley's," Chapter 11 in "Scenes." Sketches by Boz. Illustrated by Fred Barnard. The Household Edition. London: Chapman and Hall, 1876. vol. 13, p. 49-51.

Dickens, Charles. "Private Theatres," Chapter 13 in "Scenes." Sketches by Boz Illustrative of Every-day Life and Every-Day People. Ed. J. A. Hammerton. Illustrated by Harry Furniss. The Charles Dickens Library Edition. London: Educational Book, 1910. Vol. 1, p. 98-104.

Dickens, Charles, and Fred Barnard. The Dickens Souvenir Book. London: Chapman & Hall, 1912.

Hawksley, Lucinda Dickens. Chapter 3, "Sketches by Boz." Dickens Bicentenary 1812-2012: Charles Dickens. San Rafael, California: Insight, 2011. Pp. 12-15.

Slater, Michael. Charles Dickens: A Life Defined by Writing. New Haven and London: Yale U. P., 2009.

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