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During this month [May 1811] he had to play Clown at both theatres, the pantomime being acted as the first piece at Sadler's Wells, and as the last piece at Covent Garden. Not having time to change his dress, and indeed having no reason for doing so if he had, in consequence of his playing the same character at both houses, he was accustomed to have a coach in waiting, into which he threw himself​ the moment he had finished at Sadler's Wells, and was straightway carried to Covent Garden to begin again.

One night it so happened that by some forgetfulness or mistake on the part of the driver, the coach which usually came for him failed to make its appearance. It was a very wet night, and not having a moment to lose, he sent for another. After a considerable interval, during which he was in an agony of fear lest the [new, 1809] Covent Garden stage should be kept waiting, the messenger returned in a breathless state with the information that​there was not a coach to be got. There was only one desperate alternative, and that was to run through the streets. Knowing that his appearance at Covent Garden must by this time be necessary, he made up his mind to do it, and started off at once.

The night being very dark, he got on pretty well at first; but when he came into the streets of Clerkenwell, where the lights of the shops showed him in his Clown's dress running along at full speed, people began to grow rather astonished. First, a few people turned round to look after him, and then a few more, and so on until there were a great many, and at last, one man who met him at a street corner, recognising the favourite, gave a loud shout of, "Here's Joe Grimaldi!"

This was enough. Off set Grimaldi faster than ever, and on came the mob, shouting, huzzaing, screaming out his name, throwing up their caps and hats, and exhibiting every manifestation of delight. He ran into Holborn with several hundred people at his heels, and being lucky enough to find a coach there, jumped in. But this only increased the pressure of the crowd, who followed the vehicle with great speed and perseverance; when, suddenly poking his head out of the window, he gave one of his famous and well-known laughs. Upon this the crowd raised many roars of laughter and applause, and hastily agreed, as with one accord, that they would see him safe and sound to Covent Garden. So, the coach went on surrounded by the dirtiest body-guard that was ever beheld, not one of whom, deserted his post, until Grimaldi had been safely deposited at the stage-door; when, after raising a vociferous cheer, such of them as had money rushed round to the gallery-doors, and making their appearance in the front just as he came on the stage, set up a boisterous shout of, "Here he is again!" and cheered him enthusiastically, to the infinite amusement of every person in the theatre who had got wind of the story. — Chapter XVII, "1809 to 1812, Opening of the new Covent Garden Theatre​ — The Great O. P. Rows​ — Grimaldi's first appearance as Clown in the public streets​ — Temporary Embarrassments​ — Great success at Cheltenham and Gloucester​ — He visits Berkeley Castle and is introduced to Lord Byron​ — Fish Sauce and Apple Pie," pp. 176-77.

Commentary

In 1798 he married Maria Hughes, the eldest daughter of one of the proprietors of Sadler's Wells. His work at this time was arduous, and his earnings were considerable. He was, however, through life imprudent or unlucky in his investments, and rarely succeeded in keeping the money he made. His health, moreover, suffered from his pursuits. In 1799 his first wife died, and in 1802 he married Miss Bristow, an actress at Drury Lane. — John Joseph Knight, Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900, Volume 23.

The anecdote about Grimaldi's desperately running through the city streets to keep his second engagement sounds apocryphal, but in fact he did so both as a child-actor and as an adult — in both instances, he was anxious about income, and acting was just seasonal employment. The passage alludes to his standard opening line, "Here we are again!" Whereas Drury Lane's and Covent Garden's seasons ran annually from September to late spring, Sadler's Wells' season ran from 15 April to the second week in October, so that the overlap involved only about six weeks — undoubtedly (following his father's death when Joey was just nine), Grimaldi as a child had had the stamina to work in both houses simultaneously for a few weeks in order to secure his family income from both without interruption, and his "second clown" parts at that time were not large. Though the two theatres staged similar productions, including traditional pantomimes, they appealed to very different audiences: Drury Lane to the wealthy classes of society and Sadler's Wells to the boisterous working class, seen here following Grimaldi right into Covent Garden.

Joe's father died when he was just nine-years-old and he became the family's main breadwinner and while he was still able to work at both Sadler's Wells and Drury Lane, his pay was cut after his father’s death meaning the family had to move out of their home in Holborn and into the slum of St. Giles where they took lodgings in Great Wild Street. — Exploring London.

In 1801, after falling out with John Philip Kemble, the manager of Drury Lane, Grimaldi switched his principal allegiance the nearby Covent Garden Theatre, but he had to work more frequently in the provinces at that time. Grimaldi's residencies at Covent Garden and Sadler's Wells ran simultaneously, and he became known as London's leading Clown and comic entertainer, enjoying many successes at both theatres from 1806, when he joined Covent Garden Theatre, on 9 October 1806 opening as the hirsute brother on 9 October 1806 in Thomas Dibdin's Valentine and Orson, his first appearance on that stage. However, his triumphant role, involving playing two different comic roles in the same play, Bugle and the Clown, in Dibdin's pantomime Harlequin Mother Goose, came on 29 December 1806; running for the next two years, in it Grimaldi achieved his greatest success by creating a new kind of clown which combined such disparate types as rogue and simpleton, criminal and innocent dupe into one character, a role which other clowns subsequently adopted on the English stage.

By 1812, owing to his second wife's lavish spending habits (as well as a number of thefts by his accountant and the cost of maintaining both an idyllic country residence and his son's private education), Grimaldi was nearly bankrupt, prompting him to accept even further provincial engagements, and to attempt once again to work the stages of two different London theatres at once. Grimaldi's residencies at Covent Garden and Sadler's Wells ran simultaneously, and he became known as London's leading Clown and comic entertainer, enjoying a number of theatrical triumphs at both theatres.

In the end, Joey's success led to his self-destruction through a relentless performance schedule, often playing two theatres on the same night and enacting demanding physical stunts. By the age of forty-eight, he was unable to continue, and his departure from the stage and farewell to his adoring audience must rank as one of the most emotional in British theatre history. — The Gentle Author.

In Cruikshank's illustration, Joey Grimaldi, a man of the people but vastly popular with all social classes, is mobbed as he catches a cab to Covent Garden, having been running through the streets pursued by his devoted fans — men, women, and children, and including a sailor (left). While the public peers in at the cab, the driver turns around, concerned (one presumes) that somebody may get caught under his carriage wheels. Cruikshank excels at such London street scenes, having already executed a number of them for Macrone's Sketches by Boz; Illustrative of Every-day Life and Every-Day People (1836) using store- and house-fronts to establish the urban setting and as a suitably dramatic stage set. Here he uses four buildings strictly as the backdrop, showing them faintly and throwing the mob and carriage into sharp relief in the foreground; in the same area of London in the Sketches, he shows the police apprehend a petty thief as a crowd gathers in A Pickpocket in Custody — but here the subject is the object of opprobrium rather than adoration. The streets of London, then, for George Cruikshank in the 1830s afford "every-day" dramas every bit as visually engaging as stage scenes from the Heroic Drama and Shakespeare, and every bit as amusing as scenes from the pantomime, as the audience does not merely observe, but also participates in the unfolding drama, in which, ironically, the leading man is the passive object of adoration and excited curiosity.

An exercise on audience participation, the picture is a vortex of celebration and public love for the people's clown, who connects not merely two types of audience in two theatres, but the three major classes, children and adults, men and women — not surprisingly, given Charles Dickens's fond memories of seeing Grimaldi perform when the future novelist was but a child, recently come up to London, of the seventeen fans following the coach, six waving their hats and clutching the carriage wheels are obviously children. The night street scene is undoubtedly somewhere in Bloomsbury, not far from Covent Garden, perhaps near Southampton Row, as Joey would have started running from Sadler's Wells (not far from his old home in Pentonville) south along Russell Street, heading towards Red Lion Square. The total distance is not great, perhaps two miles (three kilometers).

Relevant Street Scenes from the London "Sketches"

Left: Cruikshank's evocative use of the urban backdrop in The Streets, Morningr. Centre: Cruikshank's depiction of used clothing store-fronts in Monmouth Street. Right: Cruikshank's depiction of the Chimney-sweeps' street festival, The First of May. [Click on the images to enlarge them.]

Related Materials

• Victorian Pantomimes and Extravaganzas
• The Development of Pantomime, 1692-1761
• Pantomime, 1844
• Nineteenth-Century British Pantomime

Bibliography

Ackroyd, Peter. Dickens: A Biography. London: Sinclair-Stevenson, 1990.

Bentley, Nicholas, Michael Slater, and Nina Burgis. The Dickens: Index. Oxfiord: Oxford U. P., 1990.

Cohen, Jane Rabb. Part One, "Dickens and His Early Illustrators: 1. George Cruikshank. Charles Dickens and His Original Illustrators. Columbus: Ohio University Press, 1980. Pp. 15-38.

Dickens, Charles. Sketches by Boz; Illustrative of Every-day Life and Every-Day People. Illustrated by George Cruikshank. London: Chapman and Hall, 1839; rpt., 1890.

The Gentle Author, "Joseph Grimaldi, Clown."​Spitalfield's Life. 5 February 2012. http://spitalfieldslife.com/2012/02/05/joseph-grimaldi-clown/

"Famous Londers — Joey Grimaldi." Exploring London. 8 February 2016. https://exploring-london.com/2016/02/08/famous-londoners-joseph-grimaldi/

Grimaldi, Joseph, and Charles Dickens. Memoirs of Joseph Grimaldi, Edited By 'Boz'. With ten illustrations by George Cruikshank. London: George Routledge and Sons. The Broadway, Ludgate. New York: 416, Broome Street, 1869.

Kitton, Frederic G. "George Cruikshank." Dickens and His Illustrators. London: Chapman & Hall, 1899. Pp. 1-28.

Kitton, Frederic G. The Minor Writings of Charles Dickens: A Bibliography and a Sketch. London: Elliot Stock, 1900.

Knight, John JosephDictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900. Volume 23; https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Grimaldi,_Joseph_(DNB00)

Schlicke, Paul. "Memoirs of Joseph Grimaldi. Oxford Reader's Companion to Dickens. Oxford: Oxford U. P., 1999. P. 374.

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

Stephen, Leslie, and Peter Lee. "Grimaldi, Joseph (1779-1837)." Dictionary of National Biography. 1890. P. 250-251.

Thornbury, Walter. Chapter 35, "Pentonville." Old and New London. Vol. 2. London: Cassell, Petter & Galpin, 1878. British History Online. http://www.british-history.ac.uk/old-new-london/vol2

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Last modified 12 June 2017