A Cheap Theatre — Saturday Night a lithograph by Harry Furniss for Dickens's Uncommercial Traveller (1905), Chapter IV, "Two Views of a Cheap Theatre," facing page 32. 8.8 x 13.7 cm (3 ½ by 5 ⅜ inches), lithograph.[Click on the image to enlarge it. Mouse over links.]
Passage Illustrated: Saturday Night at The Britannia
As the spectators at this theatre, for a reason I will presently show, were the object of my journey, I entered on the play of the night as one of the two thousand and odd hundreds, by looking about me at my neighbours. We were a motley assemblage of people, and we had a good many boys and young men among us; we had also many girls and young women. To represent, however, that we did not include a very great number, and a very fair proportion of family groups, would be to make a gross mis-statement. Such groups were to be seen in all parts of the house; in the boxes and stalls particularly, they were composed of persons of very decent appearance, who had many children with them. Among our dresses there were most kinds of shabby and greasy wear, and much fustian and corduroy that was neither sound nor fragrant. The caps of our young men were mostly of a limp character, and we who wore them, slouched, high-shouldered, into our places with our hands in our pockets, and occasionally twisted our cravats about our necks like eels, and occasionally tied them down our breasts like links of sausages, and occasionally had a screw in our hair over each cheek-bone with a slight Thief-flavour in it. Besides prowlers and idlers, we were mechanics, dock-labourers, costermongers, petty tradesmen, small clerks, milliners, stay-makers, shoe-binders, slop-workers, poor workers in a hundred highways and byways. Many of us — on the whole, the majority — were not at all clean, and not at all choice in our lives or conversation. But we had all come together in a place where our convenience was well consulted, and where we were well looked after, to enjoy an evening’s entertainment in common. We were not going to lose any part of what we had paid for through anybody’s caprice, and as a community we had a character to lose. So, we were closely attentive, and kept excellent order; and let the man or boy who did otherwise instantly get out from this place, or we would put him out with the greatest expedition. [Chapter IV, "Two Views of a Cheap Theatre," 32]
Above: Edward G. Dalziel's Household Edition version of A Cheap Theatre, Sunday Night (1877).
Above: Marcus Stone's Illustrated Library Edition version of A Cheap Theatre — Saturday Night (1875).
Commentary
"Two Views of a Cheap Theatre," the fourth chapter of The Uncommercial Traveller, contrasts the Saturday night in the lower or upper gallery of the working-class Britannia Theatre, a full evening of pantomime and melodrama at three or four pence, with the abbreviated and much muted church service in the same London auditorium on a wet and muddy Sunday evening. What is remarkable about Furniss's lithograph is the number of children he shows in the audience, as if to imply that they are present for the pantomime. In other respects, he seems to have derived the general flavour of the scene from his predecessors, notably "W. M." in the Illustrated Library Edition wood-engraving which gives prominence to the right-hand register, showing a young, rough-looking idler who is eyeing a woman in the second row, whereas Furniss's middle-aged ticket-taker seems to be arguing with a woman to the left.
Related Material
- Another image of the theatre by Dalziel
- The Balcony Audience at Astley's Amphitheatre by Phiz, complementing Chapter 39, in The Old Curiosity Shop, 3 October 1840.
Scanned images and commentary by Philip V. Allingham. [You may use these images without prior permission for any scholarly or educational purpose as long as you (1) credit the person who scanned them and (2) link your document to this URL in a web document or cite the Victorian Web in a print one.]
Bibliography
Dickens, Charles. The Uncommercial Traveller. Illustrated by Edward Dalziel. The Household Edition. London: Chapman and Hall, 1877.
Dickens, Charles. Chapter Four: "Two Views of a Cheap Theatre." The Uncommercial Traveller. Illustrated by Marcus Stone. London: Chapman and Hall, 1895. Pp. 17-23.
Dickens, Charles. The Uncommercial Traveller. With Illustrations by Harry Furniss and A. J. Goodman. London: Chapman and Hall, 1905.
Scenes and Characters from the Works of Charles Dickens; being eight hundred and sixty-six drawings, by Fred Barnard, Hablot Knight Browne (Phiz); J. Mahoney; Charles Green; A. B. Frost; Gordon Thomson; J. McL. Ralston; H. French; E. G. Dalziel; F. A. Fraser, and Sir Luke Fildes; printed from the original woodblocks engraved for "The Household Edition." New York: Chapman and Hall, 1908. Copy in the Robarts Library, University of Toronto.
Created 11 May 2023