KEMBLE AND THE NECROMANCER
For the Benefit of Mr. kemble. By Their majesties Servants, At the theatre in leeds, On tuesday Evening, June 5, 1781, will be reviv'd a tragedy, call'd The earl of essex: or, the unhappy favourite...
[Leeds?].
[s.n.], [1781].
Dimensions 190 x 300 mm.
Single leaf broadside. Browned and creased, some marginal chipping/tearing.
An apparently unrecorded playbill advertising a benefit night of John Philip Kemble (1757-1823) at the provincial Theatre in Leeds in 1781. This appearance pre-dates Kemble's London debut by two years. At this time, he was touring as a member of Tate Wilkinson's Company on the Yorkshire circuit; indeed, it was Wilkinson who had constructed the Leeds theatre in 1771.
Kemble, son of actor-manager of a strolling theatrical troupe Roger Kemble, and younger brother of actress Sarah Siddons, took to acting in 1776, joining Wilkinson in 1778. Later, in 1781, he moved to the Smock Alley theatre in Dublin, before joining his sister at Drury Lane in September 1783.
At Leeds he played the titular role in the tragedy of The Earl of Essex, after which 'Shakespeare's Ode' was performed in which the majority of the players took vocal parts, but with Kemble himself taking the speaking role. The evening concluded with the 'New Pantomime Entertainment' of Necromancer: of Harlequin Doctor Faustus, an imaginative retelling of Christopher Marlowe's Doctor Faustus by pantomimist and theatre manager John Rich (1692-1761), first performed in 1723.
£ 450.00
Antiquates Ref: 31604
Kemble, son of actor-manager of a strolling theatrical troupe Roger Kemble, and younger brother of actress Sarah Siddons, took to acting in 1776, joining Wilkinson in 1778. Later, in 1781, he moved to the Smock Alley theatre in Dublin, before joining his sister at Drury Lane in September 1783.
At Leeds he played the titular role in the tragedy of The Earl of Essex, after which 'Shakespeare's Ode' was performed in which the majority of the players took vocal parts, but with Kemble himself taking the speaking role. The evening concluded with the 'New Pantomime Entertainment' of Necromancer: of Harlequin Doctor Faustus, an imaginative retelling of Christopher Marlowe's Doctor Faustus by pantomimist and theatre manager John Rich (1692-1761), first performed in 1723.
