Aloneafter2

John Biddlecombe ... ... Mr C. J. HAGUE
Annie Meadows ... ... Miss ANNIE CONWAY
Jack Wood ... ... Mr ARTHUR HALL
Richard Redcliffe ... ... Mr ERNEST LEICESTER
Spriggins ... ... Mr FRED. CONQUEST
Gipsy Tom ... ... Miss CISSY FARRELL
Jenkinson ... ... Mr C. CRUIKSHANKS

CHARACTERS IN THE DRAMA.

Mr Burnaby ... ... Mr H. BELDING
Walter Burnaby ... ... Mr EDWARD LENNOX
Ruth Clifton ... ... Miss AMY FARRELL
Richard Redcliffe ... ... Mr ERNEST LEICESTER
Spriggins ... ... Mr FRED. CONQUEST
Jenkinson ... ... Mr C. CRUIKSHANKS
Liz Jenkinson ... ... Miss L. DYSON
John Biddlecombe ... ... Mr C. J. HAGUE
Charlie Johnson ... ... Mr GEO. CONQUEST, jun.
Nan ... ... Miss ANNIE CONWAY
Little Paul ... ... Miss DIMES
Tom Chickweed ... ... Miss CISSY FARRELL
Mrs Maloney ... ... Miss C. DILLON
Robert ... ... Mr DONNE
Inspector of Police ... ... Mr STEVENS
David ... ... Mr REUBEN LESLIE
Susan ... ... Miss THOMAS

Even in a condition which, we understand, is incomplete, the glories of the new entrance to the stalls and boxes at the Surrey Theatre are positively dazzling, and when once the pang of drawing the cheque for the expenses is past, Mr Conquest may cheerfully congratulate himself upon having made a decided improvement in the appearance and convenience of his house. On each side, as the visitor mounts the new staircase, he sees himself reflected in gorgeous mirrors, at the foot of each of which appears to be growing a small flower-bed of ivy-leaved geraniums. The way to the box level is shortened by many yards, and, altogether, the approach is much ameliorated. All these luxuries, however, avail nothing to a Surrey audience unless the entertainment inside be to their taste, and Mr Conquest has played a safe card for this and Whitsun week by the announcement of Alone in London. Despite the small mercy which it received from the critics on its first performance at the old Olympic Theatre, Mr Buchanan and Miss Harriet Jay’s piece seems to have great “staying” qualities in the provinces and elsewhere. The situations, if not novel, are very effective; and if some of the characters are old friends, that does not prevent their peculiarities from being amusing, and their eccentricities interesting, to a popular audience. The company at the Surrey at present is working together very nicely indeed, the “old stagers” being as staunch as ever, and the comparatively young ones developing and culminating admirably. Miss Amy Farrell, a bright and intelligent young lady, plays sympathetically as Ruth Clifton; and that useful actress Miss Cissy Farrell enacts Tom Chickweed very brightly and smartly. Then there is Mr George Conquest, jun., who is as solidly droll as ever as Charlie Johnson, and Mr C. Cruikshanks’ face and figure lend themselves happily to his make-up as Jenkinson, his demure comedy in the part being very amusing. Patience, industry, and talent have made Miss Annie Conway quite equal to the sustention of the arduous rôle of Nan, and she plays it throughout in artistic and thoroughly excellent style, and Miss L. Dyson is a lively representative of Liz Jenkinson. Strong earnest acting is required in the rôle of John Biddlecombe, and that Mr C. J. Hague supplies with his usual histrionic force, and Mr Ernest Leicester contributes a well-considered and effective performance of the part of Richard Redcliffe, satisfactory renderings being given of the characters of the Burnabys by Mr H. Belding and Mr Edward Lennox, and Mr Fred. Conquest showing marked promise as Spriggins. The scenery is excellent, the quick change behind tableaux curtains in the second act being done very smartly.

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The Stage (16 July, 1891 - p.5)

BOLTON—ROYAL (Managing Director, Mr. J. F. Elliston).—The management have this week placed upon the boards Robert Buchanan’s Alone in London. Mr. Lonnen Meadows sustains the part of old Jenks with his usual versatile ability. Mr. James E. Thompson’s Redcliffe, the adventurer, and Mr. Lionel Dainer’s John Biddlecombe are both able performances. Miss Alice Dorie sustains the principal part as the heroine, her acting being most enjoyable and thoroughly natural and unforced. Miss Minnie Howard as Ruth Clifton makes a charming exponent of the part assigned to her. Miss Lalor Shiel’s Tom Chickweed, the waif, is most natural throughout. The scenery and mechanical effects are good, and, judging from the large houses, the revival of the old stock companies seems to gain in public favour.

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The Times (22 December, 1891 - p. 4)

THE PRINCESS’S THEATRE.

Alone in London, a melodrama by Mr. Robert Buchanan and Miss Harriett Jay, was revived last evening at the Princess’s Theatre. It is produced at an opportune moment, for it is just one of those strongly-flavoured dramatic compositions which appeal to the palate of the Christmas playgoer. The law of poetical justice is paramount in Alone in London. Those who depart from the paths of honesty meet with the reward they richly merit; while rectitude in rags is eventually triumphant in spite of all the machinations of designing villany. The element of contrast is unsparingly utilized, and the scene changes repeatedly in accordance with the time-honoured traditions of the melodrama. From the breezy Suffolk countryside the spectator is hurried to the interior of a low lodging-house in Drury-lane, and thence to Westminster-bridge and the Houses of Parliament by night. The garden of an exhibition at South Kensington and the Thames by moonlight are pressed into the service of the plot, and the characters with marvellous ubiquity transfer themselves and the action of the play from one locality to another with enviable ease. None the less, Alone in London is a good specimen of the class of piece to which it belongs, and should succeed in drawing large audiences at the present season. The cast is a good one, and includes Mr. Henry Neville, Mr. W. L. Abingdon, Miss Ella Terriss, Miss Maud Elmore, Mr. Fuller Mellish, and Mr. Wilfrid E. Shine.

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The Morning Post (22 December, 1891 - p. 3)

PRINCESS’S THEATRE.
_____

Last night the drama entitled “Alone in London,” by Mr. Robert Buchanan and Miss Harriett Jay, was received with a success that promises to make it one of the most successful plays of the holiday season. The theatre was crowded, and the hearty applause bestowed had the ring of genuine appreciation. It is only just to the performers to declare that the drama was better played as a whole than when originally produced, and great pains had evidently been taken by the management to place the play upon the stage in an effective and picturesque manner. Some of the scenes evoked hearty applause as they came and vanished like dissolving views. But a feature of greater importance was the excellent acting, which was entirely to the satisfaction of the audience. The drama has some effective situations, one in particular being greeted with almost unbounded applause. This was when the young wife, cast adrift by the reckless adventurer, finds a home and friends in the very house where her scoundrel of a husband is seeking to make a new matrimonial alliance. Here Miss Maud Elmore was excellent. Her acting rose to the situation, and was rewarded with applause of the most enthusiastic kind. Mr. Henry Neville was seen to advantage, and as the villain of the drama Mr. Abingdon played his best. In more than one of his scenes he recalled Mr. Willard in the days when he used to appear in characters of this kind. Miss Ella Terriss was charming in the character of a street arab, and Mr. Wilfred E. Shine was remarkably clever as Jenkinson. Mr. Fuller Mellish, as a scoundrel of another type, played well, and all the performers were efficient. It is certain that “Alone in London” will prove very attractive during the holidays.

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The Globe (22 December, 1891 - p.3)

REVIVAL OF “ALONE IN LONDON.”

“Alone in London,” a drama by Mr. Robert Buchanan and Miss Harriett Jay, first produced half a dozen years ago at the Olympic, met with an encouraging amount of success. It has now, accordingly, with a complete change of cast, been included in the series of revivals of melodrama in progress at the Princess’s. Few pieces have been built upon more familiar lines. It presents in abundance those scenes of so-called realism which are more fanciful than any fiction, and introduces us to carousals in Drury-lane lodging houses, and somewhat promiscuous distribution of charity in Westminster. It has scenery which revolves and revolves until the head of the spectator grows dizzy, and it ends with a sensational incident, the attempt to drown the heroine in a sluice by opening the flood-gates, which Boucicault and Falconer might have envied. As virtue and innocence, though sorely pressed, triumph in the end, as all the sympathy is with the good characters and the evil have no element of redeeming humanity, and get in the end their deserts, everything is piece and performance appeals to a holiday audience. The evolution of the story is watched accordingly with profound interest, and the revival is a success. Fortunate indeed is the management that possesses an actor such as Mr. Henry Neville, to play the stalwart miller, who is practically the hero. A miller is said to have a golden thumb, but Mr. Neville is all gold. When he fronts with a light whip a mob of ruffians armed with sticks and other weapons, we are not surprised to see them shrink and abandon their prey. He is throughout, indeed, the type of chivalry, loyalty, and daring. Mr. Leonard Boyne was the first representative of the part. Mr. W. L. Abingdon, succeeding Mr. Standing as an unredeemed scoundrel, wholly unworthy of the affection prettily but superfluously lavished upon him by Miss Maud Elmore, who succeeds Miss Amy Roselle as the heroine. Miss Ella Terriss replaces Miss Jay, if we remember rightly, as the London waif, who proves a valiant protector of the heroine. Mrs. Clifton, as Biddy Malony, shows herself the possessor of a wonderful voice, and Mr. Wilfrid E. Shine, Mr. Fuller Mellish, Miss Warden, Miss Beatrice Selwyn, and other actors took part in an entertainment that is wholly suited to the Christmas playgoer, and goes amid loudest demonstrations of approval.

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The Scotsman (22 December, 1891 - p. 5)

LONDON, Monday Night.
The management of the Princess Theatre has chosen for its winter evening attraction the four-act play by Mr Robert Buchanan and Miss Harriet Jay, which was produced originally at the Olympic Theatre a little more than six years ago. The role of the heroine was then played by Miss Amy Roselle, that of the hero by Mr Leonard Boyne, that of the villain by Mr Herbert Standing, and that of Tom Chickweed, a boy figuring prominently in the story, by Miss Jay herself. Latterly Miss Jay resigned the part of Tom to Miss Louisa Gourlay, assuming instead that of the heroine, Annie Meadows. “Alone in London,” was sufficiently successful at the Olympic to warrant its being taken on tour. Since then it has not been seen in London until now. It is not at all a bad piece of its kind. Mr Buchanan seems to have revised it somewhat, and as it stands “Alone in London” if old-fashioned in motive, characterisation, and incidents, is not without a certain stage effectiveness for which holiday audiences are always ready to be grateful. On the present occasion the four characters above named are undertaken by Miss Maud Elmore, Mr Henry Neville, Mr W. L. Abingdon and Miss Ella Terriss—the last-named bright little actress appearing for the first time in a boy’s part. Miss Elmore is new to the West End, and proves an efficient if rather stagey artist of the “èmotional” sort. The others play excellently in their well-known style. The “humorous” passages are well looked after by Mr W. E. Shine, Mr Henry Bedford, Mrs Clifton, and sprightly Miss Julia Warden; other parts are well filled by Mr Fuller Mellish and Miss B. Selwyn, and on the whole the vigorous if conventional melodrama is better done and better received now than it was six years ago. It will no doubt attract largely during the festival season.

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The Stage (24 December, 1891 - p.10)

THE PRINCESS’S.

Alone in London, originally produced at the old Olympic on November 2, 1885, and since given occasionally at outlying houses in town and frequently at provincial theatres, was revived at the Princess’s on Monday, December 21. The popular policy that Mr. S. Herberte-Basing is vigorously pursuing in the restoration of the Princess’s to its old favoured place with the playgoing million ought to gain substantially from this revival. Robert Buchanan and Harriett Jay’s melodrama is the right piece for hearty holiday audiences, by whom emphatic sentimentality and moving incident, quickly alternating as a somewhat sensational scenario unfolds itself, are always keenly relished. The melodrama suffers nothing, but on the contrary benefits largely by the present performance by a company with Mr. Henry Neville at the head, decidedly well supported by his fellow-members. The part of the cheery, true-hearted miller falls, of course, to Mr. Neville, whose John Biddlecombe has all the buoyant force of playing, with that invincible touch of camaraderie, which lies within the art of this accomplished player, as perhaps it lies nowhere else. For two acts out of the four and the prologue nothing is seen of the John Biddlecombe of Mr. Neville: there could not be a greater loss to the acting of the piece. For the very wicked trio—Jenkinson, bland and philosophic in his roguery; Spriggins, spruce in his, and Richard Redcliffe, with the “polish” of melodrama’s out-and-out villainy thick upon him—excellent exposition comes from Mr. Wilfred E. Shine, Mr. Fuller Mellish, and Mr. W. L. Abingdon respectively, who all play with admirable artistic restraint and full effect. Mr. Charles Steuart depicts the benevolent traits of old Mr. Burnaby skilfully, and Mr. T. Kingston is satisfactory in the small part of Burnaby, jun., while Messrs. T. Verner (Jack Woods), Louis Warner (Robert), and Percy Ames (David) are suitably cast in episodical characters. Mr. Henry Bedford has only poor material for humour as Charlie Johnson, but such as it is, he makes the most of it. Miss Maud Elmore as the distressed heroine shows on the Princess’s stage, no less successfully, abilities which have often been put to the test at the Pavilion, whose audiences in parts of this sort have no mean critical judgment. Miss Elmore plays the exacting rôle with the charm of natural gift and the facility of experience. Miss Julia Warden is appropriately full of exuberant spirits in the part of Liz Jenkinson; and Mrs. Clifton, with a rich voice and an equally rich humour, gives a felicitous bit of acting as the old orange-woman, Mrs. Malony. Miss Ella Terriss appears in a part new to her, that of a boy, in which she does much better than could be expected. She fails, naturally enough, altogether to sink her femininity, especially in voice; but there is some truth in her playing and a good deal of clever work. The melodrama is liberally put on with a mise-en-scène that, taken from first to last, is quite kaleidoscopic in its variety. The whole stage presentation of Alone in London—which is under the direction of Mr. Isaac Cohen—is decidedly good, and the gentleman named and all concerned have every title to congratulation.

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The Era (26 December, 1891)

THE PRINCESS’S.
Revival, on Monday Evening, Dec. 21st,
of the Drama, in a Prologue and Four Acts,
by Mr Robert Buchanan and Miss Harriett Jay, entitled
“ALONE IN LONDON.”

CHARACTERS IN THE PROLOGUE.

John Biddlecombe ... ... Mr HENRY NEVILLE
Annie Meadows ... ... Miss MAUD ELMORE
Jack Woods ... ... Mr THOMAS VERNER
Richard Redcliffe ... ... Mr W. L. ABINGDON
Gipsy Tom ... ... Miss ELLA TERRISS
Jenkinson ... ... Mr WILFRED E. SHINE
Spriggins ... ... Mr FULLER MELLISH

CHARACTERS IN DRAMA.

John Biddlecombe ... ... Mr HENRY NEVILLE
Mr Burnaby ... ... Mr CHARLES STEUART
Walter Burnaby ... ... Mr T. KINGSTON
Ruth Clifton ... ... Miss BEATRICE SELWYN
Richard Redcliffe ... ... Mr W. L. ABINGDON
Spriggins ... ... Mr FULLER MELLISH
Jenkinson ... ... Mr WILFRED E. SHINE
Liz Jenkinson ... ... Miss JULIA WARDEN
Charlie Johnson ... ... Mr HENRY BEDFORD
Nan ... ... Miss MAUD ELMORE
Little Paul ... ... Little MAY BLACKBURN
Tom Chickweed ... ... Miss ELLA TERRISS
Mrs Malony ... ... Mrs CLIFTON
Robert ... ... Mr LOUIS WARNER
Inspector of Police ... ... Mr G. AUBREY
David ... ... Mr PERCY AMES
Susan ... ... Miss E. ROYDALL

In accordance with the managerial policy which he has laid down for himself, Mr Sidney Herberte-Basing has followed up his previous revivals with the reintroduction to a London audience of the drama above named. Whether or not the enterprising manager of the erstwhile popular theatre could have made a choice which would have augured better for the financial success of his enterprise is no matter at the moment; suffice it that the play, which is to be the evening attraction at the Princess’s during the forthcoming holiday time, has been staged with commendable care and completeness and with such an admirable desire to give it a picturesque and taking setting as to elicit expressions of well- deserved admiration. Certainly all possible care has been bestowed upon this revival of Alone in London, and it may assuredly be ranked as one of the most perfect all-round representations that could by any possibility be provided for the drama. Mr Isaac Cohen’s stage-management has been of the greatest service. The amount of detail and of illustrative incident introduced into the general action of the play save it from the commonplace, and raise it into the realms of true realism, as far as realism is permissible amid surroundings so bizarre and exaggerated. In melodrama, however, it is not absolutely necessary to be natural. So long as the male spectator can have all his chivalry aroused at the heroism of the virtuous lover and all his moral senses arrayed against the machinations of the villains of the plot, and so long as the female spectator can indulge in the same emotions, with the actual addition of “a good cry,” no more is asked; naturalism is neglected, and strict attention to probabilities are thrown to the winds. After all, it is good for the concoctors of melodrama that this is the case; otherwise, their task would be even more difficult than it is. The excellence of the mounting of Alone in London is exceeded by the fine cast engaged in its representation. A glance through the names printed at the head of this record will prove that Mr Basing has collected around him a first-class company, and it is almost a pity that the eminent talents of some of the members are wasted upon the unworthy material. Mr Henry Neville, for example, is entirely unfitted when supplied with a rôle like John Biddlecombe; yet, this perfect actor of lover’s parts gives this worthless sketch a distinction such as scarcely any other actor could supply. Mr W. L. Abingdon’s impersonation of Richard Radcliffe is one of the most consistently brutal and artistically contrasted characters which this able actor has yet given to the stage. He was so perfectly hateful throughout as to have lifted the character altogether out of the groove of ordinary villains. Miss Maud Elmore as the persecuted heroine could not possibly have been improved upon. This clever actress was the object of particular sympathy, and her work obtained special recognition. Miss Ella Terriss was excellent as the beggar-boy Tom Chickweed. This performance was not merely that of a young lady masquerading in a female disguise; it was a piece of genuinely pathetic acting. Miss Julia Warden as Liz was particularly good. This admirable actress so heartily entered into the spirit of the part, and she threw into it such a wealth of womanly feeling, as to make a rôle of secondary importance stand forth as a leading part. The same remarks may be applied to Mr Henry Bedford’s impersonation of Charlie Johnson, as it proved to be an admirable companion picture to that of Liz. Mr Wilfred E. Shine was excellent as Jenkinson, and Mr Fuller Mellish was good as Spriggins. Miss Beatrice Selwyn, whose professional début in After Dark was regarded as most promising, had no opportunity of distinguishing herself as Ruth Clifton, but she may be congratulated upon having done the very utmost with the materials supplied to her, and of having added to her reputation thereby. Mrs Clifton was so very excellent as Mrs Malony that praise may seem to be almost superfluous, yet it must needs be recorded that no more lifelike, powerful, or telling performance of the part could possibly have been given. The characters of minor interest were all carefully acted, and the revival was received with every indication of a renewed lease of popularity.

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The Colonies and India (26 December, 1891 - p. 15)

“Alone in London,” written, it will be remembered, by Mr. Buchanan and Miss Harriet Jay, was revived last Monday at the Princess’, and seems likely to be eminently popular during the holidays. Not only has it been well put upon the stage, but an excellent cast has been provided. Mr. Henry Neville is of course a host in himself, and, appearing in one of his usual parts, was warmly greeted. Mr. Abingdon was (of course) the villain, assisted by Mr. Fuller Mellish as second in command, and displayed much ability in the character; Miss Maud Elmore was the heroine, and roused the audience to enthusiasm in one well-contrived scene. Mr. Wilfrid Shine supported the lighter element in the drama with the help of Miss Ella Terriss, who was excellent in the part of the Street Arab originally played by Miss Harriet Jay.

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The Star (Christchurch, New Zealand) (10 October, 1893 - p.1)

THEATRE ROYAL.
_____

ALONE IN LONDON.

   There was a full house at the Theatre Royal last evening, when Mr Bland Holt treated theatre-goers to the fourth and final change of the present season. The piece chosen was the popular drama Alone in London, from the joint pens of Robert Buchanan and Harriet Jay. The drama belongs to an older school than the other pieces put on during the Company’s present season, and differs materially from them in most respects. The piece opens with a prologue in which the villain, Richard Redcliffe (Mr W. E. Baker), wins the heart of a country maiden from a bluff and awkward miller (Mr Walter Howe) in spite of a warning from Gipsy Tom (Miss Harrie Ireland), a waif from London, who has, on a previous occasion been crippled by Redcliffe’s cruelty. The first act opens some six years later in a low lodging-house in London, to which Mr and Mrs Redcliffe and their child have drifted. The man having fallen to the level of a common thief and swindler, has allied himself with Jenkinson, a cunning rogue known as “Benevolent Jenkinson” (Mr Bland Holt) who have for their accomplice a swell mobsman named Spriggins (Mr R. E. Watson). The wife, who is now known as “Nan the Flower Girl,” and her child are rescued from their miserable life by a benevolent old gentleman named Burnaby (Mr E. C. Corlesse), who is a partner in a banking firm near London. The husband, who has been in gaol for some time, on being released, and imagining his wife dead, turns up at the Burnaby’s residence, at Hendon, as a suitor for the hand of Burnaby’s niece, Ruth Cliffton (Miss F. Dillon), and is confronted by his wife, who holds a responsible position in the household; and though he denies that he is her husband, his identity is proved by his child recognising him. The next seen of the unhappy couple is in a dingy-looking riverside apartment on the Thames. Redcliffe having succeeded in leading Mr Burnaby’s only son into difficulties, has persuaded him to forge his father’s name to a bill, and thus has him in his power. He, with his accomplices, decides to rob Burnaby’s bank, and arranges to fasten the guilt on to young Burnaby. His wife, overhearing the plot, begs him not to commit the crime, and being unsuccessful in her entreaties, manages to secure the forged bill, which the villains intended to use as evidence against the banker’s son. The villains take the child from the mother in order to assist them in their plans, and she is taken in a fainting condition to some old flood-gates and tied in such a way that when the gates are opened she will be drowned. However, at this supreme moment the hero turns up in the shape of the miller whom she had rejected in order to marry Redcliffe, and he rescues her from death, and on the gang entering the bank at night in fulfilment of their plan, they find themselves trapped and confronted with those whom they have so long duped. Redcliffe is in the act of shooting at his wife, when he is stabbed from behind by Gipsy Tom, who has all along been a true friend to the injured wife, and the curtain falls.
   The drama is full of sensation, and is plentifully interspersed with striking situations. On the whole the characters were well sustained, though some of the minor parts showed a want of rehearsal inseparable from a first production. Mrs Bland Holt made a blithe keeper’s daughter in the prologue, and certainly scored a success in her emotional scenes, though at times perhaps hardly rising to the height the part deserves. Miss Harrie Ireland had a trying part to fill, and her impersonation of the poor ragged boy was a meritorious one. Her devotion to Nan was well depicted, and her acting throughout was quiet and unobtrusive. Miss F. Dillon was a charming Ruth Cliffton, and though the part was a small one she made the most of it. Miss Edith Blande seemed quite at home in the part of the slatternly lodging-house “slavey,” and afterwards as the “merry Scotch girl” at the London music hall caused much amusement. Miss Annie Taylor showed that she is quite at home in an Irish character, her Biddy Maloney, the faithful old apple woman, who stands by the heroine through all her troubles, being a good piece of acting. Little Ethel deserves a word of encouragement for the natural manner in which she played the part of the child, and her lines were distinctly and intelligently given. Mr Walter Howe, as the bluff and awkward Suffolk miller, had a rôle entirely different from any previously filled by him here, and succeeded thoroughly in catching the Suffolk dialect, while his action was unrestrained. Mr W. E. Baker, as the cool and calculating villain, succeeded in so thoroughly arousing the indignation of the audience that his appearance was always the signal for groans. Mr R. E. Watson was sufficiently affected in the part of the swell; Mr E. C. Corlesse made a benevolent-looking old gentleman; while Mr R. Inman sustained the part of his son with credit. Mr Bland Holt as the philosopher and thief, Benevolent Jenkinson, made a decided hit, and his impersonation of the many-sided character was the cause of much amusement. Mr C. Brown was exceedingly funny as Professor Johnson, a humble professional; his scenes with Miss Blande causing hearty laughter. The other characters were filled by Messrs T. Bruce, Hyland, Kemp, Halkett, Pringle, Counter, Wilson and England, with a host of supers.
   The principals had to respond to enthusiastic calls between the acts, and the audience were uproarious in their applause at some of the situations. The scenery and stage effects were quite equal to those of the preceding pieces. The representation of Westminster bridge, with the Thames shining in the moonlight and the Houses of Parliament beyond, was a realistic and beautiful one, and called forth loud applause, as also did the sluice-house scene, in which the flood- gates are opened, and the water rushes in, threatening to overwhelm the heroine. Mr Percy Kehoe’s fine orchestra again performed excellent music, and the whole performance must be considered a pronounced success.
   Alone in London will be repeated to-night and to-morrow night, which will be the last of the present season, as the Company will leave for Wellington on Thursday.

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The Scotsman (6 March, 1894 - p. 5)

“ALONE IN LONDON” AT THE THEATRE ROYAL.

MELODRAMA of the most sensational description occupies the boards of the Theatre Royal this week. “Alone in London” is now a familiar play. It has gone the rounds for six or seven years, and has had a very successful run for works of its kind. Mr Robert Buchanan, as the dramatist, and Miss Harriet Jay have produced a very effective piece, brimful of exciting and thrilling scenes. The plot is, however, most improbable, and realism is only secured by great exaggeration. The story is the familiar one of an innocent girl lured from her virtuous home by the traditional villain, and cast off in London to pursue her career as a flower-seller. The seamy side of life in the great Metropolis is painted in dark colours. Human nature, however, is hardly ever so black as this play makes it, and the authors have evidently sacrificed probability to realistic effect. The vices and virtues of certain classes are very strongly depicted, but the picture is much overdrawn. The lights and shades of the play are not at all balanced, and when one has to see vice triumphant, and howls of execration greeting its triumph till the close of the piece, with only one gleam of joy and brightness in a sad life, it cannot be said to be a pleasant piece, even though Mr Buchanan seeks in it to point a moral. Messrs Miller and Elliston’s company gave a very capable representation of the drama last night. The villain of the piece, Richard Redcliff, who has decoyed the innocent heroine to London and left her to struggle in the slums, was admirably personated by Mr Harrington Reynolds. If he erred at all, it was in interpreting too freely the brutal aspect of the character, his almost fiendish cruelty seeming at times to bring the gallery in practical touch with the stage. His partners in crime had capital representatives in Mr Frank Withers and Mr Percy Bell. Miss Ada Hollingsworth gave a good representation of the poor waif, Tom Chickweed, and the part of the little boy Paul was most naturally sustained by Master French. As the sorely- tried wife, Annie Meadows, Miss Nellie Fletcher was thoroughly sympathetic; Miss Rose Pelham rendered the little which was given to her, as Ruth Clifton, in a most pleasing manner; and Mrs Maloney, the good-natured Irishwoman, found an excellent exponent in Miss Lizzie Howe. As a pair of strolling players, Miss Beatrice Goodchild and Mr Henry Eglinton provided most of the amusement which served to brighten the play; and the part of the large-hearted, honest, and manly miller, John Biddlecombe, had, physically and dramatically, a most suitable representative in Mr W. H. Brougham. The mounting of the play was most effective. There was a crowded attendance in the cheaper parts of the house, and in these quarters the play was warmly appreciated.

[Advert from The Isle of Man Times (8 June, 1895 - p.1).]

The Isle of Man Times (11 June, 1895 - p.2)

“Alone in London.”

It may be roughly asserted that melodrama as it used to be understood became the vogue when Dion Boucicault was in his heyday of success, and “After Dark,” his “Emerald Isle” plays, and the “Corsican Brothers” were the talk of the town. But then the other playhouses were producing comedies not entirely unworthy of Sheridan—tragedies which might be ranked with the minor efforts of those who wrote for lucre in the Elizabethan period. To-day, to paraphrase Sir William Vernon Harcourt’s “We are all Socialist now,” all money-making playwrights, those who regard the things which “thieves can break in and steal,” adopt for their theatrical oriflamme the motto “We are all writers of melodrama now.” When Queen Victoria was young, “London Assurance” was produced. The Haymarket was known to the dandies (the forbears of our latter-day “chappies”) as the “Home of Comedy,” and later the Bancrofts, at what was called the “Dust Hole,” in the Tottenham Court Road, allowed audiences to witness the delicate art of Tom Robertson as displayed in “Caste,” and “School,” and “Ours,” and by so doing transmogrified an architectural eyesore into the best paying property in London. This present decade has seen plays labelled “comedies,” “dramas,” “dramatic comedies,” and various other weird titles. In fact the ingenuity of the authors of ’80-’90 seems to have been devoted to titles which advertised, instead of to their character delineation or to the brightening of their dialogue; but whatever cognomen their efforts assumed, they were merely melodrama masquerading. Whether it is “John o’Dreams,” “The Second Mrs Tanqueray,” “The Notorious Mrs Ebbsmith,” or the “Ideal Husband”—in fact, whether the production has been concocted by Jones, by Pinero, by Haddon Chambers, the success has been secured by a clever manipulation of the artifices of the melodramatic writer. “Alone in London,” by Robert Buchanan and Miss Harriet Jay, both well known in “Inky Lane,” disdains adventitious aid. It is melodrama pure and simple; it has been, and deservedly so, the greatest draw of the big provincial centres, and probably, if reproduced in London, where melodramatic excellence since Harry Pettit’s death has dwindled to the vanishing point, would command attention. The success of “Alone in London” has been due to multitudinous causes. In the first place, and more particularly in its present staging at the Grand, the scenery in mise-en-scene and ensemble has been most accurately and artistically rendered. The great British public love “mechanical changes,” and they desire an alteration of venue. In “Alone in London” their appetites are fed in both directions. Scribe, the great French author, was wont to say that the financially successful play was one that was not too old and not too new. “Alone in London” is neither the one nor the other. It tells a simple, direct story with most admirable adroitness, full of human nature, replete with strong situations, and crowned with stirring curtains. Moreover, it was enacted in the proper spirit. A caste containing over twenty characters is difficult to deal with in a short notice. But Mr Lonnen Meadows’ impersonation of “Charlie Johnson” was one of the most artistic characterizations that it is possible to conceive. Mr Percy Bell, Mr Harry Percival, Miss Madge Douglas, Miss Geraldine, and the entire company deserve the highest praise. “Alone in London” should draw good houses to the Grand during the week, because it is scenically splendidly put on, well acted, and tells a story with power and pathos, and a story which is so human that it should possess a charm for all and sundry.
A dramatic correspondent writes:—A crowded and delighted audience packed the spacious Grand Opera House, on Monday evening, to witness the welcome return visit of Messrs Miller & Elliston’s well-known London Company in Robert Buchanan’s dramatic masterpiece, “Alone in London.” The piece is announced as a “golden triumph,” and as the cute J. S. Elliston wittingly calls it, “the dramatic goose with the golden eggs.” If the piece is greeted with the same business everywhere the Company visits as they are now doing, it is verily a financial golden triumph, and there is every possibility of the “dramatic goose” laying “golden eggs,” in the shape of good substantial English sovereigns for some years to come. This really wonderful dramatic success has been on tour for over ten years and played upwards of 5,000 nights, and Mr. Elliston maintains that “Alone in London” (with the exception of one play) has received the largest patronage ever accorded to a domestic drama. As a dramatic literary work, it undoubtedly ranks high above the ordinary drama, and its prolonged popular success, amongst every class of playgoer, proves it. There is no doubt “Alone in London,” which is a pure dramatic idyll of London life, with all its natural intensity, is what the modern playgoer wants, and it is to the popular audience that managers have to cater for. “Alone in London” is a play everyone young and old can witness, containing a strong sensation story, interspersed with a healthy moral vein full of touching interest, so dear to a popular audience. There is no doubt that good old “Alone in London” would give many of the modern “Woman, with a past” type of drama a very back seat. Mr. Elliston has secured an exceptionally strong cast for his representation. “Nan” is capitally played by Miss Madge Douglas; while the honest true-hearted “slow and sure” “John Biddlecombe” has an excellent exponent in Mr Harry Percival, who has recently left Mr Irving’s Company. “Richard Redcliffe,” the brutal adventurer, as played by Mr George Young, deserves high mention. The comedy parts of the piece are well sustained by Miss Beatrice Goodchild, as “Liz Jenkinson,” and Mr Lonnen Meadows, the well-known burlesque actor, as “Charlie Johnson,” who fairly brings down the house with a burlesque ballad. Mr Percy Bell gives a remarkably clever character sketch of the sneaking old villain “Jenkinson.” “Tom Chickweed,” in the hands of Miss Grace Geraldine, is an ideal piece of clever acting. The smaller parts are well played, and the scenic “revolves” and “quick changes” are a well conceived masterpiece of stage management of Mr Edwin Leslie. Crowded houses should greet this clever Company during the rest of the week.

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The Guardian (11 July, 1895 - p.9)

QUEEN’S THEATRE

ALONE IN LONDON.

It may be a little galling to Mr. Robert Buchanan to know that while a rough and ready melodrama of this kind can obtain a record of 5,000 performances, most of his comedies and adaptations have practically passed into the limbo of forgetfulness. But, after all, “Alone in London” is good in its way. It is interesting, and has the saving grace that it is not diffuse at any point. The customary prolixity of melodramatic dialogue is absent. Certain heroic flights are indulged in, of course, but it may be said generally that there is no unnecessary “piling on” of the agony. It is a sordid story in the main, but we get a breath of fresh air at times. It is not entirely of the slums, although the greater portion of the incidents take place in or about London. The interest centres in the plotting of Richard Redcliffe and his thieving associates, the woes of Annie Meadows, and the chivalrous devotion of John Biddlecombe. The very violence of the light and shade enhances the effectiveness of the various situations, and many were the sympathetic exclamations and the unrepressed objurgations which came from an excited audience when an additional twist was given to the rack or a more than usually ingenious bit of villany was proposed. Messrs. Miller and Elliston’s company, which has for some considerable time past been charged with the representation of the play, is fully equal to all demands. Miss Madge Douglas-Barron is a sympathetic heroine. Messrs. George Young and Percy Bell as the villain in chief and his humorous confederate realise exactly what is expected of them, and Mr. H. Percival is duly vigorous and emphatic as the honest countryman. The low-life humours of Mr. Lonnen Meadows and Miss Grace Geraldine as a “humble professional” and a street hawker were hugely relished.

[Advert from The Era (24 October, 1896).]

The Liverpool Courier (12 January, 1897)

ALONE IN LONDON AT THE GRAND THEATRE.

The celebrated melodrama, entitled Alone in London the outcome of the literary collaboration of Mr Robert Buchanan and Miss Harriet Jay was submitted to the judgment of a capital audience at the Grand Theatre last evening. Although the piece cannot claim the attractiveness of novelty having been one of the most frequently produced dramas of recent years, it has evidently lost little of its great popularity of former days judging from the keen interest with which the story was followed from start to finish last evening. The serious interest of the piece is relieved by the introduction of many genuinely humorous episodes, and the whole play betrays dramatic workmanship of a high order. It is splendidly staged at the Grand Theatre, and is played by a company which does full justice to the most exacting scenes. Miss Dorothy Percy graceful and handsome as the heiress, Ruth Clifton, adds high histrionic ability to her other attractions, and Mr Ashton Ashbee exhibits undeniable ability in his impersonation of the villain. A pair of itinerant mountebanks are cleverly portrayed by Miss Laura Leycester and Mr C. A. Russell and other notable roles are entrusted to the competent hands of Mr Charles Grayson, Mr Fredk. Wright, sen. and Mr Fred Wilberforce.

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The Scotsman (20 April, 1897 - p.6)

“Alone in London,” the drama by Mr Robert Buchanan and Miss Harriet Jay, was the holiday attraction at the Grand Theatre last evening. The play has been touring for eleven years, and still holds the play-going public. Miss Edith Blanche took the part of Nan the Flower Girl. There was a large audience.

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The Guardian (10 August, 1897 - p.5)

QUEEN’S THEATRE

ALONE IN LONDON.

The vitality of some of the old melodramas is remarkable. Some there are of which the public seem never to tire. It is so with the “Lights o’ London,” which occupied this theatre last week, and we have another example of long life in the play “Alone in London,” which was given to the world a good many years ago by Mr. Robert Buchanan and another. “Alone in London” has been played again and again in Manchester, yet some playgoers are not tired of it, as the reception accorded to it last night plainly showed. Miss Edith Blanche, as Nan, the flower girl, easily won and secured the sympathies of the audience; and the part of her “disreputable husband” was effectively sustained by Mr. Magill Martyn. Indeed, the characters generally—and there are a great many—were in capable hands. In the comic passages of the piece Mr. Lonnen Meadows, “a humble professional,” was highly amusing.

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The Oban Times (27 November, 1897 - p.1)




	The Stage (16 June, 1898 - p.10) Alone in London, Robert Buchanan and Harriett Jay’s drama, will begin its twelfth year of tour next Monday, at the Royal, Hanley, with Mr. Elliston’s No. 1 Co., under the direction of Mr. Warwick Major. This year the piece comes to nearly all the suburban theatres, the London rights of the play having recently been purchased by Mr. Elliston.

[Advert for J. F. Elliston’s touring production of Alone in London from The Stage (30 June, 1898-p.18).]

The Era (9 July, 1898)

BRIXTON THEATRE.
On Monday, July 4th,
Robert Buchanan and Harriet Jay’s Domestic Drama,
in a Prologue and Four Acts, entitled
“ALONE IN LONDON.”

This powerful attraction is in its twelfth year of tour and still pleases the frequenters of the popular parts of the house. Mr J. F. Elliston’s No. 1 company has been well chosen. The story of poor Annie Meadows’s sufferings in London arouses keen sympathy in the hearts of the patrons of this theatre. In the rôle of Annie Meadows Miss Lily C. Bandmann has a great deal to do. This clever young lady displays distinct ability, and is fully equal to the demands of the character, proving herself an emotional leading actress of more than ordinary capacity. Mr William Maclaren endows John Biddlecomb with individuality, supplying a very creditable performance. Richard Redcliffe is cleverly portrayed by Mr William Clayton. Miss Ethel M. Ward merits unstinted praise for her representation of Tom Chickweed, and is vociferously applauded. Mr Percy Bell, the original Jenkinson, acquits himself most satisfactorily. Mr Melville Bickford does well in his interpretation of Spriggins. The Radcliffes; little son Paul is intelligently impersonated by little Phyllis Graham. A particularly excellent impersonation of Mr Burnaby is given by Mr Henry Crocker, who is also to be complimented upon his capital make-up. Mr George Phythian doubles the parts of the Under-keeper and David, a potboy. Mr W. Burrows Nugent as Walter Burnaby and Miss Marie Robson as Ruth Clifton play well. The comedy element is well sustained by Mr Edward Marris and Miss Beatrice Goodchild as Charlie Johnson and Liz Jenkinson. A capable exponent of Mrs Maloney is Miss Maggie Cardiff. A noteworthy feature of this production is the new scenery, specially painted by that talented artist Mr W. Tritschler. Play and players have been given hearty receptions.

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Aberdeen Weekly Journal (23 August, 1898)

HER MAJESTY’S THEATRE.
_____

“ALONE IN LONDON.”
_____

Whether or not it be that in the portrayal of slum life Mr Robert Buchanan, aided by Miss Harriet Jay, reveals those touches that make the whole world kin, one thing is certain—the drama that these famous collaborators produced twelve years ago under the title of “Alone in London” is more popular by far to-day than when first produced. Criticism of its merits need go no further. The piece is one of the finest of its kind, and we have never yet seen it played to thin or unappreciative houses. Last night, when it was put on the local boards by Mr J. F. Elliston’s No. 1 Company, the theatre was crowded from pit to gallery, and in the more stirring scenes the large audience was moved to extraordinary and unwonted enthusiasm. On the whole, the acting was capable and intelligent. Mr W. Maclaren had, in John Biddlecomb, a most sympathetic part, and his acting was robust and careful, his elocution faultless, and his stage presence of the best; while as the heroine, Annie Meadows, Miss Lily C. Bandmann won golden opinions. Mr W. Clayton was the “villain,” Richard Redcliffe, every inch—and more; the impersonation would not suffer by being somewhat toned down. Miss Ethel M. Ward did some good work as Gipsy Tom; and the comic element was in the capable hands of Mr E. Marris, as Charlie Johnston. Mr Percy Bell, as Jenkinson, and Miss Millie Steele, as Liz Jenkinson, were all that could be wished. The piece is most elaborately staged, and the production is on the finest scale. The music played between the acts is particularly enjoyable.

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The Era (3 June, 1899)

GRAND THEATRE, FULHAM.
On Monday, May 29th, the Drama,
by Robert Buchanan and Harriet Jay, entitled
“ALONE IN LONDON.”

The hearts of many lovers of melodrama in the neighbourhood of Fulham have been gladdened this week by a dose of strong undiluted sensationalism served up by Mr J. F. Elliston’s No. 1 company from the prescription of doctors R. Buchanan and Harriet Jay, and labelled Alone in London. If we wished to be hypercritical we might wonder when Annie Meadows is really alone in London, as she seems to be always surrounded either by good friends or villainous associates, but such fare as this must be taken as we find it. The best proof of popularity is in its endurance, and as Alone in London has toured the provinces for twelve years (vide programme), no better proof of its popularity “on the road” need be adduced. Mr Wm. Maclaren is a fine manly exponent of the devoted countryman John Biddlecomb, a Suffolk miller, whose love for the girl of his heart never falters, despite her rejection of his suit in favour of a scoundrel, and who turns up in time to rescue her from an awful death in the old sluice house, Rotherhithe. Miss Lily C. Bandmann acts with power and pathos as the ill-fated and all too-trusting and foolish heroine, who in this case is actually married to her destroyer. Mr William Clayton is a fine, athletic, well-spoken (in his softer moments) villain, and acts with all the necessary unscrupulous brutality and uncompromising assumption of villainy. Mr W. Burrowes Nugent makes a droll figure of the masherish swindler, Spriggs; Mr T. H. Solly enacts the part of the thievish philosopher, Jenkins, with great ability; and other character studies are supplied by Miss Beatrice Goodchild as Liz Jenkinson, the rough diamond of the “doss house:” Mr Lonnen Meadows as Charley Johnson, the honest and humble professional; and Miss Maggie Cardiff as the garrulous and good-hearted Irishwoman and orange-seller. Miss Lilyan Lait looks pretty in the small part of Ruth Clifton; Miss Ethel M. Ward is excellent as the wait, Tom Chickweed, whose devotion to Annie Meadows practically saves her life at the risk of his own; Mr T. Renaud as Mr Burnaby, the rich banker and apparently irresponsible philanthropist; Mr A. Willerby as his son, Walter; and others do good service. The scenery is tasteful and appropriate, and the piece evokes hearty plaudits from the admirers of this class of work.

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The Era (23 September, 1899 - p.12)

IN the cast of Alone in London, to be revived at the Princess’s on Saturday next, Messrs Frank Cooper and Fred Emney will appear, and also Misses Kate Rorke and Marie Linden. Alone in London was first produced at the Olympic Theatre, Nov. 2d, 1885, when Miss Harriett Jay, one of the authors, played Tom Chickweed. This was before Miss Jay called herself Charles Marlowe, for the play was billed as by Robert Buchanan and Harriett Jay. The play was revived eight years ago at the Princess’s—that is, on Dec. 21st, 1891—when Mr Henry Neville played the hero, originally created by Mr Leonard Boyne, Miss Ellaline Terriss was the Tom Chickweed, and Mr W. L. Abingdon the villain, Redcliffe. In addition to those named above, in the present revival will also appear Messrs Lawrence D’Orsay, J. B. Gordon, and William Clayton, Miss Minnie Sadler, and Miss Ethel M. Ward as Tom Chickweed.

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The Penny Illustrated Paper (30 September, 1899)

The Princess’s Theatre

reopens on Saturday night with the stirring drama “Alone in London,” by Miss Harriet Jay and Mr. Robert Buchanan, which was originally produced at the Olympic Theatre fourteen years ago, and was revived at the Princess’s eight years ago. It is an excellent drama of its kind, and can hardly fail to prove attractive. It was heartily appreciated when first produced, and I learn that the scenery and cast will be worthy the reputation the Princess’s management has won.

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Lloyd’s Weekly Newspaper (1 October, 1899 - p.13)

LAST NIGHT’S THEATRICALS.
_____

PRINCESS’S.

The possibilities of Alone in London, a drama by Mr. Robert Buchanan and Miss Harriet Jay, do not seem to be exhausted, for Mr. Robert Arthur revived it last night at the Princess’s, where, by the way, it was played eight years ago, with Mr. Henry Neville as the bluff and honest John Biddlecomb, most injured and forgiving of men, and Miss Elmore as the flower girl Nan. Miss Ella—now Ellaline—Terriss was also in that revival as the boy Chickweed. The drama was originally produced at the Olympic in 1885, when such success as it obtained was done to its elaborate scenic effects—particularly to a telescopic arrangement by which the villain appears to open a Thames sluice gate to drown his wife, who is lying helpless in a cellar. Mr. Leonard Boyne was the original Biddlecomb, and poor Amy Roselle was the girl Nan. The drama smacks of the days when the real cab and the realistic lamp post was popular. We want something more nowadays than scenic realism—we look for a good story, and here the revival is disappointing, for the object of the authors in those days was served when they had provided a few familiar street scenes such as we here have in a fine view of Westminster-bridge lighted by real lamps, a fine effect by Mr. W. T. Hemsley, and Trafalgar-square. The story, it will be remembered, concerns a ruffianly thief who marries a simple country girl, and drags her down to the dregs of London life. It is told in a spasmodic way, but it tells with a popular audience, who liberally hissed and applauded the evil and virtuous sentiments. An excellent cast has been secured. Mr. Frank Cooper is the breezy John Biddlecomb, and a good one; while no more sympathetic exponent of the sorrows of poor Nan could be desired than Miss Lillah McCarthy. The boy Chickweed is the conventional waif in the hands of Miss Ethel M. Ward, and Mr. Fred Emney gives unction to the rascality of Jenkinson. Mr. Lawrence D'Orsay as the swell mobsman Spriggins, Mr. Sidney Howard as the negro minstrel of the gutter, and Miss Laura Linden, as his partner Liz Jenkinson, contributed largely to the comic relief. The good-hearted Irish basket woman, Mrs. Maloney, finds a genial representative in Miss Kathleen O’Connor. A miscellaneous crowd of nondescripts are well represented. The reception of the drama was so favourable as to suggest that there may be a revival of interest in this class of piece.

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Daily News (2 October, 1899)

THE THEATRES.
_____

MELODRAMATIC REVIVAL AT THE
PRINCESS’S.
_____

“Alone in London,” by Mr. Robert Buchanan and Miss Harriet Jay, is a melodrama of a decidedly sensational character; but this is a class of pieces for which there is always a brisk, though no doubt a limited demand, and it seems more than probable that its revival on Saturday evening at the Princess’s Theatre—a house which under its present management has gained a renown for plays in this category—will be attended with success. It is now hard upon fourteen years since sympathetic playgoers were at once harrowed and delighted at the Olympic Theatre with the spectacle of Miss Amy Roselle, as the heroine, bound to a post in the old Sluice House at Rotherhithe by her villanous husband Richard Redcliffe, and there left to be drowned by the rising tide. The piece was revived at the Princess’s in December, 1891, with almost an entirely different cast. It is now played by a company which, if we mistake not, includes no single member of either of the two former casts; but which is certainly not an inefficient one. The story is mostly concerned with the persecutions of the unhappy lady already referred to at the hands of the scoundrel whom, in an evil hour, she has preferred to an honest admirer in the person of John Biddlecombe, a worthy Suffolk miller. As we have said on a former occasion, it would be long to tell of the trials and sorrows of this unfortunate lady and her little child, to enumerate the scenes of life, both high and low—but chiefly low—with which her vicissitudes of fortune associate her; or to convey a notion of the number of times she is befriended and aided by the poor ragged lad, Gipsy Tom, until the latter stabs to the heart the execrable scoundrel Redcliffe, while he is in the act of committing a burglary, and thus wipes off an old personal score, saves an innocent wife and child, and frees the persecuted heroine, just in time to consign her to the faithful arms of her old admirer. The authors, whose play first saw the light of day in the United States, have missed no opportunity of accumulating exciting incident upon exciting incident, and altogether the piece is a very effective one of its kind. Miss Lilian McCarthy won on Saturday evening abundant sympathy for the unfortunate heroine; Mr Frank Cooper’s Biddlecombe was none the worse for being a trifle less blunt in tone and manner than previous representatives of that worthy person; and Mr. William Clayton endowed the scoundrel Redcliffe with a certain measure of plausibility. The part of the street boy Chickweed, originally played with much force and truth by Miss Jay, is now cleverly sustained by Miss Ethel M. Ward, and other parts of more or less prominence fall to Mr. Leonard D’Orsay, Mr. Frank Emney, Mr. Sydney Howard, and Miss Laura Linden. The various scenes and episodes of London life are set forth with the old elaborateness of detail, and the revival is provided with picturesque scenery.

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The Daily Telegraph (2 October, 1899 - p.5)

PRINCESS’S THEATRE.

There is no need to tell at length the tale of honest melodramatic woe which was unfolded on Saturday evening at the Princess’s Theatre. “Alone in London” is no novelty, for did not Mr. Robert Buchanan and Miss Harriet Jay concoct the drama for the Olympic some fourteen years back? And was it not revived on these very boards in Oxford-street early in the nineties? However, it would seem that Mr. Robert Arthur has made no mistake in mounting the play anew; for a full house on Saturday accorded it a welcome nothing short of uproarious. They shed sympathetic tears over the undeserved sufferings of the heroine, Nan; they cheered the chivalrous doings of worthy John Biddlecomb to the echo; and they hissed the villainous Richard Redcliffe like a flock of angry geese on a windy common. With such facts as there in evidence, little would be gained by any attempt to turn the critical “bull’s eye” upon the drama’s frank improbabilities. And, after all, the authors of “Alone in London” have leaned no more heavily upon coincidence’s long arm than do many others of their tribe to this very day. In any case, one may hasten to give Mr. Robert Arthur credit for the adequate manner in which the play has been cast and staged. Mr. Frank Cooper, it need scarcely be said, brings his ample experience to bear upon the part of John Biddlecomb with complete success. As the sorely injured heroine, Miss Lillah McCarthy touches a series of strong and pathetic notes, and the drama gains not a little by her presence. The villainy of Mr. William Clayton is very downright indeed, and what more can a Princess’s audience desire? As for the comedians of the cast, one and all quickly ingratiated themselves with their “kind friends in front.” Miss Laura Linden and Mr. Sidney Howard combined unimpeachable virtue with the humours of a pair of strolling “artistes”; while Mr. Fred Emney—a really droll actor—and Mr. Lawrence D’Orsay raised constant laughter as the unspeakable Redcliffe’s comic satellites. Miss Ethel M. Ward, if she made a somewhat too girlish Tom Chickweed, clearly pleased her audience; and the play was assisted, too, by Mr. J. B. Gordon, Mr. J. Brabourne, and Miss Minnie Sadler. “Alone in London” should certainly serve Mr. Arthur’s purpose for some little time to come.

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Daily Mail (3 October, 1899 - p.6)

“ALONE IN LONDON.”
_____

   It is too late in the day to attempt detailed criticism of “Alone in London,” written by Mr. Robert Buchanan and Miss Harriet Jay.
   It has stood the test of fourteen years. It has been revived from time to time with notable players in the principal parts. And to-day, after a course of drawing-room melodrama with more sophisticated people, and spectacular melodrama saying the last word of costly realism, the simple, artless, improbable tale still holds an audience—as it held the Princess’s audience on Saturday night—sympathetic to its issues from the rise to the fall of the curtain.
   Mr. Frank Cooper played splendidly as John Biddlecomb. Miss Lillah McCarthy was wholly delightful as the heroine.

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The Morning Post (3 October, 1899 - p.2)

PRINCESS’S THEATRE.
_____

“ALONE IN LONDON.”

“Alone in London,” a drama written by Mr. Robert Buchanan and Miss Harriet Jay, and originally produced at the Olympic Theatre some fourteen years ago, was revived at the Princess’s Theatre on Saturday night with the following cast:

Characters in the Prologue.

John Biddlecomb (A Wealthy
Miller, slow and sure) . . . . . . . . . . . . Mr. FRANK COOPER.
Annie Meadows (The Keeper’s
Daughter) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Miss LILLAH McCARTHY.
Jack Woods (Under Keeper) . . . . . . . . . Mr. J. BRABOURNE.
Richard Redcliffe (An Adventurer) . . . . . Mr. WILLIAM CLAYTON.
Spriggins (His Friend, a Swell) . . . . . . . . Mr. LAWRANCE D’ORSAY.
Gipsy Tom (A Waif and Stray) . . . . . . . . Miss ETHEL M. WARD.
Jenkinson (An Innkeeper) . . . . . . . . . . . . Mr. FRED EMNEY.

Characters in the Drama.

Mr. Burnaby (A Rich Banker) . . . . . . . . . Mr. J. B. GORDON.
Walter Burnaby (His Son) . . . . . . . . . . . . Mr. FRANK LACY.
Ruth Clifton (His Cousin, an Heiress) . . . . Miss MINNIE SADLER.
Richard Redcliffe (A Swell Mobsman) . . . Mr. WILLIAM CLAYTON.
Spriggins (His Friend, a Swell) . . . . . . . . . Mr. LAWRANCE D’ORSAY.
Jenkinson (Thief and Philosopher, better
known as “Benevolent Jenkins”) . . . . . Mr. FRED EMNEY.
Liz Jenkinson (His Daughter) . . . . . . . . . . Miss LAURA LINDEN.
Little Paul . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Miss PHYLLIS GRAHAM.
Charley Johnson (A Humble Professional) Mr. SIDNEY HOWARD.
Tom Chickweed (Seller of Chickweed
and Groundsel) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Miss ETHEL M. WARD.
Nan (A Flower Girl) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Miss LILLAH McCARTHY.
Mrs. Maloney (From County Cork) . . . . Miss KATHLEEN O’CONNOR.
John Biddlecomb (Up from the Country) Mr. FRANK COOPER.
Blind Billy. . . . . . . . (Outcasts Mr. G. YARMOUTH.
The Lame Duck . . .} and { Mr. F. H. WAYNE.
Jim, the Larker . . . . Mendicants) Mr. J. FOSTER.
Ballad Singer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Mr. HENRY SIBALD.
Isaacs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Mr. ALFRED MOSS.
Roberts (A Policeman) . . . . . . . . . . . . . Mr. J. BRABOURNE.
Inspector of Police . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Mr. ARCHER.
David (a Pot-boy) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Mr. WILLIAM BOYNE.
Susan (a Servant) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Miss RITA FAWCETT.

This is not the first time that “Alone in London” has been revived, and the success of its run in 1891, at the Princess’s, has no doubt induced the management of that theatre to place once more on the boards a play that, judged as a work of dramatic art or literature, might well have been left to oblivion. It is sensational melodrama of purely conventional type. Improbabilities and coincidences bristle, and even the most casual observer can find in it no true picture of contemporary life. But the humours and, above all, the miseries of low society are dwelt on and graphically portrayed by authors well acquainted with the taste of pit and gallery, that tolerates and even gloats over horrors and anguish as long as in the end hero and heroine are made happy. In the prologue the heroine is wooed by two men; she chooses the wrong one, and the remaining four Acts catalogue her sufferings at the hands of an unmitigated scoundrel, who ends by tying her to a post inside an old sluice-house by the riverside at Rotherhithe and opening the floodgates, so that, like the toiler of the sea, she may be drowned by the rising waters. The wretched woman is, however, by no means “alone” in London, as the title of the play implies; she has good friends in a rich banker and his daughter, who give her a temporary home, and in a kind- hearted tramp and his still more kind-hearted wife, in a delightful Irishwoman from County Cork, and in Gipsy Tom, a waif and stray, who stabs the inhuman husband, and, when the crisis is reached, fetches the rescuer, and finally in the rescuer himself, who is no other than the right man rejected in the Prologue, and who arrives in London from the Antipodes in time to swim through the seething waves and liberate his Andromeda. To these dramatis personæ, which remind one of George Cruikshank’s twopenny coloured Character Heads, must be added that of the innkeeper in the prologue, afterwards “Thief and Philosopher, better known as Benevolent Jenkins,” the begging-letter parson—a part, or rather parts, rendered with exceeding humour and so much ability by Mr. Fred Emney that the actor’s art, singularly enough, went far to defeat the author’s aim, for so adroitly, so Hyde and Jekyl-ly are the two Jenkinsons differentiated that no one would believe the imposition possible except at the hands of a professional play actor. But this is not the only character effectively rendered at the Princess’s Theatre. Mr. Frank Cooper showed that restraint and natural unexaggerated fidelity to living models can produce the most telling effect even in a melodramatic hero, and one could not help thinking, as one listened to his well-assumed dialect, how admirably he would personate the unsophisticated hero of “Lorna Doone” if ever that charming story reappears in dramatic form. Mr. William Clayton was forcible and not over- coloured as the villain, and earned the approving hisses of the gallery. Miss Laura Linden made a great hit as Liz, the daughter of the innkeeper and wife of the tramp. Miss Ethel M. Ward was pathetic though a trifle monotonous as the waif and stray, and Miss Lillah McCarthy was graceful and refined, but at times rather stagy, as the heroine. The scenery was excellent and the changes in view of the audience startling by reason of their rapidity and mechanical precision. The approbation of the spectators was unbounded.

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The Sketch (4 October, 1899 - p.39)

THEATRE GOSSIP.

On Saturday evening last, at the Princess’s Theatre, in Oxford Street, took place the revival of Mr. Robert Buchanan and Miss Harriet Jay’s melodrama, “Alone in London,” which has been touring in all sorts and sizes of provincial towns ever since it was first produced at the Olympic some fifteen years ago. The cast at the princess’s is perhaps the strongest yet seen in this apparently perennial play, and includes Mr. Frank Cooper (so long a Lyceum favourite), Mr. Fred Emney (who shows so much of the humour of his droll relative, Mr. Arthur Williams), Miss Laura Linden (an always welcome comédienne), and Miss Lillah McCarthy, a recruit of Mr. Wilson Barrett’s who had to take up the character of the heroine at rather short notice in consequence of the sudden illness of that popular actress, Miss Kate Rorke, who was originally cast for it.

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Truth (5 October, 1899 - p.22-23)

“ALONE IN LONDON,” AT THE PRINCESS’S.

“Alone in London” has seen the footlights upon more than one occasion. It is the work of Mr. Robert Buchanan, and about on the level of his poetry. A detailed account of this pasteboard production would be out of place. One may remark, however, that among a large cast, where Miss L. McCarthy had most to do as the heroine, she showed considerable power, though here and there deserting her own for the manner of Miss Kate Rorke. Mr. J. B. Gordon made a realistic banker, but Mr. Frank Cooper’s was the finest piece of acting of the evening. His sturdy Yorkshire sounding dialect and appearance were always welcome. Mr. William Clayton was not so successful as the Ahriman to Mr. Cooper’s Ormuzd, nor was Miss Ethel M. Ward to be compared with her prototype, Miss Fairbrother, in the rôle of the little vagabond. Miss Minnie Sadler joined the rays of her beauty to those of Miss L. McCarthy, and made endurable an otherwise wearisome performance. The water of the floodgates also did what it could to atone by its absurdity for the obviousness of the proceedings. So far as one could see from the stalls, it consisted of a large table-cloth violently agitated by many hands, from under which emerged eventually Mr. Cooper triumphant in his shirt sleeves. Here there is no vile plagiarism of the real water of Drury Lane.
The pit and gallery were as deeply agitated as the table-cloth, and when Mr. Clayton had left his wife to her (dry) death by drowning: “You brute,” sounded clearly enough behind us from more than one guttural throat. Thus was secured popular approval. So remarkable a table-cloth covers much Buchanan.

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The Graphic (7 October, 1899)

The Theatres

BY W. MOY THOMAS

“ALONE IN LONDON”

THE development of the public appetite for melodrama is a fact in the dramatic phenomena of these times which causes, I am aware, many worthy persons and well-wishers to the stage some uneasiness; and if it were accompanied by a corresponding decline in the demand for plays of a higher class I confess that there would be some ground for this feeling. But the truth is that, although we have three London theatres of the highest rank, including the historical DRURY LANE, which devote themselves to melodramas, there never was a period when a really brilliant comedy, or even a really brilliant poetical play, would have been so certain to bring its author substantial rewards. As to DRURY LANE, it has forsaken the higher drama for the obvious reason that the vast size of its stage, as Hazlitt complained, is unsuited to the exhibition of the finer qualities of acting, and, indeed, fit for nothing but broad effects and spectacular displays. And why not? it may be asked. There is evidently a large section of the public who enjoy plays of this harmless, if not very intellectual, kind, and there is no reason to suppose that the interests of the higher drama would be served by denying them a lawful pleasure. From this point of view there seems no reason to despair of the Drama because the management of the PRINCESS’S Theatre have chosen to revive Alone in London, by Mr. Robert Buchanan and Miss Harriett Jay, which was brought out at the OLYMPIC Theatre fourteen years ago, and has since been revived in London and played in the country far and wide. It is, it is true, a melodrama of a rather pronounced type. Columns would hardly suffice to tell of all the reasons that the unhappy heroine, Mrs. Redcliffe, has to repent the hour when she rejected the suit of honest John Biddlecombe, the Suffolk miller, and linked her destinies with those of the diabolical Richard Redcliffe, whose villainies reach their climax in the great scene of terror and suspense in which he is seen to tie his wife to the post by the sluice gates at Rotherhithe and leave her there to be drowned by the rising tide. But all these attractions might fail but for the plentiful supply of those scenes and incidents of humble life in London which is here provided. The revival undoubtedly gave pleasure to the PRINCESS’S audience on Saturday evening. It is, on the whole, well acted. Miss Lilah McCarthy, in the place of Miss Kate Rorke, who had to relinquish the part through illness, won much sympathy as the heroine. Mr. Frank Cooper played Biddlecombe with fine manly directness, and Mr. William Clayton, as the villainous Redcliffe, was careful to avoid the temptations of the part to exaggeration. When it is added that Miss Harriett Jay has a clever successor in Miss Ethel Ward as the good-hearted street urchin, Chickweed, and that Mr. Emney, Mr. Sydney Howard, and Miss Laura Louden made the most of that important ingredient, the “comic relief,” enough has been said to justify the prediction that the revival of Alone in London will enjoy a fair measure of success.

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The Illustrated London News (7 October, 1899 - p.19)

The Princess’s management on Saturday last revived Mr. Robert Buchanan and Miss Harriett Jay’s wildly incredible but plangently pathetic melodrama, “Alone in London.” Fourteen years ago, at the Olympic, its realistic stage pictures of Westminster Bridge and the Rotherhithe sluice-gates, and its capital interpretation at the hands of such sterling performers as Leonard Boyne, Herbert Standing, and poor Amy Roselle, won this piece an exceptional popularity. But both the scenic effects and the acting supplied now at the Princess’s will bear comparison with those of the original production. Miss Lillah McCarthy is now the flower-girl heroine so outraged in her feelings both as wife and mother; Mr. William Clayton plays Nan’s flashy and criminal husband; and Mr. Frank Cooper is cast for the rôle of the bashful but athletic hero. All three show spirit and intensity; while certain memorable comic characters find admirable representatives in Mr. Fred Emney, Mr. Sidney Howard, Mr. Lawrence D’Orsay, and above all, in clever Miss Laura Linden.

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The Illustrated Sporting and Dramatic News (7 October, 1899 - p.15)

The Princess’s Theatre, on Saturday evening last, for the second time presented a revival of Alone in London, the melodrama in a prologue and four acts which originally saw the light at the Olympic Theatre in November 1885, when that establishment was under the direction of Mrs. Annie Conover. In the first production there were engaged, with others, Mr. Leonard Boyne as the hero, John Biddlecomb, Mr. Herbert Standing as Richard Redcliffe, the principal villain, Mr. Percy Bell as Jenkinson, and Mr. Dalton Somers as Spriggins, his accomplices in crime, the lamented Amy Roselle as the greatly persecuted heroine, and Miss Harriet Jay, who with Mr. Robert Buchanan, was responsible for the authorship, as Tom Chickweed the gutter-merchant, who is known as Gipsy Tom. When eight years ago the piece was put on at the house in Oxford-street, Mr. Henry Neville played John Biddlecomb, Miss Maud Elmore was the heroine, and Miss Ellaline Terriss, then called Ella, in the part of Tom Chickweed, gave promise of the artistic talent that has since been developed. Annie Meadows, the heroine, it may be remembered, rejects honest John Biddlecomb in favour of the more showy, but altogether unprincipled Richard Redcliffe who marries her, takes her from her simple country home to London, and there drags her down to such a condition of poverty that she is compelled to sell flowers in the street in order that she may buy bread for herself and child. She becomes Nan the flower girl. She unexpectedly finds a friend in the benevolent banker, Mr. Burnaby, who gives her a position in his house at Thames Ditton, and sends her little boy to school. The long arm of coincidence brings Richard Redcliffe and his companion Spriggins, after they have left prison, into the company of Burnaby’s son. They are playing the “swell” game, and are invited to the banker’s house, where, with the assistance of the rascal Jenkinson, who is posing as a clergyman, they invent a plausible story which leads up to the dismissal of poor Nan from her comfortable situation. Later there is an attempt to murder her by tying her to some timbers by the Sluice House at Rotherhithe, opening the flood gates and leaving her to drown. Those who are experienced in the methods of melodrama will not be surprised to hear that she is rescued from her perilous position by John Biddlecomb, and that she lives to assist in the defeat of Richard Redcliffe’s attempt to rob the house of her benefactor, and to see due punishment dealt out to her brutal lord and master. Alone in London may be described as a patchwork piece. Sensationalism abounds, and the realistic is much relied on. There is a scene representing the foot of Westminster bridge, with a motley crowd that supplies a good deal of amusement, although indulging in many stale devices. The big sensation is found, of course, in the scene of the Sluice House, which must be accepted without any questionings concerning the facilities given to such a villain as Richard Redcliffe to take liberties with the flood gates. Mr. W. Clayton gave a graphic portraiture of Redcliffe, and was frequently howled at by a virtuous gallery that had abundant applause for the John Biddlecomb of Mr. Frank Cooper, the Annie Meadows of Miss Lillah McCarthy, and the Gipsy Tom of Miss Ethel M. Ward. The actresses named delighted all present, and displayed ability that should give them a speedy advance in public favour. Mr. Sydney Howard, as a strolling mummer, Mr. Fred Emney as Jenkinson, Mr. Lawrence D’Orsay as Spriggins, Mr. J. B. Gordon as the benevolent Burnaby, and Miss Laura Linden as Lucy Jenkinson, all came into prominence, and helped to secure for the revival a cordially favourable reception.

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The Sketch (18 October, 1899 - p.11)

The revival of “Alone in London” may be regarded as a fit occasion to recall a few biographical facts concerning its distinguished, albeit somewhat erratic, author. It is fifty-eight years since Robert Buchanan was born in a Staffordshire village, so that the virile penman—poet, playwright, and romancist—so freely credited as a Scotchman, is actually an Englishman by birth. Before everything, Buchanan is a Londoner, and the charms—the siren fascinations, the tragedies and comedies—of the great city have had no finer poetic interpreter. For over forty years Robert Buchanan has been one of its denizens, and not infrequently his memory reverts to the far-away days when he and his friend, David Gray the poet, shared a garret in Stamford Street. In 1860, Robert Buchanan published his first volume of poems, with the title “Undertones”; some years later, he contributed a finely sympathetic appreciation of his dead friend, David Gray. His play, “A Madcap Prince,” written when a youth, was produced at the Haymarket Theatre exactly a quarter of a century since. The late R. H. Hutton, the eminent editor of the Spectator, declared of Buchanan’s poetic achievement that “the voice of dumb, wistful yearning in Man towards something higher had not found as yet any interpreter equal to Buchanan.” As a poet, however, he has not yet received his due recognition.

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Alone in London after the Olympic - continued (ii)

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