THE GREAT ECCENTRICS—II “Romeo” Coates shone and glittered

Press, Volume CXI, Issue 32542, 27 February 1971, Page 11

THE GREAT ECCENTRICS—II “Romeo” Coates shone and glittered

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RONALD ELLISON)

Descending on fashionable Bath in 1808 with the fortune he had inherited from his Antigua sugar-plantations, Robert (“Romeo”) Coates shone and glittered.

His coats were festooned with diamond buttons. Sometimes he wore a turban ornamented with flashing stones. He had diamonds on his knee-buckles, on his fingers and even on his shoes. His quizzing glass and cane were set with diamonds.

He lived in extraordinary style even for that age of extravagance. Clad in suits of purple and green satin.

scarlet. and gold silk, he flaunted yards of gold lace and hundreds of pearl buttons hidden in winter by sable cloaks. He drove about in a curricle, drawn by plumed and garlanded white horses. The vehicle, shaped like a scallop shell, was painted in flamboyant crimson lake, bearing his crest of a cock, life-size, with his motto: “While I live, I’ll crow.” Even the horses’ accoutrements were of pure silver. Bom in 1772, Coates had acted in pure “ham” style at Antigua’s first theatre. He wanted to get on the British stage and managed to convince a friend of the manager of the Bath Theatre. Billed as “a Gentleman of Fashion," he made his debut on February 9, 1810, and was greeted with roars of laughter when he swaggered on stage as Romeo. No shy youth Here was no shy youth tenderly breathing his love, but a swashbuckling, dazzling gallant, wearing a skyblue cloak crowded with brilliant gold stars, red silk trousers, a white muslin vest, a gigantic cravat, an elaborate fuli-buttomed wig and an opera hat! The play was a riot, the management congratulating themselves that nothing more lethal than orange peel was flung on the stage. Coates’s marionette-like gestures, his raving emotions (in a voice with a loud metallic twang) and his melodramatic seizing of a crowbar to break into Juliet’s tomb made the play a roaring farce.

Coates was so vain that at the end, he bowed and simpered to the audience diamonds flashing from his hat, knees and shoes crying: “Haven’t I done it well?” He repeated the performance at Brighton, Richmond

and Cheltenham. Every time he appeared there was uproar. At Cheltenham he had just repeated the words, “Oh, let me hence, I stand on sudden haste,” when, instead of dashing off the stage, he went down on all-fours and began to crawl round the stage. The prompter could be heard hissing, “Come off, come off.” Coates seemed deaf as he shuffled round bear-like. When at last he heard the prompter’s summons, he called out loudly: “Not till I’ve found my diamond kneebuckle!” At Richmond four young men were so overcome with laughter at the scene where Romeo poisoned himself that they had to be carried out for medical treatment This incident shook Coates who stumped up to the footlights and recited, to the glee of an audience helpless with mirth: “Ye Bucks of the boxes there, who roar and reel, Too drunk to listen and too proud to feel, Whose flinty hearts are proof against despair, Whose vast estates are neither here nor there.” In London Believing in his dramatic star, Coates hoped to conquer London’s theatres. On December 9, 1811, he took the part of the "haughty, gallant, gay Lothario" in Rowe’s blank verse tragedy "The Fair Penitent” at the Haymarket Theatre. More than 1000 people were turned away from one entrance alone and wealthy men - about - town offered £5 for a laughtermaking peep backstage. When Coates appeared, fantastic in silver and pink silk, glittering with jewels, flourishing a gold-hilted sword and crowned by a hat of tall ostrich plumes there was pandemonium with much shieking of "Cock-a-doodle-do.” The play was another riot, with the greatest sensation at the end. To roars of cheering, Coates

"died” in agony and at once repeated the performance three times. He became the “lion” of London society, much in demand for dramatic performances in aid of charity—though there was hullabaloo at every show and many of the melodramas had to be curtailed to avoid a rain of missiles on the stage and a riot in the audience. Actors afraid As his fame increased, so London’s actors became more afraid to appear with him. Audiences, suspecting this, "barracked” luckless actors billed with the “Gifted Amateur.” Once in a sarcastic sentence an upset actor said “curricle" instead of “horse.” For a quarter of an hour not a word could be heard from the stage. Meanwhile the actor had "died.” Coates asked the meaning of the insult; the “dead” actor revived and vainly tried to speak. Forestalling him, Coates made an indignant speech saying his feelings had been hurt and his “good manners” offended. He went on: “I am little given to boasting, but if I may be allowed to say a few words on my own conduct, I can say I consider myself a most useful character; for if my dress be extravagant, it is this which supports the working classes ... I set a laudable example." The "dead” man came forward, apologised, shook hands with Coates and the play came to a natural end. At another “Romeo,” Juliet was so frightened of Coates that she clung, shrieking, to a pillar and could not be dislodged. For years he was the greatest eccentric of the British stage, but in the 1830 s he had to curtail his extravagance, for his West Indian incomes fell. For a time he lived in Boulogne and later returned to London. There was a bizarre touch about his death in 1848. He was knocked down by a cheap Imitation of his own magnificent curricle!