MR. G. EDWARDES.

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXXII, Issue 1, 11 December 1911, Page 8

MR. G. EDWARDES.

TWENTY-FIVE YEARS’ EXPERIENCES. £IOOO PLAY THAT PRODUCED £IOO,OOO. Mr George Eduardos completed in September a quarter of a century of continuous London theatre management. As a producer of plays during that period he easily beats the record of any London manager for the number of performances given and the number of people employed in them. The number of long runs that he has obtained with Ins producti ms has never been approached in London, the Gilbert and Sullivan operas taking second place in that respect. Sir Herbert Tree is the only manager who has produced more plays. Fifty-sev-en plays Mr Edwardes has produced in his own name or in partnership with other managers. Although he and Mr John Hollingshead were the joint producers of ‘‘Little Jack Sheppard’' at the Gaiety Theatre on December 126th. 18S5, he dates his managerial debut from' September 25th, 1886, when, without a partner, he produced “Dorothy” at the Gaeity. Record Run on “Dorothy.” “Dorothy” hold the record of the longest run in comic opera with 931 performances to its credit. Mr Edwardes, who produced it at the Gacity and transferred it to the Princess of Wales Theatre, lost money over it, but Mr H. J. Leslie, who had been his accountant, bought ii from him and made £IOO,OOO out of. it. Mr Edwardes explained the other day how it occurred. “ ‘Dorothy’ pleased the -public that came to see it,” he said, “but the public never idled the house. Some weeks we made a little money, some weeks we lost it . I sent a note up to Tom Chappell, head of tho music publishers and a director of the London and County Bank, and asked him to see if he had any published ballads of Alfred Cellier, and ho at once brought me down two. I selected one of them called ‘Queen of my Heart,’ and gave it to Hayden Collin to sing. It was quite a success and improved business a little, but it was not until people began to hum it and whistle it m the streets that the receipts of ‘Dorothy’ went up materially. “By that time I had sold the piece to Leslie for £IOOO. I sold it because 1 had a new play, ‘Monte Cristo,’ coming' out at tho Gaiety, and also because I met George Grossmith in the Strand one day and was told by him that tho new opera by Gilbert and Sullivan, then in rehearsal, to be called ‘Ruddigoro,’ would be the best comic opera over produced at the Savoy. If his information was right, I said, what chance has ‘Dorothy’ ? So one Saturday night I bade it good-bye, and on Monday morning Leslie owned it. A Versatile Actor. “Since then I have had much experience of the theatre and have met many interesting people, but .1 will take this opportunity to say that of all actors the most brilliant and versatile I ever met was Fred Leslie, id .believe that man could do anything an artiste ever did. I have given him plays that seemed hopeless. . Ho has taken one homo at night after the performance, brought it back in the morning rewritten, has rehearsed the company, and played practically a new version in the He 1 could act, sjiig or danco better than any actor 1 have ever seen, and yet he made everybody love him. The Gaiety was a house in mourning when lie died. “London management has its worries sprung on you in a way you cannot he prepared for. I shall never forget the evening we produced 'A Country Girl.’ London was enveloped in a" black fog; the theatre was full of it. For some reason or other there was an epidemic .of hysteria behind the. curtain that night. ' The stage hands, too, struck work.' I.bad to craypthe patience of the audience, and eventually, after cutting half the second act, we finished soon after midnight'. That experience I thought took ten years off, my life. . ' ' Good Times, and Bad,

“Tho clement of uncertainty with regard to the public makes play-pro-ducing a speculation. I have had good times, and bad. Beginning in 1904, I had as bad a spell as a manager over experienced. Nothing seemed to go right. Plays that began well never became real successes. 1 had several theatres going, many of them losing money. Heavy losses, too, in the provinces, where I had many companies, combined to increase the leakage. America, too, hit hard at me. i lost £IO,OOO there on the ‘Duchess of Dantzic’ and £20,000 on ‘Veronique.’ Then suddenly came the turn of fortune. ‘The Merry Widow’ brought the change. Its prodigious success at Daly’s, in tho country, and in America, is common knowledge.

“But now I must say that nervous anxiety of first nights has more than shaken me, and the time has very nearly arrived when some younger man can succeed me.”