LONDON DRAMATIC LETTER.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 5777, 22 January 1897, Page 2

LONDON DRAMATIC LETTER.

[From Oub Corbespondent.] LONDON, Nov. 21. The older generation of playgoers in the colonies will regret to learn that Charles Wilmot, the associate of Mr Clarence Holt in many a successful production in Australia and New Zealand, died from kidney complications at his private rooms over the Grand Theatre at Islington on Wednesday ovening. He had been ill for soino days, but though his case was serious it was not deemed hopeless, and his end came as asad surprise. to his large circle of friends. Mr Wilmot was a Plymouth man, and left this country at an early age for Australia. In 1859 he became a member of Mr G, V, Brook's company in Melbourne, and afterwards joined the company of Mr Hoskins. Subsequently ho went to New Zealand under the regime of the Australian manager Conpin, and there became associated with "Mr Clarence Holt. In Australia he succeeded to the management of the theatre that Mr Holt had conducted, and carried it on with great success for some years. He left for England towards the olose of 1868, and after an engagement with Miss Hodson, became with Mr Holt in 1878 lessee and manager of the Duke's Theatre, Holborn. Here they produced " New Babylon." In* 187& they dissolved partnership, Mr Charles Wilmot undertaking the sole management. In 1880 the theatre was unfortunately destroyed by fire. In 1883 Mr Wilmot and Mr Holt again became partners—this time in . $he Grand Theatre, Islington. Again they parted, Mr Wilmot becoming sole lessee and manager of the Grand. In 1887 the theatre was destroyed by fire, but was promptly rebuilt. In 1890 Mr Wilmot took and enlarged the old Olympic, having at an earlier period built the theatre known as Terry's, on the site of the " Coal Hole," which was a famous actors' house in the seventies. Its proper name was the Occidental Ho sel, and Wilmot was the licensed proprietor. It was a snug — almost underground — corner, hence its nickname, and when it made way for Terry's, the wearers of the buskin never found quite the same kind of congenial retreat. In those days Mr Wilmot was still the busy man that he remained until the hour of his death. When Mr Wilmot returned to England, the profession rallied round him at the' " Coal Hole," but his heart was still in the theatre as was not a littlo of his capital, He was the original Chadband of Jenny Lee's " Jo "when that play was drawing all the town to the Olympic. It is eight or nine years since ho last appeared on the stage, playing a farcical character for Mr H. A. Freeman's benefit at the Grand. It is hardly possible to think of •Mv Wilmot apart from the Olympic, for he rebuilt that theatre and was its lessee at the 1 'time o£ his death. For fourteen years, ho guided the fortunes of tho Grand, and of , all his long series of pantomimes, the ono.whiQh, he esteemed to be his greatest was " Dick Whittington," in which Mißß Lottie Collius crazed the town (and the whole country for that matter) with fearsome i "Ta-ra-ra-boom-de-ay." At the moment of his death "Cinderella," this year's pantomime, was advanced almost to com? pletion ; in fact, on the, fatal night Mr Freeman, his right hand in the management of tho theatre, was busily engaged with the costumiers and others interested in the production. In some respects Mr Wilmot was not unlike the late Sir Augustus Harris in his spirited method of enterprise, for while his companies toured tbe country with the Drury Lane plays he directed the business not ouiy of the Grand and the Olympic, but (conjointly with Mr Freeman), of Sadler's Welis as well. He has died full of honours, and will be mourned as a genial man of the world, who had always a loyal spirit and a kindly heart. Peace to his ashes. Tho death in Paris of Mrs Scott Siddons from congestion of the lungs is announced to-day. A direct descendant of tho great actress, Mrs Scott Siddons made her appearance in London thirty years ago, and created a, favourable impression by some dramatic readings which she gavo at the Hanover Square Rooms. Shortly afterwards she played for a short season under the Buckstone management at tho Haymarket. Lator in tho same year, 18G7, sho was seen' as Juliet to the Romeo of Mr Kendal, who then mado his first metropolitan attempt • in the character. In 1872, at tho now defunct Queen's Theatre, there was a comparatively long run for Richard Lee's "Ordeal by Touch," Mrs Scott Siddons earning many compliments .for her delineation of the principal female character. Nine years later she rented the Haymarket from the Bancrofts for a brief autumn season, and produced a poetical play by Walter S. Raleigh, entitled " Queen and Cardinal," "with the lato Tom Swinbourne as Cardinal Wolsey. This proved to be a lamentable failure, and was withdrawn after a run of a very few nights, the remainder of the season being occupied with' some Shaksperian performances. Subsequently Mrs Siddons toured with considerablo success in America and tho colonies. She was not a great actress, and never <?bI tamed any substantial hold upon Londoners, but in the provinces she was a great favourite, though precarious health prevented her achieving the position she might havo otherwise attained. The end of "Charley's Aunt's" marvellous run is fast approaching, the hoardings round town intimating, indeed, the dear old lady's " last nights." Mr Penley is working hard at a now play which, when he has got it into thorough working order at the expense of provincial audiences, he will produce at the Globe in Christmas week. In the new piece, which was originally called " A Little Old Man," Penley's role will be that of an uncle with a past. The tragic death of Mr John Lancaster last week removes from our midst a inau who gave London a theatre simply to gratify the vanity of his wife. Mr Lancaster was a prosperous cotton printer who had a profound faith in tho histrionic genius of the lady who shared his fortunes, an actress of very moderato ability and a woman of limited physical charms, best known to the public as Miss Wallis. Her husband tried long and vainly to lease for her a London theatre of established reputation, and in the end purchased the site in Shaftesbury Avenue, where he erected a handsome and commodious house with the express object of placing it under his wife's management. Sho oponed the theatre in October, 1888, with a brilliant revival of As You Like It, taking tho parfc of Rosalind herself. It was on this occasion that the audience insisted on Mr Lancaster's appearance before the curtain, and welcomed him with shouts of " Best pit in London." Miss Wallis's soason was not a success, and since she threw up the spouge the Shaftesbury has seen many new managements and has broken the banks of most of them. Even Willard could not make the house a popular resort.