James Agate

James Evershed Agate (9 September 1877 – 6 June 1947) was an English diarist and theatre critic between the two world wars. He took up journalism in his late twenties and was on the staff of ''The Manchester Guardian'' in 1907–1914. He later became a drama critic for '' The Saturday Review'' (1921–1923), ''The Sunday Times'' (1923–1947) and the BBC (1925–1932). The nine volumes of Agate's diaries and letters cover the British theatre of his time and non-theatrical interests such as sports, social gossip and private preoccupations with health and finances. He published three novels, translated a play briefly staged in London, and regularly published collections of theatre essays and reviews.

Early years

Agate, the eldest child of Charles James Agate (1832–1909), a wholesale linen draper, and Eulalie Julia ''née'' Young, was born in Pendleton, near Manchester, England.Ivor Brown, rev. Marc Brodi
"Agate, James Evershed (1877–1947)"
''Oxford Dictionary of National Biography'', Oxford University Press, 2004, accessed 16 May 2010 (requires subscription). His father had a keen interest in music and theatre and connections with them. Gustave Garcia, nephew to the ''prima donna'' Maria Malibran, was Charles's lifelong friend after they were apprenticed together in the cotton warehouse. Agate's mother, educated in Paris and Heidelberg, was an accomplished pianist. Through Agate's family ties with the active German artistic community in Manchester, he had much exposure to performance in his youth. In October 1912, Sarah Bernhardt visited the Agate home, an indication of the family's position in the local arts. Agate's only sister, May, later studied acting under Bernhardt in Paris.

After education at Giggleswick School and Manchester Grammar School, where he was academically outstanding, he did not go to a university, but went into his father's business, where he worked for 17 years. In his spare time he was a regular theatre goer, and admired and longed to emulate the critical writing of George Bernard Shaw in '' The Saturday Review''. In 1906 he wrote a letter about drama to a local Manchester paper. The editor printed Agate's contribution and invited him to write a weekly theatre column. After a year Agate joined the ''Manchester Guardians team of critics under the guidance of C. E. Montague. Even as a junior critic Agate did not hesitate to give bad notices to the leading figures of the English stage when he thought it justified. Within months of taking up his post, he wrote of Herbert Beerbohm Tree's performance as Richard II, "It was extraordinarily uninteresting, and it is amazing how badly a tragic part can fit an actor so fine as, in other directions, Mr. Tree undoubtedly is." Later, Agate was bested by Lilian Braithwaite, who responded to his assertion that she was "the second most beautiful woman in London" by replying, "I shall long cherish that, coming from our second-best theatre critic."

In his early twenties, Agate wrote a play, ''The After Years'', which his biographer, Ivor Brown describes as "less than successfully realized". Another biographer, James Harding, said of Agate's subsequent attempts at fiction (a second play and three novels) that they are "of small import".

Agate volunteered in May 1915 at the age of thirty-seven for the Army Service Corps, and was posted to France. He had an arrangement to supply a series of open letters about his wartime experiences to Allan Monkhouse at ''The Manchester Guardian''. These were published in his first book, ''L. of C.'' (Lines of Communication), of which a reviewer wrote, "Captain James E. Agate ranks as one of the first hundred thousand soldiers who have written a book about the war, but... one is sure there will be no other book like this one.... It is our old friend 'J. E. A.' at his irritating best in khaki." Agate's fluency in French and knowledge of horses found him a successful job as a hay procurer, described in the first volume of his ''Ego''. His system of accounting for wartime hay purchases in a foreign land was eventually recognised by the War Office and made into an official handbook. Captain Agate's name was engraved on the Chapel-en-le-Frith War Memorial in Derbyshire. After ''L of C'', Agate published a book of essays on the theatre, ''Buzz, Buzz!'' (1918). In the same year, while still serving in France, Agate married Sidonie Joséphine Edmée Mourret-Castillon, daughter of a rich landowner. The marriage was short-lived, and after it broke up amicably, Agate's relationships were exclusively homosexual.''The Manchester Guardian'' obituary, 7 June 1947, p. 8.

London theatre critic

On returning to civilian life, Agate pursued his career as a theatre critic. In 1919 he published a second book of essays, ''Alarums and Excursions''."Agate, James Evershed"
''Who Was Who'', A & C Black, 1920–2008; online edition, Oxford University Press, December 2007. Accessed 16 May 2010 (requires subscription). In 1921 he secured the post with ''The Saturday Review'' once held by Shaw (and then by Max Beerbohm), and in 1923 he moved to ''The Sunday Times'', where he remained theatre critic for the rest of his life. From 1925 to 1932 he combined his newspaper work with the post of drama critic for the British Broadcasting Corporation
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