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Table Entertainment
A table entertainment was only partly musical in character, and was given by a single performer sitting at a table and telling stories and jokes, giving displays of mimicry, singing songs, and so forth."Table entertainment" ''Free Dictionary'', Farlex, subscription only The first table entertainments on record were performed by George Alexander Stevens in Dublin in 1752. Charles Dibdin began a series of table entertainments in London in 1789 and continued them for 20 years, introducing most of his songs in this way. Perhaps the master of the table entertainment was Charles Mathews, who began his show ''At Home'' or ''Mathews at Home'', in London's Lyceum Theatre, London, Lyceum Theatre in 1808. According to James Henry Leigh Hunt, Leigh Hunt, Mathews's table entertainments were unparalleled "for the richness ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
George Alexander Stevens
George Alexander Stevens (1710 – 6 September 1780) was an English actor, playwright, poet, composer and songwriter. He was born in the parish of St. Andrews, in Holborn, a neighbourhood of London. After spending many years as a travelling actor, he performed for the theatre in Covent Garden (now the Royal Opera House). Stevens was most famous in his lifetime for his ''Lecture on Heads'', a satirical "lecture" on heads and fashion, which parodied the popularity of physiognomy. The lecture was first performed in 1764, and became an immediate success; he went on to perform it on tour throughout Great Britain, in Ireland, and in the American colonies at Boston and Philadelphia. He was also known as popular songwriter, especially known for his bawdy drinking-songs and patriotic songs (such aLiberty-Hallan. Many of both kinds were collected in his ''Songs, comic and satyrical'' (1788). Stevens also authored several dramatic pieces for the stage, a novel entitled ''Tom Fool'', ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Dublin
Dublin (; , or ) is the capital and largest city of Ireland. On a bay at the mouth of the River Liffey, it is in the province of Leinster, bordered on the south by the Dublin Mountains, a part of the Wicklow Mountains range. At the 2016 census it had a population of 1,173,179, while the preliminary results of the 2022 census recorded that County Dublin as a whole had a population of 1,450,701, and that the population of the Greater Dublin Area was over 2 million, or roughly 40% of the Republic of Ireland's total population. A settlement was established in the area by the Gaels during or before the 7th century, followed by the Vikings. As the Kingdom of Dublin grew, it became Ireland's principal settlement by the 12th century Anglo-Norman invasion of Ireland. The city expanded rapidly from the 17th century and was briefly the second largest in the British Empire and sixth largest in Western Europe after the Acts of Union in 1800. Following independence in 1922, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Charles Dibdin
Charles Dibdin (before 4 March 1745 – 25 July 1814) was an English composer, musician, dramatist, novelist, singer and actor. With over 600 songs to his name, for many of which he wrote both the lyrics and the music and performed them himself, he was in his time the most prolific English singer-songwriter. He is best known as the composer of "Tom Bowling", one of his many sea songs, which often features at the Last Night of the Proms. He also wrote about 30 dramatic pieces, including the operas ''The Waterman'' (1774) and ''The Quaker'' (1775), and several novels, memoirs and histories. His works were admired by Haydn and Beethoven. Life and career Early life and early successes The son of a silversmith, Dibdin was privately baptised on 4 March 1745 in Southampton and is often described as the youngest child of eighteen born to a 50-year-old mother. His parents, intending him for the clergy, sent Dibdin to Winchester College, but his love of music soon diverted his though ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Charles Mathews
Charles Mathews (28 June 1776, London – 28 June 1835, Devonport) was an English theatre manager and comic actor, well known during his time for his gift of impersonation and skill at table entertainment. His play ''At Home'', in which he played every character, was the first monopolylogue and the defining work in the genre. Early life Charles was born to James Mathews (died 1804), a Wesleyan Methodist bookseller, printer, and pharmacist on the Strand, who also served as minister in one of the Countess of Huntingdon's chapels. Charles was educated at Merchant Taylors' School in London, which had some openings for common boys. He was next apprenticed to his father. For religious reasons, the father forbade his children from visiting theatres. During his youth, Charles met the actor Robert William Elliston; after attending the Drury Lane theatre, he was utterly fascinated by that world. Charles left his father in September 1793 for his first public stage appearance at R ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Lyceum Theatre, London
The Lyceum Theatre ( ) is a West End theatre located in the City of Westminster, on Wellington Street, just off the Strand in central London. It has a seating capacity of 2,100. The origins of the theatre date to 1765. Managed by Samuel Arnold, from 1794 to 1809 the building hosted a variety of entertainments including a circus produced by Philip Astley, a chapel, and the first London exhibition of waxworks by Madame Tussauds. From 1816 to 1830, it served as The English Opera House. After a fire, the house was rebuilt and reopened on 14 July 1834 to a design by Samuel Beazley. The building is unique in that it has a balcony overhanging the dress circle. It was built by the partnership of Peto & Grissell. The theatre then played opera, adaptations of Charles Dickens novels and James Planché's "fairy extravaganzas", among other works. From 1871 to 1902, Henry Irving appeared at the theatre, especially in Shakespeare productions, usually starring opposite Ellen Terry. In 190 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
James Henry Leigh Hunt
James Henry Leigh Hunt (19 October 178428 August 1859), best known as Leigh Hunt, was an English critic, essayist and poet. Hunt co-founded '' The Examiner'', a leading intellectual journal expounding radical principles. He was the centre of the Hampstead-based group that included William Hazlitt and Charles Lamb, known as the "Hunt circle". Hunt also introduced John Keats, Percy Bysshe Shelley, Robert Browning and Alfred Tennyson to the public. Hunt's presence at Shelley's funeral on the beach near Viareggio was immortalised in the painting by Louis Édouard Fournier. Hunt inspired aspects of the Harold Skimpole character in Charles Dickens' novel ''Bleak House''. Early life James Henry Leigh Hunt was born 19 October 1784, at Southgate, London, where his parents had settled after leaving the United States. His father, Isaac, a lawyer from Philadelphia, and his mother, Mary Shewell, a merchant's daughter and a devout Quaker, had been forced to come to Britain because o ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
