Sadler's Wells Theatre Archive

A warm welcome to our new Sadler’s Wells Theatre Archive Project Archivist

We extend a very warm welcome to our new Sadler’s Wells Theatre Archive Project Archivist, Paul Williams, who will be steering the cataloguing project to its conclusion in July.

Paul brings his expertise to Islington having previously worked on a diverse range of projects and collections at various institutions. These include cataloguing the papers of former Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain, as well as a number of smaller collections, at the University of Birmingham and retrospective conversion of catalogues at Glamorgan Archives. Paul has strong connections to Wales having studied for his degree at the University of Wales Lampeter and, later, obtaining his postgraduate archive diploma at the University of Wales Aberystwyth.

When taking a break from Archives, Paul enjoys mapping for OpenStreetMap and collecting advertising leaflets, of which he has over 30,000 in his private collection. He is also involved in CAMRA (Campaign for Real Ale). I’ll drink to that!

Meanwhile, Paul will be taking over as ‘chief blogger’ keeping readers informed of the project’s progress. 

 

The tradition of pantomime

As this is the season of pantomimes it seems appropriate to write about pantomime at Sadler’s Wells. However, in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries pantomimes were not confined to Christmas and January, as they are today, but were performed all year round. 

Pantomime at Sadler’s Wells originated in performances known as the 'Harlequinade', which came to Britain from Italy. Harlequinade’s consisted of 4 characters, Harlequin, a comedian and the romantic male lead; Columbine, a beautiful girl who is in love with Harlequin; Pantaloon, the greedy old father of Columbine, who tries to keep the young lovers separate, and Clown, Pantaloon’s servant who endeavours to keep Harlequin and Columbine apart through practical jokes. 

The basic plot of the Harlequinade would see Harlequin and Columbine elope together with Pantaloon and Clown pursuing the young couple in a comic chase scene - this plot remained unchanged for 150 years. The action however would begin with an ordinary dramatisation of literature followed by a spectacular transformation, where the characters in the play were transformed into the characters of the Harlequinade and then the pantomime would begin. Joseph Grimaldi excelled in the role of clown making it famous and introducing the phrase "Here we go again" at the start of the transformation scene. 

The Sadler's Wells collection features numerous playbills advertising pantomime performances, many of them had double titles to advertise both parts of the evening’s performance. One of my favourites is Cock a Doodle Doo, or, Harlequin the Fairy of the Fiddlestick and Lost Shoe. The playbills also contain references to the magnificent transformation scene. The earliest pantomime script held in the collection is Sister Witches (18th Century), an image of which is below: 

The archive also holds Harlequin and Cinderella, or, the Little Fairy and the Large Glass Slipper, which contains detailed lighting cues and stage designs, creating an impression of splendour in this Sadler’s Wells pantomime: "Oh no it doesn't...oh yes it does..." Sorry, we couldn't resist!

 

The grand re-opening of Sadler’s Wells (1931)

As building work on the theatre progressed it was hoped that Sadler’s Wells would re-open in Autumn 1930 but this was declared impossible in May of that year. This was partly because the building work was of a stop-start nature - when there were no more funds to pay the builders, work would stop until more money had been raised.

In August 1930 tentative plans were made to re-open on Boxing Day with a performance of A Comedy of Errors but in October an official announcement was made that Sadler’s Wells would open on 6 January 1931. The Old Vic Drama Company appropriately performed Twelfth Night with John Gielgud playing the part of Malvolio and Ralph Richardson as Sir Toby Belch to excellent reviews.  Below is an image taken from the programme for the play:

John Gielgud had the following recollections of the new Sadler’s Wells, “How we all detested Sadler’s Wells when it was opened first. The auditorium looked like a denuded wedding-cake, and the acoustics were dreadful.”

A press cutting in the Archive, however, indicates that some people were impressed with the new Sadler’s Wells with a report from 7 January stating that "Remarkable scenes of enthusiasm were witnessed last night, when Sir Johnston Forbes-Robinson formally opened the magnificent new Sadler’s Wells Theatre."

Over the years Sadler’s Wells would regularly celebrate its new twelfth night birthday with a special performance and cake on stage and, on that note, I would like to wish Sadler’s Wells a happy 81^st birthday!