Playbill for Public Performance at The Queen's Theatre,

28 May 1842

Plate for "Charles Dickens "For Two Nights Only"

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Unlike the the playbill for the private performance, the public one beginning at 7:30 on the Saturday evening, lists all the actors and actresses, naming Mrs. A. W. Penson as Maria Darlington, Mrs. Brown as Mrs. Selbourne, and Mrs. Henry as Mrs. Fixture in Roland for an Oliver, for example. The actors in the first two plays are the same (Dickens, Methuen, Mulgrave, Willoughby, and Granville), but for the concluding piece High Life Below Stairs (a title which seems to anticipate Tom Robertson's Caste and Hardy's The Hand of Ethelberta) has replaced Deaf as a Post. Although the actors are largely drawn from the Garrison Amateurs, the professional performers from the initial play are again in evidence, with the addition of Mr. Thomas, Mr. Hughes, and Miss Heath.

Photograph, caption, and commentary by Philip V. Allingham

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