German Reed Entertainment - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

German Reed Entertainment was founded in 1855 and operated by Thomas German Reed

Thomas German Reed

Thomas German Reed was an English composer and theatrical manager best known for creating the German Reed Entertainments, a genre of musical plays that made theatre-going respectable at a time when the stage was considered disreputable...

(1817–1888) together with his wife, Priscilla Reed née Horton

Priscilla Horton

Priscilla Horton, later Priscilla German Reed , was a popular English singer and actress, known for her role as Ariel in W. C. Macready's production of The Tempest in 1838 and "fairy" burlesques at Covent Garden Theatre. Later, she was known, along with her husband, Thomas German Reed, for...

(1818–1895). At a time when the theatre in London was seen as a disreputable place, the German Reed family provided family-friendly entertainments for forty years, showing that respectable theatre could be popular.

The entertainments were held at the intimate Royal Gallery of Illustration

Royal Gallery of Illustration

The Royal Gallery of Illustration was a performance venue located at 14 Regent Street near Waterloo Place in London, in what was formerly the home of John Nash, designer of Regent Street, Regent's Park, and other urban improvements undertaken at the commission of George IV.From 1855 to about 1876,...

, Lower Regent Street, and later at St. George's Hall

St. George's Hall (London)

St. George's Hall was a theatre located in Langham Place, Regent Street in London, built in 1867, which closed in 1966. The hall could accommodate between 800 and 900 persons, or up to 1,500 persons including the galleries...

, Langham Place, in London. Thomas and Priscilla German Reed usually appeared in them, together with a small group of players. They engaged talented newcomers, such as Frederic Clay

Frederic Clay

Frederic Emes Clay was an English composer known principally for his music written for the stage. Clay, a great friend of Arthur Sullivan's, wrote four comic operas with W. S...

, W. S. Gilbert

W. S. Gilbert

Sir William Schwenck Gilbert was an English dramatist, librettist, poet and illustrator best known for his fourteen comic operas produced in collaboration with the composer Sir Arthur Sullivan, of which the most famous include H.M.S...

and Arthur Law

Arthur Law

William Arthur Law , better known as Arthur Law, was an English playwright, actor and scenic designer.-Life and career:...

, as well as established writers like F. C. Burnand, to create many of the entertainments. Thomas German Reed composed the music for many of the entertainments himself.

The German Reed theatrical revolution

This form of entertainment consisted of musical plays "of a refined nature". During the early Victorian era

Victorian era

The Victorian era of British history was the period of Queen Victoria's reign from 20 June 1837 until her death on 22 January 1901. It was a long period of peace, prosperity, refined sensibilities and national self-confidence...

, visiting the theatre was considered distasteful to the respectable public. Shakespeare was played, but the London stage became dominated by risque burlesques and bad adaptations of French operetta

Operetta

Operetta is a genre of light opera, light in terms both of music and subject matter. It is also closely related, in English-language works, to forms of musical theatre.-Origins:...

s. Jessie Bond

Jessie Bond

Jessie Bond was an English singer and actress best known for creating the mezzo-soprano soubrette roles in the Gilbert and Sullivan comic operas. She spent twenty years on the stage, the bulk of them with the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company.Musical from an early age, Bond began a concert singing...

wrote,

"The stage was at a low ebb, Elizabethan glories and Georgian artificialities had alike faded into the past, stilted tragedy and vulgar farce were all the would-be playgoer had to choose from, and the theatre had become a place of evil repute to the righteous British householder.... A first effort to bridge the gap was made by the German Reed Entertainers....

The German Reed Entertainments became the first respectable venue for dramatic amusement to which the public could safely bring their children, presenting gentle, intelligent, comic musical entertainment. Their example showed that respectable theatre could be popular and encouraging successors such as Gilbert and Sullivan

Gilbert and Sullivan

Gilbert and Sullivan refers to the Victorian-era theatrical partnership of the librettist W. S. Gilbert and the composer Arthur Sullivan . The two men collaborated on fourteen comic operas between 1871 and 1896, of which H.M.S...

Early years

In 1855, the first performance of "Miss P. Horton's Illustrative Gatherings," took place at St. Martin's Hall

Queen's Theatre, Long Acre

The Queen's Theatre was established in 1867, as a theatre on the site of St Martin's Hall, a large concert room that opened in 1850. It stood on the corner of Long Acre and Endell Street, with entrances in Wilson Street and Long Acre...

, with Thomas playing the piano. Mrs. Reed had been a popular performer of operetta, Shakespeare and other theatre pieces since the 1830s. The Reeds' entertainments consisted, at first, of character sketches and songs by the Reeds. In 1856, the entertainments moved to the more intimate Gallery of Illustration. These eventually became "Mr. and Mrs. German Reeds Entertainments". They called the establishment, euphemistically, the "Gallery of Illustration," rather than a theatre, the actors were "entertainers", and the pieces were called "entertainments" or "illustrations", eschewing the words "play", "extravaganza", "melodrama

Melodrama

The term melodrama refers to a dramatic work that exaggerates plot and characters in order to appeal to the emotions. It may also refer to the genre which includes such works, or to language, behavior, or events which resemble them...

" or "burlesque". Reed himself composed the music for many of these pieces and often appeared in them, along with Mrs. German Reed. There was nothing else like this establishment in London, and the Gallery rapidly achieved popularity.

The Gallery was an intimate 500-seat theatre. The accompaniment consisted of piano at first, and later also a harmonium and sometimes a harp. At first, the entertainments utilized a cast of three; but by the mid-1860s, they had expanded to pieces with a cast of four. Often the pieces' plots involved mistaken identities and disguises. From 1860 to 1868, the German Reeds were assisted by John Orlando Parry

John Orlando Parry

John Orlando Parry was an English actor, pianist, artist, comedian and singer.-Early career:Parry, the only son of Welsh musician John Parry , was born in London and, at an early age, was taught by his father to sing and to play the harp and the piano. He also studied the harp under Robert Bochsa...

, a pianist, mimic, parodist and humorous singer (one of George Grossmith

George Grossmith

George Grossmith was an English comedian, writer, composer, actor, and singer. His performing career spanned more than four decades...

's inspirations). He created a new type of musical and dramatic monologue that became popular. The earliest entertainments included Holly Lodge and The Enraged Musicians (1855); William Brough's A Month from Home and My Unfinished Opera (1857); The Pyramid by Shirley Brooks

Shirley Brooks

Charles William Shirley Brooks , journalist and novelist, born in London, began life in a solicitor's office. He early, however, took to literature, and contributed to various periodicals. In 1851 he joined the staff of Punch, to which he contributed "Essence of Parliament," and on the death of...

(1864); The Peculiar Family by Brough (1865); The Yachting Cruise by F. C. Burnand (1866); Our Quiet Chateau by Robert Reece

Robert Reece

Robert Reece was a British comic playwright and librettist active in the Victorian era. He wrote many successful musical burlesques, comic operas, farces and adaptations from the French, including the English-language adaptation of the operetta Les cloches de Corneville, which became the...

(1867); and Inquire Within by Burnand (1868).

As time went on, the Reeds added a dramatic pieces and brief comic opera

Comic opera

Comic opera denotes a sung dramatic work of a light or comic nature, usually with a happy ending.Forms of comic opera first developed in late 17th-century Italy. By the 1730s, a new operatic genre, opera buffa, emerged as an alternative to opera seria...

s designed for a small number of characters. Reed experimented with what he called opera di camera - small chamber operas by young composers. The German Reeds were able to attract fine young composers such as Molloy, Frederic Clay

Frederic Clay

Frederic Emes Clay was an English composer known principally for his music written for the stage. Clay, a great friend of Arthur Sullivan's, wrote four comic operas with W. S...

, Arthur Sullivan

Arthur Sullivan

Sir Arthur Seymour Sullivan MVO was an English composer of Irish and Italian ancestry. He is best known for his series of 14 operatic collaborations with the dramatist W. S. Gilbert, including such enduring works as H.M.S. Pinafore, The Pirates of Penzance and The Mikado...

, King Hall

Charles King Hall

Charles King Hall , often credited as King Hall, was a versatile English composer of both sacred and secular music. He favored the sentimental ballad and the church anthem. He specialized in arranging for piano and voice the works of famous composers such as Gounod and Mendelssohn. In addition,...

. and Alfred Cellier

Alfred Cellier

Alfred Cellier was an English composer, orchestrator and conductor.In addition to conducting and music directing the original productions of several of the most famous Gilbert and Sullivan works and writing the overtures to some of them, Cellier conducted at many theatres in London, New York and...

, the best scenic designers for their tiny stage, and the best young writers from Punch
Punch (magazine)
Punch, or the London Charivari was a British weekly magazine of humour and satire established in 1841 by Henry Mayhew and engraver Ebenezer Landells. Historically, it was most influential in the 1840s and 50s, when it helped to coin the term "cartoon" in its modern sense as a humorous illustration...

and Fun
Fun (magazine)
Fun was a Victorian weekly magazine, first published on 21 September 1861. The magazine was founded by the actor and playwright H. J. Byron in competition with Punch magazine.-Description:...

magazines.

Later years

The dramatist W. S. Gilbert

W. S. Gilbert

wrote the librettos for six entertainments presented by the German Reeds from 1869 to 1875, some of them with music by Reed himself, including No Cards
No Cards
No Cards is a "musical piece in one act" for four characters, written by W. S. Gilbert, with music composed and arranged by Thomas German Reed. It was first produced at the Royal Gallery of Illustration, Lower Regent Street, London, under the management of German Reed, opening on 29 March 1869 and...

, Ages Ago
Ages Ago
Ages Ago is a musical entertainment with a libretto by W. S. Gilbert and music by Frederic Clay that premiered on 22 November 1869 at the Royal Gallery of Illustration. It marked the beginning of a seven year long collaboration between the two. The piece was revived many times, including at St...

, Our Island Home
Our Island Home
Our Island Home is a one-act musical entertainment with a libretto by W. S. Gilbert and music by Thomas German Reed that premiered on June 20, 1870 at the Royal Gallery of Illustration...

, A Sensation Novel
A Sensation Novel
A Sensation Novel is a comic musical play in three acts written by librettist W. S. Gilbert and composer Thomas German Reed. It was first performed on 31 January 1871 at the Royal Gallery of Illustration...

, Happy Arcadia
Happy Arcadia
Happy Arcadia is a musical entertainment with a libretto by W. S. Gilbert and music originally by Frederic Clay that premiered on 28 October 1872 at the Royal Gallery of Illustration. It was one of four collaborations between Gilbert and Clay between 1869 and 1876. The music is lost...

, and Eyes and No Eyes
Eyes and No Eyes
Eyes and No Eyes, or The Art of Seeing is a one-act musical entertainment with a libretto by W. S. Gilbert and music originally by Thomas German Reed that premiered on July 5, 1875 at St. George's Hall in London and ran for only a month. The original music was lost, and twenty years later new...

. Several of these pieces had ideas in embryonic form that would later re-appear in the Savoy Operas. Ages Ago, for instance, had a gallery of portraits that come to life, an idea re-used in Ruddigore
Ruddigore
Ruddigore; or, The Witch's Curse, originally called Ruddygore, is a comic opera in two acts, with music by Arthur Sullivan and libretto by W. S. Gilbert. It is one of the Savoy Operas and the tenth of fourteen comic operas written together by Gilbert and Sullivan...

. Mrs. German Reed's performances inspired Gilbert to create some of his famous contralto roles. German Reed also mounted the first professional production of Arthur Sullivan

Arthur Sullivan

and F. C. Burnand

Francis Burnand

Sir Francis Cowley Burnand , often credited as F. C. Burnand, was an English comic writer and dramatist....

's Cox and Box
Cox and Box
Cox and Box; or, The Long-Lost Brothers, is a one-act comic opera with a libretto by F. C. Burnand and music by Arthur Sullivan, based on the 1847 farce Box and Cox by John Maddison Morton. It was Sullivan's first successful comic opera. The story concerns a landlord who lets a room to two...

and commissioned a second opera from the pair, The Contrabandista
The Contrabandista
The Contrabandista, or The Law of the Ladrones, is a two-act comic opera by Arthur Sullivan and F. C. Burnand. It premiered at St. George's Hall, in London, on 18 December 1867 under the management of Thomas German Reed, for a run of 72 performances. There were brief revivals in Manchester in 1874...

. Given the German Reeds' role in both Gilbert's and Sullivan's first operatic successes, one wag commented that the Gilbert and Sullivan

Gilbert and Sullivan

operas were "cradled among the Reeds."

Arthur Cecil

Arthur Cecil

Arthur Cecil Blunt, better known as Arthur Cecil was an English actor, comedian, playwright and theatre manager. He is probably best remembered for playing the role of Box in the long-running production of Cox and Box, by Arthur Sullivan and F. C...

joined the German Reeds in No Cards in 1869, remaining for five years. Fanny Holland

Fanny Holland

Fanny Holland was an English singer and comic actress primarily known as the creator of principal soprano roles in numerous German Reed Entertainments.-Life and career:...

first performed at the Gallery in 1869 in Ages Ago and appeared in scores of the entertainments continuously until 1895, except for two years at other theatres. In 1870, Richard Corney Grain

Richard Corney Grain

Richard Corney Grain , known by his stage name Corney Grain, was an entertainer and songwriter of the late Victorian era.-Biography:...

, a clever, refined, and humorous society entertainer (a great friend and rival of Grossmith's), appeared in his first Gallery entertainment, Our Island Home, soon performing his own sketches, taking over where Parry had left off. He also remained with the German Reeds until 1895 Annie Sinclair, and later Carlotta Carrington, were also a frequent players with the German Reeds.

Other German Reed entertainments included Our Quiet Chateau (1868) by Reece with music by Virginia Gabriel; Inquire Within (1868, Parry's last entertainment); Beggar My Neighbour (1870) and Number 204, by Burnand; Near Relations (1871) by Arthur Sketchley; King Christmas (1871, the first appearance by the German Reeds' son, Alfred); Charity Begins at Home (1872), with music by Alfred Cellier

Alfred Cellier

and words by B. C. Stephenson

B. C. Stephenson

Benjamin Charles Stephenson or B. C. Stephenson was an English dramatist, lyricist and librettist. After beginning a career in the civil service, he started to write for the theatre, using the pen name "Bolton Rowe". He was author or co-author of several long-running shows of the Victorian theatre...

; My Aunt's Secret (1872); Very Catching (1872); Milord's Well (1873); Dora's Dream
Dora's Dream
Dora's Dream is a one-act operetta, with music composed by Alfred Cellier and a libretto by Arthur Cecil.The piece was first performed at the Royal Gallery of Illustration on 3 July 1873, with Fanny Holland and Arthur Cecil starring in the two roles...

, with music by Alfred Cellier and words by Arthur Cecil (1873); Once in a Century by Gilbert à Beckett

Gilbert Arthur a Beckett

Gilbert Arthur à Beckett was an English writer.-Biography:Beckett was born at Hammersmith, United Kingdom, the eldest son of Gilbert Abbott à Beckett and the brother of Arthur William à Beckett...

; In Possession; Babel and Bijouand; Back from India by Henry Pottinger Stephens

Henry Pottinger Stephens

Henry Pottinger Stephens, also known as Henry Beauchamp , was an English dramatist and journalist. With a variety of partners, he wrote burlesques, comic operas and musical comedies that briefly rivalled the Savoy Operas in popular esteem.-Life and career:"Pot" Stephens was born in Barrow-on-Soar,...

; Our New Doll’s House by W. Wye.

After the retirement of Thomas, in 1871, his son, Alfred German Reed (1846-1895), also an actor, carried on the business in partnership with his mother and then with Grain. In 1874, they moved the entertainments to the St. George's Hall

St. George's Hall

St. George’s Hall may refer to:*St George's Hall, Bradford*St. George's Hall, Liverpool*St. George's Hall, Reading*One of the state rooms at Windsor Castle*St George's Hall and Apollo Room of the Winter Palace, Saint Petersburg...

, Regent Street, and the German Reeds also took the entertainments on provincial tours. In 1874, Leonora Braham

Leonora Braham

Leonora Braham , born Leonora Lucy Abraham, was an English opera singer and actress primarily known as the creator of principal soprano roles in the Gilbert and Sullivan comic operas....

(who created several of the soprano

Soprano

A soprano is a voice type with a vocal range from approximately middle C to "high A" in choral music, or to "soprano C" or higher in operatic music. In four-part chorale style harmony, the soprano takes the highest part, which usually encompasses the melody...

heroine roles in the Savoy Opera

Savoy opera

The Savoy Operas denote a style of comic opera that developed in Victorian England in the late 19th century, with W. S. Gilbert and Arthur Sullivan as the original and most successful practitioners. The name is derived from the Savoy Theatre, which impresario Richard D'Oyly Carte built to house...

s in the 1880s) joined the German Reeds. Fanny Holland's husband Arthur Law

Arthur Law

William Arthur Law , better known as Arthur Law, was an English playwright, actor and scenic designer.-Life and career:...

also joined the company and wrote, as well as acted in, many of the entertainments. Some of Law's pieces for the Gallery included Enchantment, A Night Surprise, A Happy Bungalow (1877), Cherry Tree Farm (1881) and Nobody’s Fault (1882), both with music by Hamilton Clarke

Hamilton Clarke

James Hamilton Siree Clarke , better known as Hamilton Clarke, was an English conductor, composer and organist...

,, All at Sea (1881) and The Head of the Poll (1882), composed by Eaton Faning

Eaton Faning

Joseph Eaton Faning , known as Eaton Faning, was an English composer and teacher. The son of a music teacher, he became the organist of a church at the age of twelve. He attended the Royal Academy of Music, where his teachers included Arthur Sullivan. He was an outstanding student, winning many...

, which received good reviews.

Mrs. German Reed retired in 1879. The deaths of Alfred German Reed and Grain, both in 1895, ended the entertainments.

External links

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