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Sarah Siddons |
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As the notice explains, the entertainment took the form of a “concert of musick”. Between the acts, the players performed Charles the First “gratis” (free). The reason for this strange arrangement was that the law at this time prohibited travelling companies from charging audiences money for dramatic performances.
Like many clever entrepreneurs in this period, Kemble avoided prosecution by adopting a crafty strategy. Make the spectators pay for the music, and offer a play for nothing!
In many ways, however, the Kembles were no ordinary strolling players. For one thing, they decided to send Sarah and John Philip to school in Worcester. At Thornloe House, a school for genteel young ladies, one of the pupils wrote to her mother describing this strange new pupil: 
Sarah Siddons
© Mary Evans Picture Library |
“She is very plain in her clothes, and somewhat of a Brown Beauty, for her eyes and features, with the exception of a somewhat too long nose, merit much condemnation.” The girl continued, “Her manner was not pleasing, withdrawing from our company, and holding herself aloof from our amusements.”
Imagine her embarrassment when Sarah explains to her that her father is the manager of an acting troupe and that the family had travelled into town by waggon!
But Sarah’s talents and accomplishments would enable her to overcome all such prejudices. So celebrated and respectable did she become that, at the height of her fame, she would give dramatic readings at Windsor and at Buckingham House before the King and Queen of England.
Words: Dr Jane Moody
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