"Mr. Foote's Other Leg", Ian Kelly

[igenlode]

A brilliantly written evocation of Georgian England, London and its theatre, as could perhaps only have been achieved by an author who was also himself an actor. He writes with enormous skill and understanding, despite the challenge of portraying the talent of a comedian whose side-splitting performances were simply so topical and of their era that if quoted verbatim they are, as he acknowledges, no longer at all funny. Instead Ian Kelly manages to convey convincingly the effect they had upon Foote's contemporaries, and the performer's supreme talent as an impressionist - attending one of his hot-from-the-headlines comedy entertainments, with Foote himself playing multiple roles, must have been like an episode of "Dead Ringers" (one cultural comparison Kelly doesn't actually make, though it is very much his thesis in this book that this era saw the dawn of modern media and celebrity culture).

I was familiar with many of the dramatis personae who appear within these pages, from David Garrick to Boswell and Sir John Fielding. But I had never even heard of Samuel Foote, the one-legged comedy star and progenitor of the Theatre Royal, Haymarket. Ian Kelly makes a convincing case that he has been unfairly consigned to oblivion via a combination of scandal (despite his having been acquitted of the charges laid against him and having subsequently successfully satirised his accusers on stage) and catastrophic physical decline that rendered the performances at the end of his career simply embarrassing, plus the fact that, unlike for example Gilbert & Sullivan, the subjects of his mockery were so personal and specific as to have dated out of all recognition within a generation or so.

But where this book really shines is in the way that it brings Foote's world in itself to life; even the 'cast list' at the end is entertaining reading. This isn't just a biography, but a re-creation of an era very different to our own but also presented in terms that are instantly recognisable. Like all good historians the author wears the details of his research lightly, but to vivid effect. He clearly knows and loves this period intimately, and of course, perhaps irreplaceably, he shares the practical experience of stagecraft and performance. And he knows enough to extrapolate: when history records that Foote happened to pick up James Boswell in his coach and they had a conversation on the trial of the Duchess of Kingston, Kelly can guess that Foote would have been driving in to town from his house in Fulham, as was his habit (a journey taking 45 minutes) and that Boswell was in his way to Westminster, and that details in what Foote mentioned about the trial might suggest that he had been present in person in the audience.

It's a impressive piece of original research, with material pulled from unexpected and sometimes long-lost or miraculously survived resources, such as the judge's notes and witness transcript from Foote's own trial, complete with directions as to where statements need to be cross-checked, or Dr Hunter's pioneering psychological studies, which just happen to include his observations on Mr Foote. And Kelly is an excellent writer.

Celebrity can be dated in effect to the moment that private life became a commodity. It happened in Foote's era and in London - and it certainly happened to Foote. Foote sold himself. He was, from the start of his career, that rare thing: a highly educated and well-connected young man, but, because of the crime story he sold, utterly beyond the bands of respectability. Which is quite a useful position, of course, for a satirist.

Comments

[watervole]

I think celebrity fades, because there's a limit as to how many names we can hold in our heads.

But your point about things that are no longer topical fading the fastest makes sense.

[igenlode]

Celebrity fades, but people like Garrick and Sarah Siddons haven't faded out of all recollection (or at least anyone with a reasonable general knowledge of the era has probably come across them). I even knew of Peg Woffington and Kitty Clive, although I couldn't have told you anything about them other than passive recognition of their names as contemporary actresses and perhaps specifically as comediennes.

Samuel Foote was a complete blank to me, despite the fact that he was apparently a wildly successful and famous figure in his day, and a longstanding friend/rival equal actor-manager to Garrick, whom he had known since they were first taking drama classes together, and who was running Drury Lane at the same time as Foote was running (and indeed founded) the Theatre Royal at the Haymarket. I do think that being a famous comic has always held a lower status than being a famous tragedian -- even though, by what I've heard, the former tend to do much better in tragic parts than the latter in comic parts, since the art of comedy revolves so directly upon timing and delivery.

That said, Foote apparently tried tragedy early in his stage career (playing Othello in the days before he lost his leg) and failed to make any impact with it. His real talent was as an impressionist, and of course that is incredibly ephemeral, since it holds no humour at all unless the audience is familiar with the foibles and mannerisms of the person being imitated.

[watervole]

I'd agree that general knowledge feeds in Garrick and Sarah Siddons. also helps if they have famous portraits.
Many people would recognise the painting, even if not knowing the name of the actress - https://www.theguardian.com/stage/2023/nov/23/sarah-siddons-actor-april-de-angelis-play-hampstead-theatre

[igenlode]

Yes, I looked at it and immediately thought 'Gainsborough' rather than 'Sarah Siddons' (whom I certainly wouldn't recognise pictorially, however familiar I am with the name).
The famous Hogarth image of Garrick I definitely would recognise:

[watervole]

I wasn't familiar with the Garrick portrait, but I like it. Looks like he's seen a ghost.

[igenlode]

That's a great compliment to the artist -- it's exactly what the scene was intended to portray :-)
https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/404776

Garrick

[igenlode]

Looking at the assorted David Garrick portraits available online, I find him unexpectedly likeable -- unexpectedly because that is not the reaction one normally encounters from viewing a selection of 18th-century oil paintings, though he was lucky in apparently being a favourite subject for all the top portrait artists of the era! But 'likeable' wasn't, presumably, the *intended* viewer response; his eyes just look clever and kind, and he comes across as a real person even in the formal portraits.


All I really know about him is that he was an early exponent of 'realistic' acting as opposed to standing and declaiming, he was a great Shakespeare enthusiast (and built "Garrick's Folly", where I once attended a concert https://www.garrickstemple.org.uk/ ), and was famously short -- possibly one of the first examples of the Hollywood Leading Man Effect, where small men have relatively larger heads and therefore their facial expressions make more impact? ;)

https://www.npg.org.uk/collections/search/portrait/mw126699/Facsimile-of-the-Proportions-of-Garrick-and-Quin-David-Garrick-James-Quin?LinkID=mp01730&search=sas&sText=david+garrick&wPage=2&role=sit&rNo=51

Perhaps I should take up the Alan Kendall biography of Garrick that I happen to have on the shelf (inherited and never read)... although like most short men (and actors) he was probably very vain and touchy in real life!

Re: Garrick

[watervole]

If he aimed to be a 'realistic' actor, then there was no way he'd opt for the standard formal portrait. He'd want to showcase himself.

Re: Garrick

[igenlode]

Good point -- though I don't know how much say the painter's subject got over the content and pose of the finished picture. (I don't know the history behind all these paintings, but I'm assuming the artists were flocking to get a popular celebrity to pose so that they could sell the resulting canvas rather than that the actor was commissioning dozens of images of himself.)

But the same point would presumably apply to people wanting to buy pictures *of* Garrick -- that they wanted to feel that they were seeing the 'real' man behind the greasepaint.

An interesting mention of the artists' attitude: https://www.museumoflondon.org.uk/discover/happy-300th-birthday-david-garrick-londons-greatest-actor

Garrick was a favourite of portrait painters, and one of the most frequently depicted men of the eighteenth century, probably painted more often in his lifetime than anyone in Britain except the monarch. Painters were not only attracted to his fame, but also to his famously expressive face, which made him an ideal model to convey comedy, tragedy or any other genre. On the other hand, the mobility of his expression sometimes meant that he was a difficult sitter to paint. Thomas Gainsborough reportedly flung down his brush in exasperation because the actor kept altering his expression. A satirical ‘mechanical print’ of 1845 in the British Museum’s collection depicts Garrick sitting to Hogarth in his studio. Behind the print is a disk with thirty different likenesses of Garrick that can be rotated to reveal different expressions.

And here's a case where a specific reason for painting this particular portrait is mentioned: https://www.sothebys.com/en/buy/auction/2021/tomasso-the-more-a-thing-is-perfect/portrait-of-david-garrick-1717-1779
The picture was commissioned (by Garrick himself, if I am interpreting the text correctly) and painted in Rome "as a gift for Sir Richard Kaye (1736-1809), in exchange for an antique gem that Kaye had found at the Baths of Caracalla". (It looks as if that is the brown suit mentioned in the previous article which is currently in the Museum of London!)

So pictures of himself were a form of useful social currency :-D The equivalent of an autographed photo for the fans, perhaps, although presumably involving far more investment on both sides of the transaction...

Re: Garrick

[watervole]

That's really interesting. I expect the painters wanted someone who could convey the emotion for specific pictures. eg. If I were doing a picture of a classical tragedy - say Odysseus thinking of Penelope - then I'd want just the right expression of yearning.

And having a 'star' in the picture would also add to its sale value!

Re: Garrick

[igenlode]

It would definitely make sense, but the queer thing is that the majority of that long list of pictures in the National Portrait Gallery (it lists sixty-two, but if you actually scroll through a lot of them turn out to be engravings or copies of other versions) don't seem to be portrayals of the actor on stage or in any allegorical pose -- although "Garrick Between Comedy and Tragedy" is one of the few examples of the latter.
(A jovial, middle-aged Garrick definitely looks as if he is feeling more inclined towards the frisky little Muse of Comedy, even if he is looking back towards Tragedy...)


But that is one of the exceptions. There are several Shakespeare scenes, but most of them are just head-and-shoulders portraits of the man rather than the actor. Although there are a couple of rather nice joint portraits with his wife.

Re: Garrick

[igenlode]

From the National Portrait Gallery site: https://www.npg.org.uk/collections/search/personextended?linkid=mp01730&tab=iconography

When Garrick was in Paris in November 1764 he wrote to his brother in London: ‘I am so plagu’d here for my Prints or rather Prints of Me - that I must desire You to send me by ye first opportunity six prints from Reynolds’s picture, You may apply to ye Engraver he lives in Leicester fields, & his name is Fisher, he will give you good ones, if he knows they are for Me - You must likewise send me a King Lear by Wilson, Hamlet do Jaffier & Belv[idera] by Zoffani, speak to him for two or 3, & what Else he may have done of Me - There is likewise a print of Me, as I am, from Liotard’s picture Scrap’d by MacArdel, send me 2 or 3 of them, speak to MacArdel, & any other prints of Me, if tolerable, that I can’t remember'

So it definitely sounds as if he was being asked to give out autographed photos :-D
(And very sensibly was getting engravings "scraped" from the paintings already in existence, although since he is only talking about a print run of six or so I wonder if there were technological limitations to the process...)

Re: Garrick

[watervole]

I'm guessing prints were fairly expensive to cover the cost of engraving.

Also -postage to France....

I don't think there would be any technical limits to multiple prints. But numbers might have been limited to keep the price high.