"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.