20 - Other London Engagements

Summary

It is true that while this storm over his professional competence was raging in the press, Aldridge, having been deprived of further employment at Covent Garden, had accepted an invitation to perform at the Surrey Theatre. The announcement of his engagement there “for two nights” came as early as Wednesday, April 17, just a day after his third appearance at Covent Garden had been cancelled. The playbill carrying the announcement stated that

the circumstance of a MAN of COLOUR performing OTHELLO, on the British Stage, is indeed an epoch in the history of Theatricals; and the honor conferred upon him, in being called for LAST WEEK AT COVENT GARDEN THEATRE, by the unanimous voice of the Audience, to receive their tribute of applause, is as highly creditable to the native talent of the sunny climes of Africa, as to the universal liberality of a British Public.

The proprietor of the Surrey, David Webster Osbaldiston, was careful to emphasize the audience response rather than the critical response to Aldridge. He was also bold enough to cast him in the same role that had stirred up so much controversy in the press. This took some courage, for the Surrey was not licensed to perform the legitimate drama. By law Osbaldiston and every member of his performing company were vulnerable to a penalty of fifty pounds each for infringing the rights of the patent theaters, but this regulation was no longer being strictly enforced.

Like the Royal Coburg, the Surrey was located south of the Thames and initially catered to an audience composed mainly of working-class people living in the immediate vicinity, though in later years efforts were made to appeal to a more diverse and more discriminating audience. Under a succession of successful and unsuccessful managers—including Robert William Elliston and Thomas Dibdin, respectively—burlettas, comic sketches, farces, melodramas, ballets, and occasional tragedies and comedies made up the standard fare. According to a commentator writing in 1836, “the pieces were, with few exceptions, remarkable for their stupidity. It may be right to add, they were as badly represented.”