6 - Trouping through the North

Summary

On leaving Ireland, Aldridge went to Scotland where he performed for three or four nights in mid-November 1839 in the nearest port town, Stranraer, before moving on to Ayr. He was enthusiastically received in both towns by large audiences who were impressed with his powerful delineation of scenes from Othello and The Revenge. “In his graceful ‘strut,’ his bold and dignified appearance, his self-possession, and excellent elocution, the audience at once recognize the man of genius and education.” But equally appealing were his delightful personifi cations of Mungo and Ginger Blue, which were recommended “as a specific for ennui” and the “most potent anti-fogmatics in this proverbially gloomy month.” His comic songs were extremely popular— particularly his rendition of “Jim Crow,” “partly because almost every individual in Ayr was lampooned in a friendly way. From the Magistrates, down to ‘Bowsie Hunter,’ all came in for a notice. The audience was literally convulsed,” and “he was repeatedly encored, and on every repetition gave a new version of the ditty” in the manner of T. D. Rice. Aldridge's years of touring small towns in Ireland evidently had taught him how to entertain rural audiences by mixing memorable melodrama with rollicking farce and topping it all off with songs filled with local humor.

Aldridge spent nearly the whole of 1840 performing in Scotland, but not in the two major cities, Edinburgh and Glasgow. Instead, he visited towns large and small, ranging in size from Aberdeen (63,248) and Dundee (62,794) to Tain (3,128) and Dingwall (2,100). The smallest of these hamlets did not have a proper theater building, but this did not matter, for he could stage his Grand Classical and Dramatic Entertainment, assisted by Mr. Edmonston and Mr. and Mrs. Stephens, in any kind of assembly hall. During this entire year he never once performed an entire tragedy or melodrama, only a selection of scenes from them, followed by condensed versions of his favorite farces, The Padlock and The Virginian Mummy, as well as a variety of comic songs. All these pieces were offered as illustrations of points he made in his Lecture in Defence of the Drama.