Publicity

It's been a few days since I wrote an entry here, so I'd better bring you up to date. I've been busy being interviewed on BBC Radio--Radio Scotland, Lincolnshire, York, and Leeds. I don't feel like a natural broadcaster at all--I hesitate too much and in at least one interview replied to every question with the word "Absolutely." Still, that's done now. On 23 May I'm appearing at the Redbridge Media and Literature Festival talking about Gilbert, and on 12 June I'll do another talk at Waterstones in Bradford. These should be less stressful (I think!) because at least I'll be able to see my audience.

I've had a five star review for the book on Amazon.co.uk, which is brilliant, and Stage should be publishing an interview/review in a week or two. 23-27 May sees the BBC Radio 4 series Gilbert's Glory, including soundbites from me and a plug for the book, so fingers crossed, we may get some new readers from that as well.

There's a quite painful split in my life at the moment. It's all very successful in terms of public face--I have a book out, it's very well received so far (in so far as there has been any reception at all), and I'm actually being heard by more people than have ever heard me before, even if they didn't especially want to. But at the same time, I am jobless and effectively penniless. I actually have little idea what the future holds. It may end in disaster, and quite soon. I can only keep faith in my star, which has actually treated me pretty well in life so far. I don't know, maybe most writers are like this. But it's quite scary.

Bourgeois Attitudes

In the early part of his career, Gilbert wrote regularly for the comic paper Fun. One of his regular pseudonyms was The Comic Physiognomist (the C.P.). In the issue for 9 March 1867 he wrote in one of these columns:

"Man was sent into the world to contend with man, and to get the advantage of him in every possible way. Whenever the C.P. happens to see a human being in the act of assisting, directly or indirectly, another human being, he pictures to himself a foot-race in which the candidates are constantly giving place to each other from motives of sheer politeness. The great object of life is to be first at the winning-post, and so that a man attains that end, and yet goes conscientiously over the whole course, it matters nothing how many of his fellow candidates he hustles on the way."

Of course Gilbert was being funny. But he was also, I am almost sure, being quite serious. This is how Gilbert saw life. He did not, I believe, want to see it this way; he was by nature a dreamy and withdrawn character, much the happiest in the illusory world of the theatre. But he learned as a teenager that not to keep your eye firmly on the main chance was to lose that chance and was to become a failure. And Gilbert learned his lesson.

His 1877 play Engaged is a bitter exposition of this view of life, in which everyone is motivated entirely by selfish and monetary motives. It is so keenly meant and so real that it is the funniest thing he ever wrote. It is a vision of Victorian society both as it saw itself--as unfailingly genteel--and as it was--unfailingly brutal.

Now here's a quotation from the 1848 Communist Manifesto:

"The bourgeoisie, wherever it has got the upper hand, has put an end to all feudal, patriarchal, idyllic relations. It has pitilessly torn asunder the motley feudal ties that bound man to his 'natural superiors', and has left remaining no other nexus between man and man than naked self-interest, than callous 'cash payment'. It has drowned the most heavenly ecstasies of religious fervour, of chivalrous enthusiasm, of philistine sentimentalism, in the icy water of egotistical calculation. It has resolved personal worth into exchange value.... In one word, for exploitation, veiled by religious and political illusions, it has substituted naked, shameless, direct, brutal exploitation.... The bourgeoisie has torn away from the family its sentimental veil, and has reduced the family relation to a mere money relation."

My attention was drawn to this passage recently and it made me gasp. It is a complete explanation of Gilbert's attitudes to society and to the aristocracy (whom he despised). He was a Bourgeois in the sense meant by the Communists. It may be worth while to add that the Communist Manifesto praised the Bourgeoisie for these attitudes.

In limbo

I don't know where I am heading at the moment. The book is out there; I understand there has been some interest in it from some papers; and three separate BBC Radio stations will be interviewing me next week!!!! But I don't know what people will think of it when they read it. I am sure that some experts will think it is wrongly focused, or that it misrepresents the facts, or that it ignores aspects that should be highlighted. I have had a reaction from a reader which suggests that it is--as I intended--readable. Hurray for that! It's supposed to be a portrait of Gilbert the man. It's supposed to give an impression of what he was like, as some recent biographies have not. But without the detailed and brutally honest feedback of reviews, how can I know what the book is really like? It is terrible to think this, but in a way the reaction to the book will show me what I should think about it. If it is a success, it will mean that my past twenty-five years' obsession has not been misdirected. If it is a failure... I won't think of that. Every day that passes without a review is another day of waiting, a day that feels wasted. I feel I am in a kind of limbo. The book is an attempt to demonstrate that I can write. Perhaps readers will disagree on that one. How can I know, without a review?

I hope I don't cock up the interviews.

The Hooligan

nd so Gilbert's last play, The Hooligan, is 100 years old. It was premiered at the Coliseum music hall on 27 February 1911. It is, in my opinion, one of his best works. It is certainly unique in his output. You can read the play here.

The WSG cartoons shown here are all taken from his column "The Comic Physiognomist in Bad Company" (Fun, 23 July 1864). The scan of the photo is taken from The Illustrated London News of 11 March 1911, and shows a scene from The Hooligan with James Welch.

I want to quote some of the responses to the original production, because I think they show that the play provoked a uniquely direct emotional reaction. I'm having difficulty thinking of a parallel in Gilbert's output. The nearest equivalent might be the reaction to Engaged over 30 years before, in 1877--many were shocked by Engaged, though not in the same way as with The Hooligan.

From The Illustrated London News of 11 March 1911:

"We all reckon any stage-work of that veteran, Sir William Gilbert, as peculiarly worthy of attention and respect, but how much more than usually must he challenge our interest when he, the successor of Robertson, the apostle of fantasy, suddenly elects to rival the newest school of our dramatists on their own ground! Has Mr. Galsworthy submitted to us his realistic tragedy of 'Justice' and pictured for us all the horrors of the isolation cell? Sir William Gilbert will go one better: he will confront us with that grimmest of all scenes of human misery--he will show us the condemned murderer being prepared for his fate on the very morning of his execution.... [Precis of plot follows.] So ends a drama that is absolutely sincere, unflinchingly realistic, and makes no concessions in the way of fine writing or sentiment. It bears the very stamp of truth, as it should do, for it is the work of a magistrate, and its whole pathos--and that is irresistible--depends on its never straining a point. If playgoers are not moved by the almost bald simplicity of the episode and by the superb acting of Mr. James Welch as the criminal, then nothing will move them. Mr. Welch's study of awful fear is really great and memorable art. And this play and this acting, if you please, are to be seen, not in an ordinary drama-theatre, but at the Coliseum, or so-called variety-house, for 'The Hooligan' is a 'sketch.'"

Here is a more disapproving reaction from The Observer of 5 March 1911, though I think the reviewer still conveys the power of the play:

"Those who are in search of a 'mauvais quart d'heure' had better hie forthwith to the Coliseum, where, with 'The Hooligan' in his condemned cell, they may be assured of finding what they want. That there are such seekers is shown at the Grand Guignol and elsewhere by the fact that for some men a good shudder is a luxury, just as is for some ladies a good cry. At the Coliseum, though they may be surprised, they will certainly not be disappointed by the masterly and relentless skill with which Sir W.S. Gilbert and Mr. James Welch between them administer the desired sensation as part of an evening's variety entertainment.

"[Precis of plot follows] How far such a subject as this is suited for illustration on the stage may be open to doubt. But there can be no question about the relentless art with which Sir William has elaborated his gruesome study of character, or about the remorseless sincerity with which Mr. Welch his made the grim picture a living one in its terrible fidelity to fallen nature. If the thing was to be done at all it could not have been done better, and there criticism must leave it."

Finally, a comment from the Stageland column in the Penny Illustrated Paper of 11 March 1911 (a more racy and perhaps more working class paper than the others):

"It disturbed everyone. Most to applause; a few to resentment. There was the ruddy, ample gentleman whom I met in the bar during what the Col. calls the 'Intermission.' 'You come here to be amused, not to be----" He groped for the word and lost it. 'A man of a morbid turn of mind might think it all right, mightn't he?'

"A play that can wing a ruddy, ample gentleman; leave him puzzled, gasping, unsettled; stir up vague doubtings about killing folk and giving them 'no chanst'--a play like that is a play which you ought to pop in and see at once."

Well--I've nothing to add to that!