WHEN KNIGHTS WERE BOLD

[Advert from the Savoy Theatre]

“When Knights Were Bold” was written by Harriett Jay (using the pseudonym Charles Marlowe) and received its London premiere at Wyndham’s Theatre on 29th. January 1907, where it ran for 579 performances. The Templeman Library site has the original cast list as published in the theatre magazine, Play Pictorial. It also played in New York at the Garrick Theatre from August 20th to November 1907, starring Francis Wilson (opening night credits at the The Internet Broadway Database). And, according to the poster below from the State Library of Tasmania, it also formed part of Frank Thornton’s farewell tour of Australia, playing at the Theatre Royal, Hobart, Tasmania on Tuesday 16th June, 1908.

It was Harriett Jay’s greatest success and would seem to be the main source of her income in her later years. It is the only work which is mentioned by name in her will (a codicil of 1929 specifies that all the rights to “When Knights Were Bold” were left to her nephew, William Paul Jay) and the play continued to be performed long after her death. It was filmed three times and a musical version was staged in 1943.

Contents:

1. Reviews

2. The Musical

3. The Films

4. Miscellanea

_____

Reviews

The Guardian (20 November, 1906 - p.7)

PRINCE’S THEATRE

MR. JAMES WELCH IN A NEW FARCE.

     It is said that Mr. Welch is one of the comedians with an ambition to melt or to harrow us, but if it be so he does not make much headway against his destiny. And really those who saw him again last night will hardly be disposed to spare him for the serious drama. Nor can he, as some misjudged authors do, come out anonymously, for his personality is too distinguished for disguise. There is distinction in his acting of these wild farces, one of the wildest of which is Mr. Charles Marlowe’s “When Knights were Bold.” Perhaps the critic, who, after all, is supposed to maintain a sense of responsibility, is at some comparative disadvantage with this type of play, but we did not reason with our enjoyment last evening. Mr. Welch is always good, but from time to time he gets us under complete control, and the most frigid of us relaxes into the joy of laughter. He does it all very easily—too easily, perhaps, for, as the sportsman would say, he is never really extended except in a physical or vocal sense. Sometimes the members of his company laugh at him in the wrong places, but we may believe that he will forgive them.
     Mr. Marlowe’s play is not a very complex affair. His Sir Guy de Vere is a baronet with a reprehensible want of dignity, and the portentous Rowena, a character somewhat heavily handled by the dramatist, spurs him on to impracticable attempts at romance of the upholstery kind. Sir Guy’s violent cold in the head is dramatically justifiable, for a consequence is the enormous doses of hot whisky which send him to a troubled sleep. We have a glimpse into the dark backward of time, and the dream of the second act gives us Sir Guy in a state of prime bedevilment, with a fine set of mediæval surroundings. A young gentleman in evening dress among seneschals, men-at-arms, and such like strikes one as unpromising, and this act did not kindle us immediately. But Mr. Welch prevailed, for he became furiously and unreasonably funny. Even his horseplay had a temperance that gave it smoothness, and his seeming violence was not without a fine precision of effect. The dream is a valuable experience for Sir Guy. He gives his friends the good old times in terms of raving lunacy, and we take it that after this brisk interlude they will be glad to see him conduct his own modest career. But the characters of farce leave us no afterthoughts. They are obliterated by the curtain.
     Mr. Marlowe’s play is a sufficiently ingenious affair, and it provides a great number of scoring points, which is the prime necessity. A dim remnant of critical conscience suggests that Mr. Welch is too good for it, and it would be very interesting to see his admirable talent supported by some of the real stuff of comedy. Such considerations are faint and theoretical, and we have much to be thankful for. The other actors did well or well enough, and a performance of Mr. Brookfield’s little farce, “The Lady Burglar,” helped to put the audience in good humour.

                                                                                                                                          A. N. M.

___

The Times (30 January, 1907 - p.6)

WYNDHAM’S THEATRE.

“WHEN KNIGHTS WERE BOLD.”
An original Farce, in Three Acts,
By CHARLES MARLOWE.

     In a recent book of serene and pensive charm Mr. Henry Newbolt dwelt on the unbroken continuity of past and present, or rather the essential identity of them. He showed how false is the usual contrast of old and new, and that in the days we now call romantic, “when knights were bold,” the same forces were at work as agitate the world of to-day. The curious in comparisons may set against Mr. Newbolt’s development of this theme the very different contrast of old and new which is the root-idea of “Charles Marlowe’s” new farce, When Knights Were Bold. Here a country-house party of to-day are shown transformed into their ancestors of 1196; and the point of the transformation is that everything is changed save the names, so that the retainers of Sir Guy de Vere, under Richard Lion Heart, are quite unable to understand the odd, little, cigarette-smoking figure in evening dress, who is the Sir Guy of seven centuries later. They think him the victim of some magic spell; he thinks they have all dressed up “for a lark.” It is a facile contrast, of course, and an idea that is neither new nor (as Mr. Newbolt’s readers must be persuaded) true; but an idea of any kind in farce is something to be grateful for, and it must be added that, within the limits of uproarious farce, “Charles Marlowe” has worked the idea out skilfully enough. But far more important in this matter than the playwright’s skill is the droll personality of Mr. James Welch. His peevish expostulations with the retainers who persist in addressing him in blank verse, his embarrassment when called upon to don a suit of mail and fight a hostile knight, his misery under the ancient Joe Millerisms of his faithful jester—indeed, all his whims and antics—provide capital fun. If the “modern” scenes of the farce are not so funny, that is because Mr. Welch plays a less important part in them. But one must not be too fastidious over farce, and it was evident enough last night that the audience was on the whole heartily amused.

___

The Guardian (30 January, 1907 - p.7)

WYNDHAM’S THEATRE.

“WHEN KNIGHTS WERE BOLD.”

                                                                                                                      LONDON, TUESDAY.

     Miss Harriet Jay (or Charles Marlowe, as she calls herself, thus making an exception to the universal George or John of lady writers’ pseudonyms) got hold of an amusing farcical idea in “When Knights were Bold.” The nineteenth-century aristocrat (since he played “Mr. Hopkinson” Mr. James Welch’s parts are all aristocrats) who dreams himself into the twelfth century but in his nineteenth-century clothes offers plenty of opportunities for fooling, especially when the mediæval characters of his dream are the ancestors of his actual friends and servants. We have the usual fun with a suit of armour and a hand-to-hand fight, and the usual burlesque of Shaksperean blank verse as the common talk of the dream-characters. The piece recalls some incidents in Beaumont and Fletcher’s “Knight of the Burning Pestle,” which Miss Jay had possibly read or seen. But unfortunately it has none of the character of literary burlesque which supplies most of the humour of the older play. Instead of it Mr. Welch tumbles over his sword and says “Gadzooks” and “Forsooth,” all very loud and a great many times. It is fairly amusing for simple tastes, but it might easily have been made more so.

                                                                                                                                                     P.C.

___

The Observer (3 February, 1907)

“WHEN KNIGHTS WERE BOLD” AT WYNDHAM’S.

     For young gentlemen asked to bring their music with them to evening parties “The Warrior Bold” used some years ago to be a favourite, and indeed an almost inevitable, selection. Many of us when listening to Stephen Adams’s martial strain as carolled forth by the reedy voice of a weedy youth must have been struck by the delightful incongruity of the performance; and it is this incongruity which seems to have suggested to Mr. Charles Marlowe—otherwise Miss Harriet Jay—the motive of her farce “When Knights were Bold.” Take a small, insignificant, red-headed baronet with an ancient lineage and a modern dinner jacket; place him amongst his armoured retainers of the days of old; make him pipe out the ringing defiance of a Crusader with the whine of a Cockney accent; let him protect maidens in distress less acute than his own, fight the good fight in a singularly uncomfortable cuirass, and burlesque in the slangy realism of to-day the formal chivalry of a day gone by. You will then have the notion of the joke of incongruity which at Wyndham’s Theatre now has Welch in Armour for its central figure. It is a capital joke so far as it goes, though it does not go quite far enough to save from tedium a long first act of preparatory explanation and a shorter third one of perfunctory rectification. If, however, Sir Guy de Vere is rather a dull little dog as the host of a noisy house party at Beechwood Towers in 1906, he is such a droll dog on the battlements of Beechwood Towers in 1196 that he seems certain to draw all mirth-loving London to laugh over his comicalities. He is so funny when he is dreaming that one forgives him for being a trifle tiresome when he is awake, and one may certainly do worse than drop in at Wyndham’s for an hour at half-past nine or so just to enjoy Mr. Welch’s vision of mediæval valour without troubling much about either its cause or its effect. He works tremendously hard over it and makes quite the most of possibilities which would have been much greater if Sir Guy’s nightmare had been less consistent in remaining mere horseplay after all. His most useful supporter is Miss Audrey Ford, whose travesty of the high-flown romance of a twentieth century Rowena is very good indeed.

[Mr. James Welch as Sir Guy de Vere from When Knights Were Bold.]

The Times (19 November, 1917 - p.11)

“WHEN KNIGHTS WERE BOLD.”

SUCCESSFUL REVIVAL AT THE
KINGSWAY THEATRE.

BY CHARLES MARLOWE.

     It might perhaps have been thought that When Knights were Bold would hardly have survived Mr. James Welch, so dependent did it seem to be upon his peculiar personality and impish fun. But it is as true on the stage as elsewhere that il n’y a pas d’homme nécessaire, and Mr. Bromley Challenor, though he is not Mr. Welch, has a personality and a fun of his own, enough at any rate to keep the farce moving and the audience laughing. Indeed, the audience on Saturday was so obliging as to laugh loudly not only at the old jokes but at the rough-and-tumble tomfoolery—a circumstance which, however it might puzzle the philosophers from Hobbes to Bergson who have analysed laughter, undoubtedly justified the revival of the farce.

___

The Times (29 June, 1920 - p.14)

SUMMER PLAYS IN BERLIN.

REIGN OF FARCE.
_____

.....     Yet mediocre as is much of the summer fare provided, the opening of the season in Berlin has been greeted with remarkable enthusiasm in many theatres, and numerous triumphs have been scored. They are chiefly the individual triumphs of a few footlight favourites, and it says much for their art and their temperament that they have succeeded in winning over a hypercritical public frequently in spite of the poor standard of play in which they have been employed. Much of the acting is undoubtedly first-rate, and one can see these popular mirth-provokers in a great variety of German and foreign pieces, among which an ever-increasing number of English comedies are being revived.

THE ENGLISH VOGUE.

     For the time has returned when your Berliner, discreetly forgetting that he ever uttered a “Gott strafe England,” washes again with English soap, cultivates an English vocabulary, and laughs again over Arms and the Man, Charley’s Aunt, and The Importance of Being Earnest. German critics never tire of gibing at the type of stage wit they consider specifically English—the humour still mainly connected with the Briton who boxes, chews an enormous pipe, mouths his words, drinks whisky-soda, and makes wagers about everything. But critics are inhuman beings the world over; and the Briton arriving in the German capital to-day may derive a degree of consolation from finding English comedies attracting big and appreciative audiences in half a dozen different playhouses nightly.
     All Berlin is at present tittering over the merry escapades of Sir Guy de Vere in Marlowe’s well-known burlesque, When Knights were Bold (Die goldene Ritterzeit). The audience at the Theater des Westens shakes with laughter from start to finish at the young aristocrat who has nothing of the dignity of the English lord or the romanticism of his ancestors, at his excursion into the Middle Ages, in a 20th-century dinner jacket and with only one cigarette in his case, at his donning a coat-of-mail and duelling with the rival Sir Brian, and, above all, at his return to realities, still declaiming the rhymed nonsense of A.D. 1200, and effectively demonstrating to his vexatious family the difference between the chivalry of the past and the chivalry of the present.
     It would be difficult to imagine a more irresistible performance, for the rôle of Sir Guy is played by Max Pallenberg, the wonderful little Austrian who, with a sudden leap to fame, electrified the first audiences of The Chocolate Soldier, Autumn Manœvres, and a dozen other Viennese successes. Everything funny in Germany to-day seems to centre in Pallenberg. His name is a household word; his imitators and parodists in suburban vaudevilles and provincial cabarets are legion. Funniest of funny men in summer, but a gifted character actor in winter, with the comedian’s proverbial ambition to become a great tragedian and with far more likelihood of realizing his ambition than the majority of comedians so disposed, he is inclined to apologize for his reputation for drollery, and is just now, they say, undecided whether his next part should be Shylock in a Reinhardt representation of The Merchant of Venice or that other Jewish acquaintance of ours, the junior partner in Potash and Perlmutter.

___

The Times (11 December, 1920 - p.8)

“WHEN KNIGHTS WERE BOLD.”

     Revivals of farcical comedies, with thousands and thousands of past performances as their guarantee to amuse, are becoming a popular feature of the Christmas entertainment season. When Knights Were Bold, presented at the Duke of York’s Theatre last night, is not of the oldest vintage, but it has a lengthening record of success, and with a bad cold and the “good old days” as leading themes it seems peculiarly suited to appeal to audiences at this time of the year. Mr. Bromley Challenor is again the Sir Guy de Vere of the play, and is excellent all through. The character rather lends itself to “gagging,” and Mr. Challenor falls before temptation, but without spoiling his effects. Mr. Sydney Paxton and Miss Madge Compton are prominent for good work among the other members of the company.

___

The Times (20 December, 1921 - p.8)

“WHEN KNIGHTS WERE BOLD.”

REVIVAL AT THE KINGSWAY.

     So many modern audiences have seen this play and made their comments upon it that the Lady Rowena, charming though she is, can no longer be allowed a monopoly in romance and miracle. He must face an Elizabethan audience; she—with a blessing upon the change in manners that changed the sex of her impersonator—must win the ear that attended Wycherley and look out an instant across the blur of periwigs that bobbed to the wit of Sheridan. Allow to these ghostly audiences that knowledge of topical allusions which we ourselves possess; preserve in them no strangeness but the strangeness of their own critical spirit. What then would they have said of this play that fills a theatre year by year, of Mr. Bromley Challenor’s untiring energy, of the Jester, the jousting, and the Jew? Would they have sat stolid and amazed? Would they have laughed? Would they have early departed?
     But even for the Lady Rowena’s sake we dare not venture so deeply into the psychology of the drama upon so slight an occasion. Yet, surely those audiences would have in common a particular astonishment which is a key to the play’s popularity in our own day. For the spirit of When Knights Were Bold is the spirit born in certain country house parties in this age of impatience, a spirit that drives men to the desperate expedient of noise, and women, tired of wit, to the sewing up of pyjamas. Extravagance our ancestors knew; romping they knew; laughter they knew better perhaps than we shall ever have time to learn it. But they were strangers to the amusement that we draw so happily from repetitions, from clumsiness for its own sake. They had not the gift of silliness.
     Mr. Challenor is greatly gifted. He makes of Sir Guy de Vere a fool so uproarious that the critical voice of Tudor or Stuart would be lost in the uproar. Having chosen his task, he performs it without faltering, and—greatest gift of all—with a seeming delight that influences the whole cast. Miss Enid Cooper, as the romantic Lady Rowena, would have certainly won the Restoration heart, and Mr. R. Tippett, as Wittle, would have earned a chuckle from the Elizabethans. But the Georgians, whose mentality was of rapiers rather than of wooden swords, would have climbed, perhaps, a little sadly into the chairs that bore them homeward.

___

The Times (19 December, 1923 - p.8)

“WHEN KNIGHTS WERE BOLD.”

REVIVAL AT THE CRITERION.

     When Knights Were Bold seems by now to have become the hardiest of all our “hardy annuals” at Christmas time, and this year Charles Marlowe’s farcical frolic is again as full of life as ever, in spite of its advanced theatrical age. When Mr. James Welch died it was promptly assumed that When Knights Were Bold would die with him, but at once Mr. Bromley Challenor came along, showed that he could worthily wear the preposterous armour that Mr. Welch had discarded, and made a new success of what had seemed to be a played-out part.
     Mr. Challenor is still as buoyant and as humorous as ever, and always manages to suggest that Sir Guy de Vere palls as little on him as it does on his audience. On Monday night, at the Criterion Theatre, the time-honoured jokes and “business” caused as much laughter as ever—and deserved it. Miss Enid Cooper is again an attractive Lady Rowena, and the remainder of the company enter into the fun of the thing with great spirit. It is nearly 17 years since the piece was first produced by Mr. Welch, and nearly half that time since Mr. Challenor stepped into his shoes. This latest revival seems to postpone to a very distant date the time when it will be necessary to leave one letter out of the titles and write as its epitaph “When Knights Were Old.”

___

The Tech (Massachusetts Institute of Technology newspaper Vol. 44, No. 30: 29 May, 1924 - p.4)

DELIGHTFUL COMEDY AT
THE COPLEY THIS WEEK

     Mr. E. E. Clive, playing the part of “Sir Guy De Vere,” the happy and care-free heir to the De Vere estates, is the factor in making the presentation of the charming little farce “When Knights Were Bold” at the Copley Theater this week, one of the most delightful comedies seen in Boston stock productions for quite a while. The play is in three acts and is written by Charles Marlowe.
     Sir Guy has heard so much about the accomplishments of his ancestors during the middle ages that while slightly “under the weather” he dreams that he is master of his estates back in the year 1197. The result is that his friends think him crazy, but incidentally he defeats the intentions of Sir Bryan Ballymote to marry the charming Rowena whom he loves. Mr. Clive is a very versatile actor and provides excellent comedy throughout the play. He is equally pleasing in and out of armor, drunk or sober and carefree or serious.
     Katherine Standing as “Lady Rowena” is a beautiful and charming heroine. The remainder of the cast play their parts well but are necessarily subordinated to Mr. Clive and Miss Standing. This is the last appearance of Henry Jewett’s Repertory Company at the Copley Theater. They will be seen next season at  more commodious quarters in the Arlington Theater in Arlington Square.
                                                                                                                                              C. E. M.

___

The Times (23 December, 1926 - p.8)

NEW SCALA THEATRE.

“WHEN KNIGHTS WERE BOLD.”

     Much play is made during this farce with a jest that Noah is supposed to have uttered during his cruise. One suspects that the general type of humour shown in the piece was already a precious memory to him when he embarked. But broad and venerable fun is not unpardonable at pantomime time; anyhow, the hearty audience at Mr. Bromley Challenor’s latest revival of Sir Guy de Vere’s burlesque adventures in the Middle Age had no complaint to proffer. We would only suggest that it seems hardly needful to underline the author’s points quite so loudly and industriously. For those who instinctively shiver a little when the institutions of chivalry and the shade of Sir Walter are thus handled, the only consolation is that (in England) such mockery usually disguises reverence.
     Apart from Mr. Challenor, whose stream of energy never runs dry, few of the performers have prominent parts. Mr. Stephen Adeson stands out with a genuine, if overdrawn, clerical character study as the Dean, and Mr. Derek Challenor as a credible young valet. Miss Enid Cooper has mainly to look lissom and elegant as the Lady Rowena of the fable, and fails not to do so.

___

The Times (24 December, 1929 - p.10)

THE PLAYHOUSE.

“WHEN KNIGHTS WERE BOLD”
BY CHARLES MARLOWE

     When Knights Were Bold is simple to the point of crudity. It is based on the assumption that a confession of folly is as good as a proof of wisdom and certainly better then any pretence of cleverness. So invincible is such modesty that even when the hero is, in a dream, transported to the 12th century, he is as successful as if he had been the greatest of champions instead of an amiable imbecile of modern times. But in this revival of the play for the Christmas season its weaknesses are scarcely relevant. For the hero confesses his folly and so prepares the way for Mr. Bromley Challenor, who confesses even more clamorously and persistently, and with unflagging vivacity, that his jokes are perfectly foolish.
     He rattles continuously from the beginning of the play to the end, and yet not one word could be called witty. Every speech is the antithesis of an epigram. He is in perpetual and violent movement, but not one action is not utterly absurd. But this, of course, is the point both of his words and of his actions. They are the pure froth of nonsense, but of their kind very good indeed. There is nothing that requires the slightest exercise of the intelligence, and this is apt to be very exhausting.
     But if one does try to think about Mr. Challenor’s art, one becomes exhausted for another reason. Its structure is so curious, the jokes are so intricately pointless and elaborately absurd, that the whole performance appears to be the last and logical development of an entirely artificial tradition, rather than the creation of one man. This, indeed, it probably is, but Mr. Challenor is not encumbered by so much elaboration and artifice. It may be that he only just succeeds in manipulating his impossible medium, and at every point seems about to fall into dull absurdity, the artifice of which is only too obvious. But he contrives a hairbreadth escape, and, chiefly by means of his untiring vitality, just makes the artificial alive. The result seems to be a very formal and sophisticated art, which is an odd thing to be given in the disguise of a very simple play for the festive season.

___

The Times (10 December, 1931 - p.12)

     The hardy Christmas annual, When Knights were Bold, with Mr. Bromley Challenor in his old part of Sir Guy de Vere, will be revived this year at the Duke of York’s Theatre, where it will be presented for matinées only, beginning on Monday, December 21. Mr. Challenor first played Sir Guy de Vere in 1915, and has appeared in the part over 5,000 times.

___

The Times (27 December, 1932 - p.6)

FORTUNE THEATRE

“WHEN KNIGHTS WERE BOLD”
BY CHARLES MARLOWE

     One good reason, among a multitude, for the revival of When Knights Were Bold each Christmas may be found in Sir Guy de Vere’s celebrated cold in the head. To those who have been suffering similarly or feel themselves about to suffer (and these two categories together compose a good majority of any winter audience) there is comfort in Mr. Bromley Challenor’s power between sneezes to wave his handkerchief into a rabbit, and magic in the manner of his falling asleep with his mustard bath untouched, only to awake an hour later without a snuffle.
     The Knight’s Room at Beechwood Towers, where we saw him fall asleep, is, as it happens, a notoriously draughty place, protected from the open air only by a tapestry. It is clear then that Sir Guy de Vere has really taken his stroll back to the year 1196, and that the cure is due to that vigorous half-hour upon the battlements in which he has frightened his retainers (Mr. George Fytche and Mr. Derek Bellairs), suffered his jester, rescued Isaac of York and his daughter, and finally pummelled the heavy-sworded Sir Brian Ballymote into subjection.
     That faint whiff of a chill which so often accompanies the first five minutes of a one-man farce when the one man has not yet appeared has already been long driven out of the auditorium. We have melted to Mr. Challenor as he sprang four-legged for the family tree, warmed with him as he clasped his fur rug for the drive back to the past, and glowed finally when he added up seven knights to make a week. The half-hour upon the battlements has made us almost feverish, not merely because Mr. Challenor is now scarcely ever off the scene, but because his attendants, livelier and richer-spirited in their medieval costumes, surround him and feed him with humour as well as sack. Miss Mary Gannon as the Lady Rowena looks fair enough for any knight to win, Miss Gwen Llewellyn and Miss Phyllis Eck proper objects for a lady’s jealousy. Nor does the warmth of the comedy pass away when Sir Guy’s actions are repeated with variations upon his return in the third act to the present day. That nip from the spirit of the past leaves Mr. Challenor vigorous enough to play the double bass with his two-handed sword for a bow.

___

The Times (23 December, 1933 - p.8)

FORTUNE THEATRE

“WHEN KNIGHTS WERE BOLD”
BY CHARLES MARLOWE

     It is obvious that the small number of really successful farces must have some quality, though it is not always easy to discover, which distinguishes them from those which last a far shorter time. To judge by this example it is the presence of an idea sufficiently robust, and sufficiently clearly presented, to stand any amount of wear and tear. For the dialogue is nothing and in this performance was readily used as a framework for gags and topical interpolations.
     The framework is provided, but a very great deal is left to the ingenuity of the chief actor. Mr. Jackson Hartley took the part in the manner of the music-hall comedian, and in this style he was not unsuccessful.

___

The Times (27 December, 1934 - p.6)

FORTUNE THEATRE

“WHEN KNIGHTS WERE BOLD”

     There are, we are told, only two—or is it three?—stories in the world—all the rest are merely variations of them. The Cinderella story is one, and surely the story of the man who finds himself in the wrong period of time is the other. The opportunities either for profundity or for fun are inexhaustible, and, if Mr. H. G. Wells and Henry James, to take two modern names at random, have done their bit for profundity, Mr. Charles Marlowe strikes year after year a shrewd blow for fun.
     Even if his play was less well-contrived than it is and the proportion of poor jokes to good ones higher, it would still, in all probability, continue to amuse, for there is something intrinsically amusing in the position in which Sir Guy de Vere finds himself. At the beginning of the first act he is in the entrance hall of Beechwood Towers, the second act finds him on the battlements of the same house in the year 1196, and the third act sees him restored to his proper century. Mr. Jackson Hartley, as last year, takes the part made famous by Mr. Bromley Challenor and decorates it with a jovial heartiness, Mr. Frank Foster lives up to his name as Isaac Isaacson, and the rest of the cast enter into the farce with a spirit that suggests they enjoy it almost as much as those on the other side of the footlights.

___

The Times (27 December, 1935 - p.5)

FORTUNE THEATRE

“WHEN KNIGHTS WERE BOLD”
BY CHARLES MARLOWE

     Certainly the moral of When Knights Were Bold would be badly missed by anyone who should draw invidious comparisons with the “good old days” of the play. James Welch and Bromley Challenor—multis ille bonis flebilis—had each his own conception of the part of Sir Guy de Vere, and even of the text of his lines. Mr. Jackson Hartley, valiantly buckling on their armour at short notice, has every right to wear it with a difference. This Sir Guy frankly tumbles through the part in the music-hall manner, or at least in that variant of it which is annually furbished up for pantomime. His colleagues automatically fall into the normal groupings of back-chat comedy, and collaborate in a rollicking, boisterous display which wins continuous laughter from that section of the audience whose recent studies predispose them to enjoy the roughest possible handling of the history book. The knockout blow on Sir Bryan’s helmet is delivered with no less crushing effect than of yore; and Sir Guy’s return to the twentieth century achieves new effects of riotous fun.
     The play, in fact, wears well—so well, that in the midst of recent glosses about sanctions and Belisha beacons one is almost surprised to observe fossil relics of the age of horse transport and luxuriant female tresses. Of course, the part of Rowena is the most conspicuous fossil of all: even in farce not much except a stage convention can be made in 1935 of the ardent young dreamer over Ye Goode Olde Dayes of Chivalrie; but what can be done Miss Joan Panter does with suitably romantic hauteur. The knockabout atmosphere does not prevent Mr. Lionel Gadsden from playing Isaac Isaacson intelligently; Miss Margaret Leona is sympathetic as Sarah; and the three servants are all well played by Mr. Edmund S. Phelps, Mr. Derek Bellairs, and Miss Carol Tennant.

___

The Times (28 December, 1936 - p.15)

FORTUNE THEATRE

“WHEN KNIGHTS WERE BOLD”
BY CHARLES MARLOWE

     “Acts One and Three, Present Day.” But there the programme is wrong. It is true there are the modern evening dresses and a few near-topical jokes, but this is otherwise a period piece in all three acts; and when in the intervals the orchestra jumps forward into jazz it merely underlies the gap between “Present Day” and the opening years of our century, when the play was written. And, since no fashions seem quite so stale as those of the day before yesterday, so “Act Two, Anno Domini 1196,” which is the meat in the sandwich, comes fresher to the palate today than the rest of it. The players themselves are most at home on the battlements of Beechwood Towers in the twelfth century. The white nuns’ robes of the Lady Rowena and her handmaidens set off their good looks to perfection. The male members of the cast are palpably more real, more characteristically themselves, in medieval garb than in the tails or dinner jackets that belong to the present. So with the acting. If the company are adequate in modern dress they are more than adequate in the trappings of chivalry. “Dressing up” is clearly half the battle in playing the fool.
     The old farce, then, became really enjoyable once Sir Guy’s dream had transported him back to the period and into the skin of one of those valiant ancestors whom Lady Rowena was so exasperatingly fond of throwing at him. Mr. Jackson Hartley, though denied the spiritual stimulus of fancy dress till he donned his armour for the combat with Sir Bryan, could none the less have his boisterous way with the audience, now they were warmed to enthusiasm. His part has been a-building for many years now. It is tempting to try to remember—or guess—whether this bit of business is as old as the farce itself, whether that was inserted by James Welch or Bromley Challenor, whether the other is Mr. Hartley’s personal gloss. All three have helped to shape the play, but Mr. Hartley has by this time made it his own, and so effectively that Sir Guy, like Charley’s Aunt, may well continue to please uncritical people through a further eternity of Christmases. Apart from Mr. Hartley, the cast is substantially new since last year. But Mr. Phelps is still playing Barker, butler and seneschal, and looking incredibly like him in both incarnations.

___

The Times (28 December, 1937 - p.7)

FORTUNE THEATRE

“WHEN KNIGHTS WERE BOLD”
BY CHARLES MARLOWE

     It is scarcely possible to understand what will make one or two, among innumerable farces survive for so many years. No doubt after a while they can live by their momentum alone, but even so it is a great mystery. As time goes on they have almost everything against them; the tempo of humour alters and quickens, a social milieu that once seemed exhilarating grows frowzy and down-at-heel, and no topical allusions—there are a good many in this production—can alter the unimaginable touch of time. But here it is at least possible to perceive some content in the farce which may have a permanent interest; there is a certain genuine criticism of life, crude enough, but quite sensible and not ungenerous, in this contrast between the present and the past. And the very simplicity of its statement at any rate ensures that the point of the play will not be missed. Moreover, the bathos of modern manners introduced among the grandeurs—here it is explicitly stated that every one in the thirteenth century spoke in blank verse—is a mysteriously lasting joke.
     Mr. William Daunt, in the part of Sir Guy de Vere, carries the main burden of the play with untiring energy and considerable resource. It is a perfectly flat character, but vitality can do much to compensate for the absence of life. Miss Furley takes the part of the romantic heroine with charm and restraint.

The Musical

The Times (2 July, 1943 - p.6)

PICCADILLY THEATRE

“THE KNIGHT WAS BOLD”
BY HARRIET JAY, EMILE LITTLER, AND
THOMAS BROWNE
MUSIC BY HARRY PARR DAVIES

     It would be wise not to bring to this musical version of When Knights Were Bold any hopes of knowing again the old helpless laughter of years ago. Decked out with a dozen dancers, the daughters of the Dean, and more than a dozen songs, of which “Whoopsy Diddly Dum de Dee” is incomparably the best, the fable is no longer capable of creating the cumulative fun of first-rate farce. But it makes a pleasant musical comedy.
     Mr. Sonnie Hale is Sir Guy de Vere, and no comedian has ever worked harder. Once he has dreamed himself back into the Middle Ages he leaves the stage only once or twice, and seldom drops into a walk. He succeeds in making the mock heroic amusing. Miss Adèle Dixon lends her charming dignity to the bloodthirsty Lady Rowena and produces her voice as conscientiously and as pleasantly as ever. Miss Enid Stamp-Taylor puts on the tuft-hunting American lady the same bold Edwardian sparkle that he put on a similar character in The Belle of New York. The butler is played uncommonly well by Mr. Claud Allister. Mr. Davies has written some catchy music; the spectacle is well devised; and the evening passes cheerfully.

_____

[The musical version of When Knights Were Bold was not a success. According to the page on Harry Parr Davies on the Robert Farnon Society website:

“In 1943 although The Knight was Bold had Sonnie Hale as the titled aristocrat dreaming he was back in the Middle Ages, after successfully touring the provinces under the title Kiss the Girls, it became a West End flop and left the Piccadilly Theatre after only 10 performances.”

As well as writing several considerably more successful musicals, Harry Parr Davies also wrote songs for Gracie Fields (including “Sing As We Go” and “Wish Me Luck as you wave me goodbye”) and George Formby - so the man has a lot to answer for. Further information about Harry Parr Davies is available on the New Songs For Old site, which has the following about The Knight Was Bold:

“Sonnie Hale, Adele Dixon and Frances L. Sullivan were the stars of this comedy musical with a plotline not far removed from the American extravaganza ‘A Yankee At The Court of King Arthur’. It was the tale of an impecunious Knight of theRealm (Sonnie Hale) who dreams he is back in the middle ages — with all the likely consequences. The songs included: ‘I Go On My Whistling Way’, ‘Where the Rainbow Ends’, ‘Whoopee Diddle de Dum de Dum’. It opened at the Piccadilly Theatre on the 1st July, 1943 with little success. 10 performances later, it closed.”

Fired by a perfectly understandable desire to find out whether the best song in the show (according to the Times’ review) was called “Whoopsy Diddly Dum de Dee” or “Whoopee Diddle de Dum de Dum”, I managed to track down a programme for the show on Rob Wilton’s site (no relation...I asked). It’s “Whoopsy Diddly Dum de Dee”, by the way, and Frances (or Francis) L. Sullivan is not mentioned in the cast list. But, don’t take my word for it - the full programme is available below (including instructions for what to do in case of an air raid.

The Knight Was Bold - Programme

Finally, I came across the following review of another musical version of the play from 1954:

The Guardian (23 December, 1954 - p.3)

“WHEN KNIGHTS WERE BOLD”—TO MUSIC

Manchester Playhouse

     Having already given us, in the recent season, a menu of good plays unusually well acted, the Salisbury Arts Theatre company at the Playhouse have given way to the heavy compulsion of the Christmas spirit with that hugely facetious old thing “When Knights Were Bold” by Charles Marlowe. It was first produced in 1906 and it combines those twin delights of that artistically sterile period, evening dress and medieval costume (Avaunt there, Sir Guy!)—into a mixture which has the sort of flavour of fizzy lemonade, certainly no stronger vintage. The company, with their usual versatility, manage the music and lyrics which they have added to it very well; they give it a choral harmony and a certain charm. They cannot do very much with the old-fashioned farce which includes too many weak-kneed verbal puns and rather a surfeit of comic business. Given a larger and more responsive audience than last night, they might warm it into life. But it is a good case in point for anyone who wants to question this Christmas convention. It is rather over the heads of the children, and a little too fizzy for those grown-ups who prefer the Playhouse’s higher quality theatre.

                                                                                                                                                     R. P.   ]

[Advert for The Knight Was Bold from The Times (5 July, 1943 - p.8)]

_____

The Films

When Knights Were Bold was filmed three times during the silent era and once as a ‘talkie’. The following information is taken from IMDB and the British Film Institute:

WHEN KNIGHTS WERE BOLD (1916 - UK)
Script by Frank Miller, directed by Maurice Elvey
Produced by London Film Company
Cast:
James Welch            Sir Guy de Vere
Janet Ross               Lady Rowena
Gerald Ames            Sir Brian Ballymote
Hayford Hobbs        Widdicombe
Gwynne Herbert      Isaacson
Philip Hewland         Barker
Bert Wynne             Whittle
Edna Maude            Aunt Thornridge
Marjorie Day          The Maid
Douglas Munro
BFI synopsis: “ Comedy in which commoner inherits title and wins Lady after a dream set in medieval times.”

IL CAVALIERE DEL SILENZIO (1916 - Italy)
Directed by Oreste Visalli
Produced by Aquila Films
Cast:
Giulio Del Torre
Signor De Mori
Jeanne Nolly
Leo Ragusi
Claudia Zambuto
Gero Zambuto
 

WHEN KNIGHTS WERE BOLD (1929 - UK)
Directed by Tim Whelan
Produced by British and Dominions Film Corporation
Cast:
Nelson Keys                    Sir Guy de Vere
Miriam Seegar                 Lady Rowena
Eric Bransby Williams     Sir Brian Ballymore
Wellington Briggs            Widdicombe
Lena Halliday                   Lady Walgrave
Martin Adeson                 Barker
Hal Gordon                      Whittle
Edith Kingdon                  Aunt Thornridge
E.L. Frewyn                      Dean
Fanny Wright
(The BFI has E. E. Frewen as the Dean.)

Neither the IMDB or the BFI database have a writer’s credit for the 1929 silent version, but judging by the  cast list, this has to be a second version of the ‘Charles Marlowe’ play. The British and Dominions Film Corporation was set up by Herbert Wilcox in 1928 (the IMDB credits him as Producer) and it was Wilcox who went on to produce the 1936 musical version.

WHEN KNIGHTS WERE BOLD (1936 - UK)
Script by Douglas Furber and Austin Parker, directed by Jack Raymond
Musical Numbers by Harry Perritt, George Windeatt, Maurice Sigler, Al Goodhart, Al Hoffman
Cinematographer: Freddie Young
Produced by Capitol Film Corporation
Cast:
Jack Buchanan            Sir Guy De Vere
Fay Wray                     Lady Rowena
Garry Marsh               Brian Ballymote
Kate Cutler                 Aunt Agatha
Martita Hunt              Aunt Esther
Robert Horton            Cousin Bertie
Aubrey Mather           The Canon
Aubrey Fitzgerald       Barker, the butler
Robert Nainby            Whittle, the 'boy'
Moore Marriott          The Tramp
Charles Paton             The Mayor
Barry Fitzgerald
Terry-Thomas
Michael Wilding
Runtime: 76 min
BFI synopsis: “Sir Guy de Vere inherits his father’s estate only to be greeted with hostility from the rest of the family when he goes to live in the family's ancestral home.”

Review from The Times (24 February, 1936 - p.10)

LONDON PAVILION
     When Knights Were Bold.—The trouble with the films in which Mr. Jack Buchanan appears is that they have no imaginative ambitions. It is obvious that in this musical version of the farce made famous by the late Mr. Bromley Challenor a lot of time and money have been spent on the dream sequences which show Sir Guy de Vere (Mr. Buchanan) back in the Middle Ages, but the only reflection they leave is that they are allowed to go on far too long and that if they are intended as satire on such films as The Crusaders they should have more point and venom. Lack of imagination again, and it is a thousand pities that Mr. Buchanan, who potentially has so much to give to light comedy, is content with films worthy of a player with a quarter of his talents. There are moments, especially at the beginning, as Sir Guy is finding exactly how difficult and feudal his relations can be, when the film breaks into something like freshness and invention—there is one good song which finished disappointingly soon. Miss Fay Wray takes the part of the Lady Rowena with a surprising and triumphant seriousness, but it is not enough, and When Knights Were Bold still leaves Mr. Buchanan in search of his film.

___

Rod Crawford gives the following plot summary on IMDB:
“Happy-go-lucky soldier Guy De Vere must leave India and return to the family seat at Little Twittering, for he has inherited the family title. Sir Guy finds all his relatives to be frozen stuffed shirts... except lovely cousin Rowena, who is mad about knighthood and chivalry. Struck in the head by a falling suit of armor, Guy dreams he and Rowena are back in 1400, as the unabashed farce continues...”

And the fantasy element gets it a review by Dave Sindelar on the Scifilm site:
“The heir to an ancestral home returns from India to meet his family for the first time. He discovers they are all stiff and joyless, but he falls for his cousin, the Lady Rowena.You know, some of these movies really do leave me scratching my head when I try to decide whether they rightfully belong in the fantastic movie genres or not, and this is one of them. The basic plot of this musical-comedy certainly doesn't give any indication of having a fantastic premise, and for most of the movie I was wondering what would come up. However, the last third of the movie consists of a dream sequence in which our hero ends up in the middle ages and must defend the castle against an onslaught of invaders. It's here that the comedy really takes an anarchic turn, and the question becomes whether outrageous anarchic comedy qualifies as fantastic cinema. However, scenes in which the knights come riding in on bizarre bicycles, and a series of gags involving magnets both push this into the realm of fantasy, so I guess it does qualify to some extent. The movie itself is quite amusing and very British. Barry Fitzgerald and Terry-Thomas both appear somewhere in this movie, though I wouldn't be able to point them out.”

Finally, in Fay Wray’s autobiography, “On The Other Hand”, the film is mentioned in the following passage:

“     A second film with Jack Buchanan was produced by Herbert Wilcox, who arranged the very best contract I ever had. It was totally uncomplicated, not a ‘whereas’ or ‘in the event’ or any kind of legal phrasing. All on one page, it stipulated salary and billing only. Jack, of course, was to have billing over me. When the film, When Knights Were Bold, was finished and was about to be shown in Piccadilly Circus, Vincent Sheehan had come to town. He and John and I were en route to dinner at Boulestin’s in the Strand. I saw workmen putting up lights on the huge marquee of the theater, my name on top of everything. I knew that was wrong but I enjoyed my dinner thoroughly. I had never had a French red wine before: Nuit Saint George. A lovely nuit for me! By the time we passed the theater on our return taxi ride, my lovely nuit was over. Jack Buchanan’s name was up there where mine had been. I wondered if he, too, might have been dining in the Strand that night!”

[1936 Swedish poster for “Bland Balde Riddersman”
(“When Knights Were Bold”), designed by Gosta Aberg (1905-1981).]

_____

Miscellanea

[Three obituaries and a court case]

The Times (12 April, 1917 - p.9)

MR. JAMES WELCH.

     The death has occurred of Mr. James Welch, the actor, who achieved such a great success in When Knights were Bold. He had been ill for some weeks and had not been able to appear on the stage for some time past.
     The son of a chartered accountant of Liverpool, Mr. Welch began with amateur acting in his native town, and used to relate with glee that the first “line” he spoke on any stage was “This ’ere pie is a pie as is a pie, is this ’ere pie.” He came to London towards the end of the eighteen-eighties, about the same time as his brother-in-law, Mr. Richard Le Gallienne; and while the young poet found occupation as secretary to Wilson Barrett, the young actor became a member of his company. By the early ’nineties Mr. Welch had made a reputation as one of the most brilliant young players on the London stage, whether in comedy or in pathetic characters. He was one of those who took part in the earliest performances of Mr. Bernard Shaw’s plays, appearing as Lickcheese in Widowers’ Houses, on its first production in 1892, and as Petkoff in Arms and the Man at the Avenue in 1894. He was among the early Ibsenites also, taking the part of Hovstad in the first London production of An Enemy of the People in 1893. For the most part comedy claimed him, because he was extraordinarily funny; but one or two performances about that period showed him equally skilled in pathetic parts. A well-read man, he had more friends in those days (the days of “The Yellow Book”) among poets and novelists than among players; and his home in Gray’s Inn was a favourite resort with many of the “coming” men and women of the time. Later, he devoted himself almost entirely to farce, and the closing years of his life, much broken by the failing of health that had never been robust and needed particular care, were chiefly occupied with performances here, there, and everywhere of When Knights were Bold or The New Clown. If the promise of his early maturity was not fulfilled, he will be gratefully remembered as one of the greatest laughter-makers of his time.

___

The Times (18 December, 1935 - p.10)

DEATH OF MR. BROMLEY CHALLENOR

SIR GUY DE VERE, OF “WHEN KNIGHTS WERE BOLD”

     Mr. Bromley Challenor, the actor, died at the Fortune Theatre, yesterday, at the age of 51, while rehearsing in When Knights Were Bold, the play which made him famous. He stepped from the stage after the first act and collapsed.
     Mrs. Challenor, who acts under the name of Miss Marjorie Bellairs, had taken her call for the second act, and she was on the stage when her husband was dying. After a doctor had been called, she was told of her husband’s death.
     It was stated yesterday that the play would go on, as that would have been Mr. Challenor’s wish.
     James Bromley Challenor, who was born at Macclesfield on September 3, 1884, was educated privately at Hanley, Oxford, and Liverpool. After studying for the medical profession he tried journalism, but his taste was for the theatre, and he made his first appearance on the stage in 1906 at Coatbridge in The Hand of Justice. In 1915 he purchased the rights of When Knights Were Bold, and, as the inimitable Sir Guy De Vere, he soon became known throughout the country, where he went on tour. In 1917 he began the first of a long series of Christmas revivals of the play at the Kingsway Theatre. As long ago as 1920 he stated that he had worn his suit of armour over 2,000 times.
     Bromley Challenor appeared in many light plays at the Kingsway Theatre, the Scala, the Adelphi, and the Criterion, as well as on several tours. He played the Hon. Bertie Stuart in Society Ltd. at the Court Theatre in 1923, Tom Squire in The Audacious Mr. Squire, and Amos Bloodgood in Are You a Mason? During 1928 he toured in the popular success The Punch Bowl, and more recently in Gentlemen Prefer Crooks. He was also part author with Mr. Wilfrid Stephens of The Yellow Cockade, which ran at the Scala in 1920. Mr. Challenor embarked on several managerial ventures, and from time to time suffered heavy losses owing to temporary theatrical slumps. In 1930 he lost over £1,000 in connexion with the conversion of a parish hall in Kensington into a “Playgoers Theatre.”
     He married Emily Reid Woodward, professionally known on the stage, as stated above, as Marjorie Bellairs.

___

[Although James Welch and Bromley Challenor were the two actors most identified with the role of Sir Guy de Vere, the rave review for Max Pallenberg in the Berlin production of When Knights Were Bold (see above) sparked my curiosity.]

The Times (27 June, 1934 - p.11)

HERR MAX PALLENBERG

COMEDIAN IN FARCE AND OPERETTA

     Herr Max Pallenberg, whose death in an aeroplane accident near Karlsbad is reported on another page, was an actor long famous on the German stage.
     He was one of that large company of persons distinguished in the theatre who received their theatrical training in the stimulating atmosphere of Vienna at the turn of the century; came to Germany and combined to bring international renown to the Berlin stage in the years immediately before and after the War; and have now disappeared from Germany as completely as last year’s snows, usually because they or their wives had Jewish blood. Among them are Herr Max Reinhardt, Fräulein Elizabeth Bergner, and Pallenberg’s wife, the revue and operetta actress Fritzi Massary.
     Pallenberg was born in Vienna in 1877. He came by way of a small touring company to the Deutsches Volkstheater in Vienna, and subsequently to Berlin and Reinhardt, who at that time was developing ideas which, whatever may be thought of them now, then invigorated and stimulated theatrical methods in many countries. Pallenberg in his time had played many parts, and all with distinction. Older playgoers remember with affection his rendering of such characters as Argan in the Malade Imaginaire, but to the general public he was above all an inimitable comedian in farce and operetta. With his fellow-players he was sometimes less popular than with the public, and that was due to a habit of unbridled improvization which, though dutiful audiences often laughed uproariously, did not do justice to himself, harmed the play, and sometimes led an exasperated partner to ask audibly, “Shall we go on with the play now?”

_____

[As far as I can ascertain Harriett Jay only produced two works following the death of Robert Buchanan: the biography of her brother-in-law and When Knights Were Bold. There is very little information available about her financial situation during the years after Buchanan’s death. The reports of the bankruptcy proceedings of 1894 give some solid figures and mark an end to the period of Buchanan’s financial success. Although he continued to write - three books of poetry, nine novels and six plays (in collaboration with Harriett Jay) - nothing achieved any great popular success. When he became ill in the spring of 1899 he made an application to the Royal Literary Fund for a grant of £150. There was another application for the same amount made in November 1900, following the debilitating stroke which made him almost comatose for the final eight months of his life. During this period, a public fund was organised to raise money for his care. At his death in 1901, £150 remained in the fund which was given to Harriett Jay. In June 1905, Harriett Jay made an application to the Royal Literary fund on her own behalf for a grant of £100. Of course, one should not speculate too much with just a handful of facts to go on, but I do find it gratifying that rather than end her days in the shadow of Buchanan’s dwindling reputation, Harriett Jay achieved her greatest success with When Knights Were Bold on her own (or, it has to be said, with a little inspiration from Mark Twain) and ended her days with the play still being performed on a regular basis. The following court case from 1917, following the death of James Welch, gives a few more solid figures.]

The Times (21 July, 1917 - p.4)

HIGH COURT OF JUSTICE.
CHANCERY DIVISION.

“WHEN KNIGHTS WERE BOLD”:
PERFORMING RIGHTS.

JAY v. WELCH.
(Before MR. JUSTICE ASTBURY.)

     The question who was entitled to the performing rights in When Knights were Bold on the death of Mr. James Welch in April last came before the Court to-day. On July 3 Miss Harriet Jay, who wrote the play some time before 1901, and who is also the author of “The Life of Robert Buchanan,” issued a writ against Mrs. Amy Hannah Welch, the widow and administratrix of the estate of her husband, Mr. James Welch, asking the Court to declare that an agreement in writing dated September 9, 1905, between the plaintiff and Mr. James Welch as to the performing rights of a play therein called Good Old Times, but now called When Knights were Bold, was an agreement personal to Mr. James Welch, and that it ceased to be operative on his death. The plaintiff also asked for an injunction restraining the widow, as administratrix, from producing or performing or licensing the performance of the play or any adaptation or translation thereof.
     Under the agreement of September 9, 1905, Harriet Jay granted to Mr. James Welch the sole right to perform the play in any place or country whatever, and also the sole right to license the performance of any adaptation or translation of it, and Mr. James Welch was to be at liberty to make any reasonable alteration in the play for the production and performance of it. Miss Harriet Jay was to receive for every performance in any West-end London theatre three guineas, and one pound ten shillings for each performance in any provincial town and London suburban theatre specified in a schedule to the agreement, and £1 for every performance in any other provincial town in Great Britain.
     Miss Jay had made up her mind from the first that the success of the play depended to a great extent on the production of it with Mr. James Welch in the leading part, and she withheld the production of it for nearly four years so that he might appear in it.
     The play was first produced in September, 1906, under the agreement, with Mr. Welch in the leading part, and it proved to be very successful. So favourable to Mr. Welch were the terms arranged by the agreement that his profit from the play, apart from his salary as actor, amounted to £20,000.
     In these circumstances Miss Jay contended that the contract in 1905 was with Mr. James Welch personally, and that he was the only person able to carry out the terms of that contract, which, therefore, could not be extended beyond his lifetime.
     To-day the plaintiff, Miss Jay, asked the Court to grant an injunction to restrain the defendant, as administratrix of the estate of Mr. James Welch, until the trial of the action, from producing or performing or licensing the play or any adaptation or translation thereof. Until his last illness the leading part in the play was always performed by Mr. Welch himself, except in cases in which he could not perform personally, but in every case (whether he took the leading part or not) the company was selected and rehearsed by him personally. Since the time when the state of his health precluded Mr. Welch from acting in the play his part had been taken by a Mr. Challenor under arrangement which, as between Mr. Welch and Miss Jay, was verbal. By that agreement Mr. Welch was entitled to receive 5 per cent. of the gross takings, and Miss Jay was entitled to receive in turn from Mr. Welch, instead of any fees payable under the agreement made in 1905, 40 per cent. of the 5 per cent. to be received by him.
     It had been agreed that this motion by the plaintiff for an injunction should be treated as the trial of the action, but in the result it was arranged that the motion should stand over for a week, and that during that time the arrangement with Mr. Challenor should continue.
     Mr. Coldridge, K.C., and Mr. J. K. Young appeared for the plai