Tuning in…
Tuning in…
Castaway
1 appearance
Theatre actor who earned the title 'The King of Melodrama' in his long career.
On the island
Eight records
Seal of Silence
The transcript mentions a series of lurid melodramas including 'Seal of Silence', but no specific recording is given for this disc. Assuming placeholder; no structured data available.
Record of Men: A Warning to Women
Another lurid melodrama mentioned; no specific recording details.
Maria Marten; or, The Murder in the Red BarnFavourite
The transcript repeatedly mentions 'Maria Martin' and 'mariah martin', which is clearly the classic melodrama 'Maria Marten; or, The Murder in the Red Barn'. This is the key play he revived.
The keepsakes
The book
The luxury
In conversation
Presenter asks
0:26How many murders do you think you have committed in your career?
Thousands and thousands and thousands. It's a bit certain. There was a glorious time when I once committed fourteen murders every every day, quite for a number of weeks.
Presenter asks
0:50How did you start in the theatre? How did it all begin?
Well, very early, when I was at school, when I was nine and a half, we always did a Shakespearean play every year and I was cost to play Sinner, a conspirator. Julius Caesar. Just before the production at the Art Gallery Theatre, Newcastle, the boy that was playing Casca was taken ill. As I happen to know the part I was shoved in for it. I must have looked very funny, too, with my thin, long shanks and a pair of baggy white tights.
Presenter asks
1:21What was your first professional job?
Then I joined the Carn Comedy Company, and believe me, comedy was the real name for it. We did four or five plays every week, and my salary was 15 shillings. How old were you, then? About 16 and a half. I never got the 15 shillings. The most I ever got was seven and ninepence. Eventually, we reached Morpeth, and the ghost didn't walk at all that weekend, so I decided that I'd walk back home to Tynemouth, where my pupil lived. Wasn't very far, about seventeen odd miles. Quite a tidy step. Oh yes, but I timed my arrival perfectly. I arrived just in time for lunch.
Presenter asks
2:40What sort of plays did you do in the old fit-up storage?
Of all sorts, you know. Lady Audley's Secret, East Lynn, Jim the Penman, Bunch of violets. If we were ever short of a play, we got hold of a bestseller and just took the dialogue out of [it and] maxed up puffet for ourselves.
Presenter asks
3:55When was it, Todd, that you started on your own in management, playing those old melodramas, Maria Martin, Sweeney Todd, made them all famous again?
When I came out of the army after the First World War, I went down to the Elephant Castle. Had a wonderful three years and nine months there, doing a different drama every week, culminating, as you know, in the revival of Mariah Martin, which achieved the distinction of running for twenty-six weeks. Good capacity business. It was wonderful. Everybody wanted to come and see it. Especially the pros, where we couldn't get them in, so we ran a midnight batony for them. That was great fun.
“I must have looked very funny, too, with my thin, long shanks and a pair of baggy white tights.”
“I never got the 15 shillings. The most I ever got was seven and ninepence.”
“Landladies were very accommodating. We used to get quite a nice bed and a jolly good breakfast before we left in the morning for a shilling.”
“Good Lord, we never paid fees. That was an unknown quantity.”
“When I got stuck, they brought me on a letter and told me what to do.”
“He told me the next morning he'd taken seventeen pounds after the Matney, and coffee and sandwiches.”