2-798-572 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

Scene from "Harlequin £.S.D", at the Surrey Theatre, 1844. London stage production. 'This house opened with, as the bill says, a piece founded on Shakespeare's "Seven Ages of Man, or the End of Crime"; and, as far as we were able to judge from the usual confusion of a boxing-night, was tolerably successful; and the great feature of the evening, the pantomime, from the pen of the indefatigable Nelson Lee...is very good, and will, no doubt, be as remunerating to the lessee as the one of last year...Mr. W. H. Harvey, as Harlequin, Mr. T. Ridgway, as Clown, Mr. H. Corri, as Pantaloon, Miss Slaiter, as Columbine, sustained their parts admirably...Herr Von Joel considerably added to the evening's amusement, by giving his extraordinary Imitations of Beasts, Birds, &c. The house was literally crammed'. From "Illustrated London News", 1844, Vol V.