Francis Burnand
Encyclopedia
English people
The English are a nation and ethnic group native to England, who speak English. The English identity is of early mediaeval origin, when they were known in Old English as the Anglecynn. England is now a country of the United Kingdom, and the majority of English people in England are British Citizens...
comic writer and dramatist.
Burnand was a contributor to Punch
Punch (magazine)
Punch, or the London Charivari was a British weekly magazine of humour and satire established in 1841 by Henry Mayhew and engraver Ebenezer Landells. Historically, it was most influential in the 1840s and 50s, when it helped to coin the term "cartoon" in its modern sense as a humorous illustration...
for 45 years and its editor from 1880 until 1906. He was also a prolific humorist and writer, creating almost 200 burlesques, farces, pantomimes and other works. He was knighted in 1902 for his work on Punch.
Life and career
Burnand was born in London, England, the son of Francis Burnand, a London stockbroker and his first wife Emma Cowley (a descendant of poet and dramatist Hannah CowleyHannah Cowley
Hannah Cowley was an English dramatist and poet. Although Cowley’s plays and poetry did not enjoy wide popularity after the nineteenth century, critic Melinda Finberg rates Cowley as “one of the foremost playwrights of the late eighteenth century” whose “skill in writing fluid, sparkling dialogue...
), who died when young Francis was only eight years old. Burnand studied at Eton
Eton College
Eton College, often referred to simply as Eton, is a British independent school for boys aged 13 to 18. It was founded in 1440 by King Henry VI as "The King's College of Our Lady of Eton besides Wyndsor"....
and Trinity College, Cambridge
Trinity College, Cambridge
Trinity College is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge. Trinity has more members than any other college in Cambridge or Oxford, with around 700 undergraduates, 430 graduates, and over 170 Fellows...
, graduating in 1858. There he founded the Amateur Dramatic Club
Cambridge University Amateur Dramatic Club
Founded in 1855, the Amateur Dramatic Club is the oldest University dramatic society in England - and the largest dramatic society in Cambridge....
in 1855, its first dramatic club. He studied to become a priest, converting to Roman Catholicism, which angered his father, who withdrew support. Burnand eventually decided that he had no vocation for the priesthood, and his father then supported his study of law. He practised as an attorney for a short time and later managed a theatre, but his greater interest lay in writing for the stage. He became a prolific dramatist, writing nearly 200 comedies and burlesques.
Punch (magazine)
Punch, or the London Charivari was a British weekly magazine of humour and satire established in 1841 by Henry Mayhew and engraver Ebenezer Landells. Historically, it was most influential in the 1840s and 50s, when it helped to coin the term "cartoon" in its modern sense as a humorous illustration...
, one or two of which were published. In the early 1860s, he edited the journal The Glow-Worm. He then joined the staff of Fun
Fun (magazine)
Fun was a Victorian weekly magazine, first published on 21 September 1861. The magazine was founded by the actor and playwright H. J. Byron in competition with Punch magazine.-Description:...
, but when that magazine rejected his proposed 1863 literary burlesque of serialised as Mokeanna, or the White Witness, he moved to Punch. A later literary burlesque published in Punch was Strapmore, parodying Ouida's Strathmore. He contributed to Punch for 45 years, serving as its editor for 26 years. He took over the editor job from Tom Taylor
Tom Taylor
Tom Taylor was an English dramatist, critic, biographer, public servant, and editor of Punch magazine...
in 1880 and retired in 1906 when he was succeeded by Sir Owen Seaman
Owen Seaman
Sir Owen Seaman, 1st Baronet was a British writer, journalist and poet. He is best known as editor of Punch, from 1906 to 1932.-Biography:...
.
Burnand banned Punchs early attacks on Catholicism, but he was unable to remove antisemitic jokes. Burnand's later contributions became increasingly wordy and anecdotal, relying on far-fetched puns, but he was a good judge of talent, and under him the paper prospered. In 1888, he acted as publisher of The Diary of a Nobody by George Grossmith
George Grossmith
George Grossmith was an English comedian, writer, composer, actor, and singer. His performing career spanned more than four decades...
and his brother Weedon Grossmith
Weedon Grossmith
Walter Weedon Grossmith , better known as Weedon Grossmith, was an English writer, painter, actor and playwright, best known as co-author of The Diary of a Nobody with his famous brother, music hall comedian and Gilbert and Sullivan star, George Grossmith...
, which is still in print.
In 1860, Burnand married Cecilia Victoria Ranoe (1841–1870), an actress. The couple produced five sons and two daughters. In 1874, he then married her sister, Rosina Payson Jones (d. 1924), a widow who had also been an actress under the name Rosina Ranoe. She had appeared in An Old Score
An Old Score
An Old Score is an 1869 three-act comedy-drama written by English dramatist W. S. Gilbert based partly on his 1867 short story, Diamonds, and partly on episodes in the lives of William Dargan, an Irish engineer and railway contractor, and John Sadleir, a banker who committed suicide. It was...
by W. S. Gilbert
W. S. Gilbert
Sir William Schwenck Gilbert was an English dramatist, librettist, poet and illustrator best known for his fourteen comic operas produced in collaboration with the composer Sir Arthur Sullivan, of which the most famous include H.M.S...
. They had two sons and four daughters. Burnand lived for much of his life in Ramsgate
Ramsgate
Ramsgate is a seaside town in the district of Thanet in east Kent, England. It was one of the great English seaside towns of the 19th century and is a member of the ancient confederation of Cinque Ports. It has a population of around 40,000. Ramsgate's main attraction is its coastline and its main...
and was a member of the Garrick Club in London.
After a winter of bronchitis, Burnand died in 1917 at his home in Ramsgate
Ramsgate
Ramsgate is a seaside town in the district of Thanet in east Kent, England. It was one of the great English seaside towns of the 19th century and is a member of the ancient confederation of Cinque Ports. It has a population of around 40,000. Ramsgate's main attraction is its coastline and its main...
, Kent
Kent
Kent is a county in southeast England, and is one of the home counties. It borders East Sussex, Surrey and Greater London and has a defined boundary with Essex in the middle of the Thames Estuary. The ceremonial county boundaries of Kent include the shire county of Kent and the unitary borough of...
, at the age of 80. He was buried in the cemetery at St Augustine's Abbey church in Ramsgate.
Early stage works
Opéra bouffe
Opéra bouffe is a genre of late 19th-century French operetta, closely associated with Jacques Offenbach, who produced many of them at the Théâtre des Bouffes-Parisiens that gave its name to the form....
, Windsor Castle (1865), with music by Frank Musgrave, and punny burlesques, including the very successful The Latest Edition of Black Eyed Susan (which played for 800 performances in London in seasons from 1866 into the 1870s and was revived and toured extensively) and Helen, or, Taken from the Greek, in 1866. Burnand also translated several of Jacques Offenbach
Jacques Offenbach
Jacques Offenbach was a Prussian-born French composer, cellist and impresario. He is remembered for his nearly 100 operettas of the 1850s–1870s and his uncompleted opera The Tales of Hoffmann. He was a powerful influence on later composers of the operetta genre, particularly Johann Strauss, Jr....
's early hits for the London stage.
In 1866, Burnand wrote the comic opera
Comic opera
Comic opera denotes a sung dramatic work of a light or comic nature, usually with a happy ending.Forms of comic opera first developed in late 17th-century Italy. By the 1730s, a new operatic genre, opera buffa, emerged as an alternative to opera seria...
Cox and Box
Cox and Box
Cox and Box; or, The Long-Lost Brothers, is a one-act comic opera with a libretto by F. C. Burnand and music by Arthur Sullivan, based on the 1847 farce Box and Cox by John Maddison Morton. It was Sullivan's first successful comic opera. The story concerns a landlord who lets a room to two...
, collaborating with Arthur Sullivan
Arthur Sullivan
Sir Arthur Seymour Sullivan MVO was an English composer of Irish and Italian ancestry. He is best known for his series of 14 operatic collaborations with the dramatist W. S. Gilbert, including such enduring works as H.M.S. Pinafore, The Pirates of Penzance and The Mikado...
. The opera was based on the farce
Farce
In theatre, a farce is a comedy which aims at entertaining the audience by means of unlikely, extravagant, and improbable situations, disguise and mistaken identity, verbal humour of varying degrees of sophistication, which may include word play, and a fast-paced plot whose speed usually increases,...
Box and Cox
Box and Cox
Box and Cox is a one act farce by John Maddison Morton. It is based on a French one-act vaudeville, Frisette, which had been produced in Paris in 1846....
, written by John Maddison Morton
John Maddison Morton
John Maddison Morton was an English playwright who specialized in one-act farces. His most famous farce was Box and Cox . He also wrote comic dramas, pantomimes and other theatrical pieces.-Biography:...
. Cox and Box became a hit and was frequently revived, later becoming a staple companion piece for the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company
D'Oyly Carte Opera Company
The D'Oyly Carte Opera Company was a professional light opera company that staged Gilbert and Sullivan's Savoy operas. The company performed nearly year-round in the UK and sometimes toured in Europe, North America and elsewhere, from the 1870s until it closed in 1982. It was revived in 1988 and...
and retaining popularity today. Its initial success encouraged its authors to write the two-act opera, The Contrabandista
The Contrabandista
The Contrabandista, or The Law of the Ladrones, is a two-act comic opera by Arthur Sullivan and F. C. Burnand. It premiered at St. George's Hall, in London, on 18 December 1867 under the management of Thomas German Reed, for a run of 72 performances. There were brief revivals in Manchester in 1874...
(1867), revised and expanded as The Chieftain
The Chieftain
The Chieftain is a two-act comic opera by Arthur Sullivan and F. C. Burnand based on their 1867 opera, The Contrabandista. It consists of substantially the same first act as the 1867 work with a completely new second act...
(1894), but it did not achieve great popularity in either version. More burlesques followed in 1868, including Fowl Play, or, A Story of Chicken Hazard and The Rise and Fall of Richard III, or, A New Front to an Old Dicky. In 1869, Burnand wrote The Turn of the Tide, which was a success at Queen's Theatre
Queen's Theatre
The Queen's Theatre is a West End theatre located in Shaftesbury Avenue in the City of Westminster. It opened on 8 October 1907 as a twin to the neighbouring Gielgud Theatre which opened ten months earlier. Both theatres were designed by W.G.R...
. Dozens of works followed in the 1870s, including Poll and Partner Joe (1871), The Miller and His Man (1873; "a Christmas drawing room extravaganza" with songs by Arthur Sullivan), Artful Cards (1877), Proof (1878), Dora and Diplunacy (1878, a burlesque of Clement Scott
Clement Scott
Clement Scott was an influential English theatre critic for the Daily Telegraph, and a playwright and travel writer, in the final decades of the 19th century...
's Diplomacy, an adaptation of Sardou
Victorien Sardou
Victorien Sardou was a French dramatist. He is best remembered today for his development, along with Eugène Scribe, of the well-made play...
's Dora), The Forty Thieves
The Forty Thieves
The Forty Thieves is a "Pantomime Burlesque" written by Robert Reece, W. S. Gilbert, F. C. Burnand and Henry J. Byron, created in 1878 as an amateur production for the Beefsteak Club of London. The Beefsteak Club still meets in Irving Street, London. It was founded by actor John Lawrence Toole...
(1878), Our Club (1878) and another frequently revived hit, Betsy (1879). He provided a burlesque of Robbing Roy to the Gaiety Theatre
Gaiety Theatre, London
The Gaiety Theatre, London was a West End theatre in London, located on Aldwych at the eastern end of the Strand. The theatre was established as the Strand Musick Hall , in 1864 on the former site of the Lyceum Theatre. It was rebuilt several times, but closed from the beginning of World War II...
in 1979.
Later stage works
The Colonel (play)
The Colonel is a farce in three acts by F. C. Burnand based on Jean François Bayard's Le mari à la campagne, first produced in 1844 and produced in London in 1849 by Morris Barnett as The Serious Family....
(1881), based on The Serious Family, a play by Morris Barnett. The production ran for an extraordinary 550 performances and toured extensively. It made so much money for actor-manager Edgar Bruce that he was able to build the Prince of Wales Theatre
Prince of Wales Theatre
The Prince of Wales Theatre is a West End theatre on Coventry Street, near Leicester Square in the City of Westminster. It was established in 1884 and rebuilt in 1937, and extensively refurbished in 2004 by Sir Cameron Mackintosh, its current owner...
). The Colonel beat Gilbert and Sullivan
Gilbert and Sullivan
Gilbert and Sullivan refers to the Victorian-era theatrical partnership of the librettist W. S. Gilbert and the composer Arthur Sullivan . The two men collaborated on fourteen comic operas between 1871 and 1896, of which H.M.S...
's similarly themed comic opera, Patience
Patience (opera)
Patience; or, Bunthorne's Bride, is a comic opera in two acts with music by Arthur Sullivan and libretto by W. S. Gilbert. First performed at the Opera Comique, London, on 23 April 1881, it moved to the 1,292-seat Savoy Theatre on 10 October 1881, where it was the first theatrical production in the...
, to the stage by several months, but Patience ran even longer than The Colonel. Oscar Wilde
Oscar Wilde
Oscar Fingal O'Flahertie Wills Wilde was an Irish writer and poet. After writing in different forms throughout the 1880s, he became one of London's most popular playwrights in the early 1890s...
, no fan of Burnand's farces, wrote, in anticipation of seeing Patience, "With Gilbert and Sullivan I am sure we will have something better than the dull farce of The Colonel...."
For the Gaiety Theatre, London
Gaiety Theatre, London
The Gaiety Theatre, London was a West End theatre in London, located on Aldwych at the eastern end of the Strand. The theatre was established as the Strand Musick Hall , in 1864 on the former site of the Lyceum Theatre. It was rebuilt several times, but closed from the beginning of World War II...
, Burnand wrote a burlesque on The Tempest
The Tempest
The Tempest is a play by William Shakespeare, believed to have been written in 1610–11, and thought by many critics to be the last play that Shakespeare wrote alone. It is set on a remote island, where Prospero, the exiled Duke of Milan, plots to restore his daughter Miranda to her rightful place,...
entitled Ariel in 1883, with music by Meyer Lutz
Meyer Lutz
Wilhelm Meyer Lutz was a German-born English composer and conductor who is best known for light music, musical theatre and burlesques of well-known works....
, starring Nellie Farren
Nellie Farren
Nellie Farren was an English actress and singer best known for her roles as the "principal boy" in musical burlesques at the Gaiety Theatre.Born into a theatrical family, Farren began acting as a child...
and Arthur Williams
Arthur Williams (actor)
Arthur Williams was an English actor, singer and playwright best remembered for his roles in comic operas, musical burlesques and Edwardian musical comedies...
. In 1884, he wrote Paw Claudian, a burlesque of the 1883 costume (Byzantine) drama 'Claudian' by Henry Herman and W. G. Wills, starring J. L. Toole, presented at Toole's Theatre. He wrote several works around 1889 and 1890 with Edward Solomon
Edward Solomon
Edward Solomon was a prolific English composer, as well as a conductor, orchestrator and pianist. Though he died before his fortieth birthday, he wrote dozens of works produced for the stage, including several for the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company, such as The Nautch Girl, among others.-Early...
, including Pickwick, which also had a run in 1894.
In 1890, Burnand wrote Captain Therèse, followed later that year by a very successful English-language version of Edmond Audran
Edmond Audran
Achille Edmond Audran was a French composer best known for several internationally successful operettas, including Les noces d'Olivette , La mascotte , Gillette de Narbonne , La cigale et la fourmi , Miss Helyett , and La poupée .After Audran's initial success in Paris, his works also became a...
's operetta, La cigale et la fourmi (the grasshopper and the ant) retitled La Cigale, with additional music by Ivan Caryll
Ivan Caryll
Félix Marie Henri Tilkin , better known by his pen name Ivan Caryll, was a Belgian composer of operettas and Edwardian musical comedies in the English language...
. In 1891, he produced an English-language version of Audran's Miss Helyett, retitled as Miss Decima. Burnand's The Saucy Sally, premiered in 1892, and Mrs. Ponderbury’s Past, debuted in 1895. Burnand's 1897 comic opera, His Majesty, with music by Alexander Mackenzie, did not catch on despite the contributions of lyricist Adrian Ross
Adrian Ross
For the NFL player see Adrian Ross Arthur Reed Ropes , better known under the pseudonym Adrian Ross, was a prolific writer of lyrics, contributing songs to more than sixty British musical comedies in the late 19th and early 20th centuries...
and a Savoy Theatre
Savoy Theatre
The Savoy Theatre is a West End theatre located in the Strand in the City of Westminster, London, England. The theatre opened on 10 October 1881 and was built by Richard D'Oyly Carte on the site of the old Savoy Palace as a showcase for the popular series of comic operas of Gilbert and Sullivan,...
cast including Ilka Palmay
Ilka Pálmay
Ilka Pálmay 21 September 1859 – 17 February 1945), born Ilona Petráss, was a Hungarian-born singer and actress. Pálmay began her stage career in Hungary by 1880, and by the early 1890s, she was creating leading roles in opera and operetta at the Theater an der Wien in Vienna...
, George Grossmith
George Grossmith
George Grossmith was an English comedian, writer, composer, actor, and singer. His performing career spanned more than four decades...
and Walter Passmore
Walter Passmore
Walter Henry Passmore was an English singer and actor best known as the first successor to George Grossmith in the comic baritone roles in Gilbert and Sullivan operas with the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company....
. He collaborated with J. Hickory Wood, at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane
Theatre Royal, Drury Lane
The Theatre Royal, Drury Lane is a West End theatre in Covent Garden, in the City of Westminster, a borough of London. The building faces Catherine Street and backs onto Drury Lane. The building standing today is the most recent in a line of four theatres at the same location dating back to 1663,...
in 1905, on a pantomime of Cinderella
Cinderella
"Cinderella; or, The Little Glass Slipper" is a folk tale embodying a myth-element of unjust oppression/triumphant reward. Thousands of variants are known throughout the world. The title character is a young woman living in unfortunate circumstances that are suddenly changed to remarkable fortune...
, and he was partly responsible for a pantomime of Aladdin for the same theatre in 1909.
Books
Burnand's best-known book, Happy Thoughts, was originally published in Punch in 1863–64 and frequently reprinted. This was followed by My Time and What I’ve Done with It (1874); Personal Reminiscences of the A.D.C., Cambridge, (1880); The Incomplete Angler (1887); Very Much Abroad (1890); Rather at Sea (1890); Quite at Home (1890); The Real Adventures of Robinson Crusoe (1893); and Records and Reminiscences, in 1904.Personality
Burnand had a very large circle of friends and colleagues who included William Makepeace ThackerayWilliam Makepeace Thackeray
William Makepeace Thackeray was an English novelist of the 19th century. He was famous for his satirical works, particularly Vanity Fair, a panoramic portrait of English society.-Biography:...
, Mark Lemon
Mark Lemon
Mark Lemon was founding editor of both Punch and The Field.-Biography:Lemon was born in London on the 30 November 1809. He was the son of Martin Lemon, a hop merchant, and Alice Collis. His parents married on 26 December 1808 at St Mary, Marylebone, London...
and most writers, dramatists and actors of the day. Comedian George Grossmith
George Grossmith
George Grossmith was an English comedian, writer, composer, actor, and singer. His performing career spanned more than four decades...
wrote: "I think Frank Burnand is the most amusing man to meet. He is brimful of good humour. He will fire off joke after joke, and chaff you out of your life if he gets a chance. His chaff is always good-tempered. No one minds being chaffed by Burnand. I will not sing a song when he is in the room if I can possibly help it. He will sit in front of me at the piano, and either stare with a pained and puzzled look during my comic song, or he will laugh in the wrong places, or, what is worse still, take out his pocket-handkerchief and weep.
Burnand was jealous of rival playwright, W. S. Gilbert
W. S. Gilbert
Sir William Schwenck Gilbert was an English dramatist, librettist, poet and illustrator best known for his fourteen comic operas produced in collaboration with the composer Sir Arthur Sullivan, of which the most famous include H.M.S...
, as he felt that he, rather than Gilbert, should have been Arthur Sullivan
Arthur Sullivan
Sir Arthur Seymour Sullivan MVO was an English composer of Irish and Italian ancestry. He is best known for his series of 14 operatic collaborations with the dramatist W. S. Gilbert, including such enduring works as H.M.S. Pinafore, The Pirates of Penzance and The Mikado...
's collaborator. Burnand used his position as the editor of Punch to publish antagonistic reviews of the plays of Gilbert and refused to give the Savoy Opera
Savoy opera
The Savoy Operas denote a style of comic opera that developed in Victorian England in the late 19th century, with W. S. Gilbert and Arthur Sullivan as the original and most successful practitioners. The name is derived from the Savoy Theatre, which impresario Richard D'Oyly Carte built to house...
s reviews in the magazine.