Lionel Brough
Encyclopedia
Lionel Brough was a British actor and comedian. After beginning a journalistic career and performing as an amateur, he became a professional actor, performing mostly in Liverpool
Liverpool
Liverpool is a city and metropolitan borough of Merseyside, England, along the eastern side of the Mersey Estuary. It was founded as a borough in 1207 and was granted city status in 1880...
during the mid-1860s. He established his career in London as a member of the company at the new Queen's Theatre, Long Acre
Queen's Theatre, Long Acre
The Queen's Theatre was established in 1867, as a theatre on the site of St Martin's Hall, a large concert room that opened in 1850. It stood on the corner of Long Acre and Endell Street, with entrances in Wilson Street and Long Acre...
in 1867, and he soon became known for his roles in Shakespeare, contemporary comedies, and classics, especially as Tony Lumpkin
Tony Lumpkin
Tony Lumpkin is a fictional character who first appeared in Oliver Goldsmith's play, She Stoops to Conquer.Tony Lumpkin is the son of Mrs Hardcastle and stepson to Mr Hardcastle. It is as a result of his practical joking that the comic aspects of the play are set up...
in She Stoops to Conquer
She Stoops to Conquer
She Stoops to Conquer is a comedy by the Irish author Oliver Goldsmith, son of an Anglo-Irish vicar, first performed in London in 1773. The play is a great favourite for study by English literature and theatre classes in Britain and the United States. It is one of the few plays from the 18th...
.
In the 1870s and 1880s, Brough was one of the leading comic actors in London. Although untrained musically, he also appeared in several successful operettas in the 1880s and 1890s. He continued to contribute popular performances into the 20th century and ended his career in comedy roles with Herbert Beerbohm Tree
Herbert Beerbohm Tree
Sir Herbert Beerbohm Tree was an English actor and theatre manager.Tree began performing in the 1870s. By 1887, he was managing the Haymarket Theatre, winning praise for adventurous programming and lavish productions, and starring in many of its productions. In 1899, he helped fund the...
's company.
Early years
Brough was born in PontypoolPontypool
Pontypool is a town of approximately 36,000 people in the county borough of Torfaen, within the historic boundaries of Monmouthshire in South Wales....
, Wales, the son of Barnabas Brough (died 1854), a brewer, publican, wine merchant and later dramatist, and his wife Frances Whiteside, a poet and novelist. His brothers, William
William Brough (writer)
-Life and works:Brough was born in London, the son of Barnabas Brough , a brewer, publican, wine merchant and later dramatist, and his wife Frances Whiteside, a poet and novelist. He was the brother of writer Robert, actor Lionel and science writer John Cargill Brough...
and Robert
Robert Barnabas Brough
Robert Barnabas Brough was an English writer. He wrote poetry, novels and plays and was a contributor to many periodicals.-Life and work:...
were also playwrights, and his brother John Cargill Brough (1834–1872) was a science writer. His father was briefly kidnapped by the Chartists in 1839 and was a prosecution witness at the trial of the Chartist leader John Frost
John Frost (Chartist)
John Frost was a prominent Welsh leader of the British Chartist movement in the Newport Rising....
, which resulted in Frost's deportation to Australia
Australia
Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...
. The family was ostracised and ruined financially as a result, and they moved to Manchester
Manchester
Manchester is a city and metropolitan borough in Greater Manchester, England. According to the Office for National Statistics, the 2010 mid-year population estimate for Manchester was 498,800. Manchester lies within one of the UK's largest metropolitan areas, the metropolitan county of Greater...
in 1843. Brough's first job was as an office boy at The Illustrated London News. He was then employed as assistant publisher by The Daily Telegraph
The Daily Telegraph
The Daily Telegraph is a daily morning broadsheet newspaper distributed throughout the United Kingdom and internationally. The newspaper was founded by Arthur B...
and for several years at The Morning Star. At the former, he introduced to England the American system of selling the newspaper in the streets using newsboys.
Brough made his stage debut at age 18 with the company of Madame Vestris
Lucia Elizabeth Vestris
Lucia Elizabeth Vestris was an English actress and a contralto opera singer, appearing in Mozart and Rossini works. While popular in her time, she was more notable as a theatre producer and manager...
to play in an extravaganza written by his brother William. In 1858, he was again at the Lyceum but then left the professional stage to work at The Morning Star. He performed in amateur theatricals in the early 1860s. As an amateur he appeared before Queen Victoria at the Lyceum Theatre in 1860 with the Savage Club, in a burlesque of the Ali Baba
Ali Baba
Ali Baba is a fictional character from medieval Arabic literature. He is described in the adventure tale of Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves...
story called The Forty Thieves, and was judged by the critic of The Times to have played like a practised professional. This burlesque was presented as a fund-raiser for the Lancashire Famine Relief Fund.
Professional career
Brough repeated The Forty Thieves in LiverpoolLiverpool
Liverpool is a city and metropolitan borough of Merseyside, England, along the eastern side of the Mersey Estuary. It was founded as a borough in 1207 and was granted city status in 1880...
, where Alexander Henderson, manager of the Prince of Wales Theatre in that city, was impressed enough to engage Brough for his company. In his Who's Who
Who's Who
Who's Who is the title of a number of reference publications, generally containing concise biographical information on a particular group of people...
entry, Brough recorded: "joined theatrical profession (permanently) at Prince of Wales's, Liverpool, 1863." The company there included Squire Bancroft
Squire Bancroft
Sir Squire Bancroft , born Squire White Butterfield, was an English actor-manager. He and his wife Effie Bancroft are considered to have instigated a new form of drama known as 'drawing-room comedy' or 'cup and saucer drama', owing to the realism of their stage sets.-Early life and career:Bancroft...
and John Hare
John Hare (actor)
Sir John Hare , born John Fairs, was an English actor and manager of the Garrick Theatre in London from 1889 to 1895.-Biography:Hare was born in Giggleswick in Yorkshire and was educated at Giggleswick school...
. In 1864, he performed there as Iago in Ernani opposite Lydia Thompson
Lydia Thompson
Lydia Thompson, born Eliza Hodges Thompson , was an English dancer, actress and theatrical producer....
and Lavinia in The Miller and His Men. He also performed at other Liverpool theatres in the 1860s, including the Amphitheatre and, with Mr Saker, at the Alexandra.
Brough made his London debut in 1865 in Prince Pretty Pet by his brother William at the Lyceum Theatre but continued mostly in Liverpool until 1867. In 1867, he joined the London company that opened the new Queen's Theatre, Long Acre
Queen's Theatre, Long Acre
The Queen's Theatre was established in 1867, as a theatre on the site of St Martin's Hall, a large concert room that opened in 1850. It stood on the corner of Long Acre and Endell Street, with entrances in Wilson Street and Long Acre...
, with Charles Wyndham
Charles Wyndham
Sir Charles Wyndham was an English actor-manager, born as Charles Culverwell in Liverpool, the son of a doctor. He was educated abroad, at King's College London and at the College of Surgeons and the Peter Street Anatomical School, Dublin...
, Henry Irving
Henry Irving
Sir Henry Irving , born John Henry Brodribb, was an English stage actor in the Victorian era, known as an actor-manager because he took complete responsibility for season after season at the Lyceum Theatre, establishing himself and his company as...
, J. L. Toole, Ellen Terry
Ellen Terry
Dame Ellen Terry, GBE was an English stage actress who became the leading Shakespearean actress in Britain. Among the members of her famous family is her great nephew, John Gielgud....
and Henrietta Hodson
Henrietta Hodson
Henrietta Hodson was an English actress and theatre manager best known for her portrayal of comedy roles in the Victorian era. She had a long affair with the journalist-turned-politician Henry Labouchère, later marrying him....
, in a production of Charles Reade
Charles Reade
Charles Reade was an English novelist and dramatist, best known for The Cloister and the Hearth.-Life:Charles Reade was born at Ipsden, Oxfordshire to John Reade and Anne Marie Scott-Waring; William Winwood Reade the influential historian , was his nephew. He studied at Magdalen College, Oxford,...
's The Double Marriage. The Times wrote of him, "Mr Lionel Brough, an accession from the Liverpool stage, in the small part of Dard, showed the right and rare quality of humour without gag or grimace.... His appearance in other characters will be looked for with interest." In The Taming of the Shrew
The Taming of the Shrew
The Taming of the Shrew is a comedy by William Shakespeare, believed to have been written between 1590 and 1591.The play begins with a framing device, often referred to as the Induction, in which a mischievous nobleman tricks a drunken tinker named Sly into believing he is actually a nobleman himself...
, he was cast as Grumio. He then played the serious role of uncle Ben Garner in Dearer Than Life, by H. J. Byron together with Toole, Irving and Harriet Everard, in which he was praised for his "very great power", and in which role he frequently toured. This was followed by La Vivandière
La Vivandière (Gilbert)
La Vivandière; or, True to the Corps! is a burlesque by W. S. Gilbert, described by the author as "An Operatic Extravaganza Founded on Donizetti's Opera, La figlia del regimento." In the French or other continental armies a vivandière was a woman who supplied food and drink to troops in the...
, 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...
's parody of La fille du régiment
La fille du régiment
La fille du régiment is an opéra comique in two acts by Gaetano Donizetti. It was written while the composer was living in Paris, with a French libretto by Jules-Henri Vernoy de Saint-Georges and Jean-François Bayard.La figlia del reggimento, a slightly different Italian-language version , was...
, in which the same critic said that Brough "appears to understand thoroughly and remarkably for so young an actor the true principles of burlesque acting." The same company presented many adaptations of the novels of Charles Dickens
Charles Dickens
Charles John Huffam Dickens was an English novelist, generally considered the greatest of the Victorian period. Dickens enjoyed a wider popularity and fame than had any previous author during his lifetime, and he remains popular, having been responsible for some of English literature's most iconic...
, including Oliver Twist in 1868, with Brough as Bumble the beadle. The following year, at the St James's Theatre
St James's Theatre
The St James's Theatre was a 1,200-seat theatre located in King Street, at Duke Street, St James's, London. The elaborate theatre was designed with a neo-classical exterior and a Louis XIV style interior by Samuel Beazley and built by the partnership of Peto & Grissell for the tenor and theatre...
's revival of She Stoops to Conquer
She Stoops to Conquer
She Stoops to Conquer is a comedy by the Irish author Oliver Goldsmith, son of an Anglo-Irish vicar, first performed in London in 1773. The play is a great favourite for study by English literature and theatre classes in Britain and the United States. It is one of the few plays from the 18th...
, Brough played Tony Lumpkin for almost 200 nights. Thenceforth, in the words of the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, "he was the accepted representative of the character, which he played in all 777 times." In addition to Tony Lumpkin and Ben Garner, according to Frederick Waddy, Brough's best-known early roles were Spotty in The Lancashire Lass, Sampson Burr in The Porter's Knot, Mark Meddle in London Assurance and Robin Wildbriar in Extremes. In 1873, Waddy wrote of Brough, "to his great natural humour and fun he adds a conscientious and careful study of the characters he undertakes.... He plays them with marked intelligence and appreciation, and a display of genuine humorous power and versatility not too frequently met with on the stage".
In 1870, Brough was the title character in Paul Pry at the St. James's Theatre. In 1871, with Mrs. John Wood
Mrs. John Wood
Mrs. John Wood , born Matilda Charlotte Vining, was an English actress and theatre manager.-Biography:...
, he performed in Milky White and Poll and Partner Joe. In 1872, he acted as stage manager for Dion Boucicault
Dion Boucicault
Dionysius Lardner Boursiquot , commonly known as Dion Boucicault, was an Irish actor and playwright famed for his melodramas. By the later part of the 19th century, Boucicault had become known on both sides of the Atlantic as one of the most successful actor-playwright-managers then in the...
at the Covent Garden
Royal Opera House
The Royal Opera House is an opera house and major performing arts venue in Covent Garden, central London. The large building is often referred to as simply "Covent Garden", after a previous use of the site of the opera house's original construction in 1732. It is the home of The Royal Opera, The...
. Though not trained as a singer, Brough was recruited in 1872 to join Joseph Fell's company at the Holborn Theatre in leading roles in popular musical works including F. C. Burnand's English version of La vie parisienne
La vie parisienne
La vie parisienne is an opéra bouffe, or operetta, composed by Jacques Offenbach, with a libretto by Henri Meilhac and Ludovic Halévy.This work was Offenbach's first full-length piece to portray contemporary Parisian life, unlike his earlier period pieces and mythological subjects...
. In August of the same year he appeared at Covent Garden in Dion Boucicault
Dion Boucicault
Dionysius Lardner Boursiquot , commonly known as Dion Boucicault, was an Irish actor and playwright famed for his melodramas. By the later part of the 19th century, Boucicault had become known on both sides of the Atlantic as one of the most successful actor-playwright-managers then in the...
's fairy drama Babil and Bijou. During the 1870s, Brough was resident comic lead at the Gaiety
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...
, Globe, Charing Cross and Imperial theatres. In the 1870s and 1880s he increasingly augmented his popular parts in modern works with more revivals of classic comic roles, including Tony Lumpkin again, Croaker in Oliver Goldsmith
Oliver Goldsmith
Oliver Goldsmith was an Irish writer, poet and physician known for his novel The Vicar of Wakefield , his pastoral poem The Deserted Village , and his plays The Good-Natur'd Man and She Stoops to Conquer...
's The Good-Natured Man, Dromio of Ephesus in The Comedy of Errors
The Comedy of Errors
The Comedy of Errors is one of William Shakespeare's earliest plays. It is his shortest and one of his most farcical comedies, with a major part of the humour coming from slapstick and mistaken identity, in addition to puns and word play. The Comedy of Errors is one of only two of Shakespeare's...
and Bob Acres in The Rivals
The Rivals
The Rivals, a play by Richard Brinsley Sheridan, is a comedy of manners in five acts. It was first performed on 17 January 1775.- Production :...
. In 1878, he played opposite Lydia Thompson in burlesques at the Folly Theatre
Folly Theatre
The Folly Theatre was a London theatre of the late 19th century, in William IV Street, near Charing Cross, in the City of Westminster. It was converted from the house of a religious order, and became a small theatre, with a capacity of 900 seated and standing. The theatre specialised in presenting...
, including as King Jingo in Stars and Garters.
One of Brough's popular characters was Constable Robert Roberts, "Policeman X24", an early example of the archetypical British bobby, which he presented at concerts and benefit performances. The character was a vehicle for Brough to entertain an audience with banter and comic songs. In contrast, Brough also played a serious role as a policeman in an 1884 one-act play, Off Duty, as Sergeant Ben Bloss, in which, The Morning Post said, "Mr Lionel Brough has a pathetic part, which he plays with earnestness and feeling." Brough originated the role of Nick Vedder in the hit operetta Rip Van Winkle
Rip Van Winkle (operetta)
Rip Van Winkle is an operetta in three acts by Robert Planquette. The English libretto by Henry Brougham Farnie was based on the stories The Legend of Sleepy Hollow and Rip Van Winkle by Washington Irving after the play by Dion Boucicault and Joseph Jefferson.-Performance history:The operetta...
, in 1882, and played in another operetta, Nell Gwynne
Nell Gwynne (operetta)
Nell Gwynne is a three-act comic opera composed by Robert Planquette, with a libretto by H. B. Farnie. The libretto is based on the play Rochester by William Thomas Moncrieff. The piece was a rare instance of an opera by a French composer being produced first in London...
, in 1884. In 1885, he toured the U.S. with Violet Cameron. In 1888, he appeared in T. Edgar Pemberton's comedy, Steeple Jack. Brough played the comic lead, Pietro, in Gilbert and Alfred Cellier
Alfred Cellier
Alfred Cellier was an English composer, orchestrator and conductor.In addition to conducting and music directing the original productions of several of the most famous Gilbert and Sullivan works and writing the overtures to some of them, Cellier conducted at many theatres in London, New York and...
's 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...
The Mountebanks (1892).
Later years
In the final phase of his career Brough was a regular member of Herbert Beerbohm TreeHerbert Beerbohm Tree
Sir Herbert Beerbohm Tree was an English actor and theatre manager.Tree began performing in the 1870s. By 1887, he was managing the Haymarket Theatre, winning praise for adventurous programming and lavish productions, and starring in many of its productions. In 1899, he helped fund the...
's company at Her Majesty's Theatre
Her Majesty's Theatre
Her Majesty's Theatre is a West End theatre, in Haymarket, City of Westminster, London. The present building was designed by Charles J. Phipps and was constructed in 1897 for actor-manager Herbert Beerbohm Tree, who established the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art at the theatre...
from 1894 until his death, becoming famous for his comedy roles in Shakespeare, including Sir Toby Belch in Twelfth Night, Touchstone in As You Like It
As You Like It
As You Like It is a pastoral comedy by William Shakespeare believed to have been written in 1599 or early 1600 and first published in the folio of 1623. The play's first performance is uncertain, though a performance at Wilton House in 1603 has been suggested as a possibility...
, Trinculo in 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,...
, and the gardener in Richard II
Richard II (play)
King Richard the Second is a history play by William Shakespeare believed to be written in approximately 1595. It is based on the life of King Richard II of England and is the first part of a tetralogy, referred to by some scholars as the Henriad, followed by three plays concerning Richard's...
. His last appearances were in 1909 as the grave-digger in Hamlet
Hamlet
The Tragical History of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark, or more simply Hamlet, is a tragedy by William Shakespeare, believed to have been written between 1599 and 1601...
(described by The Observer as "ideal"), Moses in The School for Scandal
The School for Scandal
The School for Scandal is a play written by Richard Brinsley Sheridan. It was first performed in London at Drury Lane Theatre on May 8, 1777.The prologue, written by David Garrick, commends the play, its subject, and its author to the audience...
, and the host of the Garter Inn in The Merry Wives of Windsor
The Merry Wives of Windsor
The Merry Wives of Windsor is a comedy by William Shakespeare, first published in 1602, though believed to have been written prior to 1597. It features the fat knight Sir John Falstaff, and is Shakespeare's only play to deal exclusively with contemporary Elizabethan era English middle class life...
.
Brough encouraged all his children to become actors. His elder daughter Mary Brough
Mary Brough
Mary Bessie Brough was an English actress in theatre, silent films and early talkies, including several Aldwych farces....
("Polly") had a long and successful career. His elder son "'Bobbie" (Sydney Brough, 1868–1911) was a popular leading man when he died of complications following a throat infection; he was married to Lizzie Webster, a granddaughter of Benjamin Nottingham Webster
Benjamin Nottingham Webster
Benjamin Nottingham Webster was an English actor-manager and dramatist.-Career:First appearing as Harlequin, and then in small parts at Drury Lane, he went to the Haymarket Theatre in 1829, and was given leading comedy character business.Webster was the lessee of the Haymarket from 1837 to 1853;...
. Lionel Brough's younger daughter "Daisy" (Margaret Brough, 1870–1901) died of peritonitis, and his younger son Percy Brough (1872–1904) toured with the Brough-Boucicault Comedy Company in Australia and New Zealand but died en route from England to China.
Brough died at his home, Percy Villa, in South Lambeth at the age of 73. The Manchester Guardian said of him in its obituary, "His power of holding his audience and obtaining his effects by the simplest means, and with an expert knowledge of their value, made his work delightful. ... In private life, Mr Brough was universally popular with a fund of anecdote which often kept the members of the Eccentric and other clubs in roars of laughter till the early hours of the morning."