The Royal Gallery of Illustration was a performance venue located at 14 Regent Street

Regent Street

Regent Street is one of the major shopping streets in London's West End, well known to tourists and Londoners alike, and famous for its Christmas illuminations...

 near Waterloo Place in London

London

London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...

, in what was formerly the home of John Nash

John Nash (architect)

John Nash was a British architect responsible for much of the layout of Regency London.-Biography:Born in Lambeth, London, the son of a Welsh millwright, Nash trained with the architect Sir Robert Taylor. He established his own practice in 1777, but his career was initially unsuccessful and...

, designer of Regent Street

Regent Street

Regent Street is one of the major shopping streets in London's West End, well known to tourists and Londoners alike, and famous for its Christmas illuminations...

, Regent's Park

Regent's Park

Regent's Park is one of the Royal Parks of London. It is in the north-western part of central London, partly in the City of Westminster and partly in the London Borough of Camden...

, and other urban improvements undertaken at the commission of George IV

George IV of the United Kingdom

George IV was the King of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland and also of Hanover from the death of his father, George III, on 29 January 1820 until his own death ten years later...

.

From 1855 to about 1876, it hosted the entertainments produced by Thomas German-Reed and his wife, Priscilla, a theatrical couple who specialized in brief, humorous musical sketches and impersonations aimed at a "respectable" middle- to upper-class audience. It was also home to a wide variety of other entertainments, including numerous moving panoramas

Moving panorama

The moving panorama was a relative, more in concept than design, to panoramic painting, but proved to be more durable than its fixed and immense cousin. The word “panorama” is derived from the Greek words “to see” and “all.” Robert Barker invented the first panorama to describe his impressive...

, dioramas, and lectures.

The Gallery was an intimate 500-seat theatre and, according to contemporary accounts, was "one of the most popular and fashionable places of recreation in the Metropolis." The address is presently the site of an office tower.

Description of the entertainments

Under the German-Reeds, the entertainments presented at the Gallery usually consisted of one or two brief 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...

s designed for a small number of characters (due to the small size of the Gallery's stage). These eventually became "Mr. And Mrs. German Reeds Entertainments". They called the establishment, euphemistically, the "Gallery of Illustration," rather than a theatre, and the pieces were called "entertainments" or "illustrations", eschewing the words "music hall", "play", "extravaganza", "melodrama

Melodrama

The term melodrama refers to a dramatic work that exaggerates plot and characters in order to appeal to the emotions. It may also refer to the genre which includes such works, or to language, behavior, or events which resemble them...

" or "burlesque", in order to avoid the poor reputation among the British public of musical theatres. Reed himself composed the music for many of these pieces, and often appeared in them, along with Mrs. German Reed. Reed experimented with what he called opera di camera - small chamber operas by young composers. There was nothing else like this establishment in London. The Gallery rapidly achieved popularity.

The accompaniment consisted of piano, harmonium and sometimes a harp. But the German Reeds were able to attract fine young composers such as Molloy, Clay

Frederic Clay

Frederic Emes Clay was an English composer known principally for his music written for the stage. Clay, a great friend of Arthur Sullivan's, wrote four comic operas with W. S...

, 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...

 and 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...

, the best scenic designers for their tiny stage, and the best young writers from 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...

and 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:...

magazines. Their resident piano entertainers, John Orlando Parry

John Orlando Parry

John Orlando Parry was an English actor, pianist, artist, comedian and singer.-Early career:Parry, the only son of Welsh musician John Parry , was born in London and, at an early age, was taught by his father to sing and to play the harp and the piano. He also studied the harp under Robert Bochsa...

 and Richard Corney Grain

Richard Corney Grain

Richard Corney Grain , known by his stage name Corney Grain, was an entertainer and songwriter of the late Victorian era.-Biography:...

 also contributed many sketches and entertainments. At first, the entertainments utilized a cast of three, but by the mid-1860s, they had expanded to pieces with a cast of four. Often the pieces' plots involved mistaken identities and disguises. In addition to Mr. and Mrs. German Reed, Fanny Holland

Fanny Holland

Fanny Holland was an English singer and comic actress primarily known as the creator of principal soprano roles in numerous German Reed Entertainments.-Life and career:...

 appeared in scores of the entertainments beginning in 1869 as did Arthur Cecil

Arthur Cecil

Arthur Cecil Blunt, better known as Arthur Cecil was an English actor, comedian, playwright and theatre manager. He is probably best remembered for playing the role of Box in the long-running production of Cox and Box, by Arthur Sullivan and F. C...

 and in 1871, Corney Grain. Annie Sinclair was also a frequent player at the Gallery.

Notable productions

In 1857, the Gallery hosted a command performance before Queen Victoria

Victoria of the United Kingdom

Victoria was the monarch of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland from 20 June 1837 until her death. From 1 May 1876, she used the additional title of Empress of India....

 and Prince Albert of Wilkie Collins

Wilkie Collins

William Wilkie Collins was an English novelist, playwright, and author of short stories. He was very popular during the Victorian era and wrote 30 novels, more than 60 short stories, 14 plays, and over 100 non-fiction pieces...

 and 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...

's play The Frozen Deep

The Frozen Deep

The Frozen Deep was a play, originally staged as an amateur theatrical, written by Wilkie Collins along with the substantial guidance of Charles Dickens in 1856...

. The earliest German Reed entertainments there included William Brough's A Month from Home and My Unfinished Opera (1857); The Pyramid by Shirley Brooks

Shirley Brooks

Charles William Shirley Brooks , journalist and novelist, born in London, began life in a solicitor's office. He early, however, took to literature, and contributed to various periodicals. In 1851 he joined the staff of Punch, to which he contributed "Essence of Parliament," and on the death of...

 (1864); The Peculiar Family by Brough (1865); The Yachting Cruise by F. C. Burnand (1866); Our Quiet Chateau by Robert Reece

Robert Reece

Robert Reece was a British comic playwright and librettist active in the Victorian era. He wrote many successful musical burlesques, comic operas, farces and adaptations from the French, including the English-language adaptation of the operetta Les cloches de Corneville, which became the...

, with music by Virginia Gabriel (1867); Inquire Within by Burnand and John Orlando Parry (1868); Beggar My Neighbour (1870) and Number 204, by Burnand; Near Relations (1871) by Arthur Sketchley; King Christmas (1871, the first appearance by the German Reeds' son, Alfred); Charity Begins at Home (1872); My Aunt's Secret (1872); Very Catching (1872); Milord's Well (1873);

The Gallery was also home to some of the most popular early productions of 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...

, including No Cards

No Cards

No Cards is a "musical piece in one act" for four characters, written by W. S. Gilbert, with music composed and arranged by Thomas German Reed. It was first produced at the Royal Gallery of Illustration, Lower Regent Street, London, under the management of German Reed, opening on 29 March 1869 and...

(1869), Ages Ago

Ages Ago

Ages Ago is a musical entertainment with a libretto by W. S. Gilbert and music by Frederic Clay that premiered on 22 November 1869 at the Royal Gallery of Illustration. It marked the beginning of a seven year long collaboration between the two. The piece was revived many times, including at St...

(1869), Our Island Home

Our Island Home

Our Island Home is a one-act musical entertainment with a libretto by W. S. Gilbert and music by Thomas German Reed that premiered on June 20, 1870 at the Royal Gallery of Illustration...

(1870), A Sensation Novel

A Sensation Novel

A Sensation Novel is a comic musical play in three acts written by librettist W. S. Gilbert and composer Thomas German Reed. It was first performed on 31 January 1871 at the Royal Gallery of Illustration...

(1871), and Happy Arcadia

Happy Arcadia

Happy Arcadia is a musical entertainment with a libretto by W. S. Gilbert and music originally by Frederic Clay that premiered on 28 October 1872 at the Royal Gallery of Illustration. It was one of four collaborations between Gilbert and Clay between 1869 and 1876. The music is lost...

(1872). The Reeds also mounted the first professional production of 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...

 and F. C. Burnand

Francis Burnand

Sir Francis Cowley Burnand , often credited as F. C. Burnand, was an English comic writer and dramatist....

's 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...

(1867) and commissioned a second opera from the pair, 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). 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...

 and Arthur Cecil

Arthur Cecil

Arthur Cecil Blunt, better known as Arthur Cecil was an English actor, comedian, playwright and theatre manager. He is probably best remembered for playing the role of Box in the long-running production of Cox and Box, by Arthur Sullivan and F. C...

's Dora's Dream

Dora's Dream

Dora's Dream is a one-act operetta, with music composed by Alfred Cellier and a libretto by Arthur Cecil.The piece was first performed at the Royal Gallery of Illustration on 3 July 1873, with Fanny Holland and Arthur Cecil starring in the two roles...

premiered in 1873.

External links

• Information about the Gallery of Illustration
• Encyclopedia entry about the Gallery's entertainments
• Description of an "Illustrative Gathering"
• http://books.google.com/books?id=a1g4AAAAIAAJ&pg=PA226&lpg=PA226&dq=%22priscilla+horton%22+macready+ariel&source=web&ots=h2MOVsBgBQ&sig=VQ5ixhF1C4QFflhSBz52hZ7FrtIDescription of Horton and John Orlando Parry
  John Orlando Parry
  John Orlando Parry was an English actor, pianist, artist, comedian and singer.-Early career:Parry, the only son of Welsh musician John Parry , was born in London and, at an early age, was taught by his father to sing and to play the harp and the piano. He also studied the harp under Robert Bochsa...
  
  ]
• Information and links about Gilbert's works for the Gallery
• Information about Fanny Holland, who performed in scores of entertainments at the gallery