London Walworth Lecture Hall – 1852 – First Show

Date 23/02/1852

London Walworth Lecture Hall – 1852 – First Show

An important early programme from the Walworth Lecture Hall, London, dated 23 February 1852, for a mixed bill of plays with Mr Bowden, Mr W Morgan and Mr Hart.

It is apparently the very first programme for an entertainment written and presented by J L Toole, later one of the giants of Victorian theatre. The 7 x 9 inch four-sided programme was printed in gold ink.

A remarkable survivor among old theatre programmes, marking the start of a great Victorian career.

An important early (apparently the very first) programme for an entertainment written and presented by JL Toole, who would become one of the giants of Victorian theatre later in the century as producer, theatre owner, writer and performer.

The 7” by 9” four-sided programme was printed in gold ink and issued at a performance in the Lecture Hall of the Walworth Literary and Scientific Institution in Carter Street, South London on Monday 23 February 1852.

Toole had begun his training with the City Histrionic Club and is here assisted by members of that organisation. The text certainly suggests, in a number of different places, that Toole’s solo appearances represented his first such.

It includes the sketch “Trying a Magistrate” which would be for many years a staple of Toole’s entertainments.

Certainly this performance, a few days before Toole’s 22nd birthday, predates by five months what is generally considered to be his “first appearance on stage” at the Haymarket Theatre in London.

Did you know?

• John Lawrence Toole (1830 to 1906) became one of the most popular comic actors of the Victorian stage.
• He took over the Folly Theatre near Charing Cross in 1879 and renamed it Toole’s Theatre.
• Toole was a close friend of Henry Irving, with whom he had acted early in their careers.

SKU: T05010