Finding Sampson Penley by Alan Stockwell, and: Jonathan Dewhurst: The Curtain Falls by Philip Taylor, Susan Taylor (review)

These two books share several features: they are both quests for acting families (family trees provided) in the nineteenth century, by authors whose enthusiasm has taken them on extensive voyages of discovery. They are both published by small presses whose lists enterprisingly include theatre and theatre-related titles. Although not the work of professional theatre historians, they are welcome and useful additions to the subject.

Of the two, Jonathan Dewhurst: The Curtain Falls is a sequel to the same authors’ Jonathan Dewhurst: The Lancashire Tragedian 1837–1913 (published in 2001) which deservedly became one of the five finalists for the Society for Theatre Research Book of the Year. Like that volume this one is generously illustrated with several photographs depicting the authors alongside family members and others they encountered in their search for Dewhursts who had eluded them in the previous volume.

Though not so richly illustrated, Finding Sampson Penley reproduces four playbills and transcriptions of others for Tenterden and Rye, selected from a total of 142, for the Jonas and Penley company in the two towns from 25 May 1799. Not that the Penleys restricted themselves to Kent and Sussex. Some family members achieved metropolitan status. Others spread themselves through the provinces and some ventured to Brussels, Amsterdam and Paris. The greatest success, earning him £200,000, was that of W. S. Penley who played Lord Fancourt Babberley in Brandon Thomas’s Charley’s Aunt.