Andrew Pepper - The Revenge of Captain Paine

If the opera and ballet represented the most rarefied ‘arts’ experience in the capital, attracting a predominantly aristocratic audience who would clap politely and share gossip in the intervals, the theatre was a generally more rambunctious affair. This didn’t include venues like the Theatre Royal in Covent Garden and those on Drury Lane and Haymarket: these establishments still catered to gormless gentlemen and their ugly wives. But throughout the capital, there were hundreds of smaller venues staging bastardised versions of Hamlet or loose adaptations of popular novels and fables, and at any of these actors could expect to be abused and harangued from the pit by members of the public who might be sodden with drink. At such establishments the actors were rarely if ever professional, in the sense that they earned money from their craft. Rather they were clerks, shop boys and milliners who trod the boards in order to escape from the grim tedium of their everyday existences. Kate Sutton’s beau, Johnny, was apparently such a figure, but his domain was a good deal less salubrious even than these ‘low’ venues. The so-called ‘penny gaffs’, which tended to be situated in the poorest parts of the capital, represented the grubbiest, bawdiest and least refined stage experience of all. It was not unusual to be mugged or robbed in such venues, often at the behest of the management, and children as young as twelve copulated in their dark corners.

There were four penny gaffs on New Cut, and when he eventually found the right one, having followed directions given to him by Freddie Sutton, it turned out to be little more than a warehouse, an empty shell of a building with exposed joists and damp walls. The stage, if it could be called that, comprised a few planks of wood nailed to a collection of overturned wooden beer barrels, and the only lighting was provided by an assortment of tallow candles, haphazardly arranged at the back of the stage in different-shaped wooden holders.

Pyke found the performers sitting on wooden crates at the back of the stage. They were drinking gin from the bottle and one of them, a tall, brutish man dressed to resemble a monarch or prince, was smoking a pipe. They looked up in response to his question and the king told him to get lost.

‘I asked where I could find Johnny,’ Pyke repeated, this time putting some metal into his tone.

The three of them continued to stare at him blankly.

‘I was under the impression Johnny worked here.’

‘Johnny, you say? Ain’t shown his ugly face here for more ’n a month now.’ The king stood up and rearranged his faux velvet cloak. He was a brute of a man with grazed knuckles, broad shoulders, cauliflower ears and a nose that had been broken in more than two places.

‘Do you know where I can find him?’

‘Johnny?’ He stole a glance at the other two. ‘You could always try the Theatre Royal.’ They all guffawed loudly.

‘Why do I get the sense that I’m not likely to find him there?’

‘Look around you, cully. This ain’t exactly Drury Lane.’ The king picked up his paper crown from the floor and placed it on his head. ‘Now beat it. The show’s about to start.’

‘Perhaps I didn’t make myself clear,’ Pyke said, removing the pistol from his belt and poking the end of the barrel into the man’s chin. ‘I asked where I could find Johnny.’

The king regarded him coolly but the other two sprang to their feet and sought to appease him. ‘One day he was here and the next day he wasn’t. Didn’t give no explanation, neither.’ The man who’d spoken was also dressed to resemble a king or an aristocrat but in a much more grotesque manner; there was a pillow stuffed under his coat to make him look fatter and he wore shoes decorated with hair to resemble animals’ feet. ‘This whole thing was Johnny’s idea. When he was around, he’d play my role. I reckon he liked the reaction he got from the crowd.’

‘Is that right?’ Pyke jabbed the barrel of his pistol into the cleft of the taller man’s chin. ‘Is your friend suggesting Johnny had the talent?’

‘Johnny liked to think so.’ But the king did not seem unsettled by the pistol.

A bell rang and the three actors looked at one another. One of them explained that the show was about to begin but assured him they would answer his questions once it was finished. Pyke knew he was keeping something back but decided to let them go because the crowd was starting to get restless. Putting the pistol back in his belt, he took his place among the noisy crowd, trying to ignore the stink of unwashed bodies, and waited for the performance to begin.

‘Enter our glorious, beloved monarch, William IV, King of England, Scotland and Ireland,’ one of the actors bellowed from behind the makeshift stage.

‘What about Wales?’ someone shouted from the back of the room.

‘Who gives a fuck about those leek-eating noddies?’ someone else yelled in reply. This got the loudest cheer of the night.

The king climbed up on to the stage, the paper crown resting uneasily on his head. He too now had a pillow strapped around his waist, still visible under his torn velveteen coat. As he strutted around the small stage, his regal waves were absurdly fey but the mob didn’t seem to mind; though they mocked him more than they applauded him, their mood was generally good natured.

‘Now enter the King’s conniving brother, Ernest Augustus, Duke of Cumberland and Earl of Armagh.’

The mood of the crowd changed at once, and as soon as the actor playing the duke had climbed up the rickety ladder on to the stage, he was pelted with rotten vegetables and roundly jeered. In addition to numerous pillows crammed under his bulging jacket and his cloven shoes and tail, dark hair sprouted from every part of his body and his head sported a pair of cuckold’s horns. A Tory Ultra, Cumberland was unpopular among liberals and reform-minded figures for his conservative views, and satirists had taken to representing him in bestial terms.

The actor playing Cumberland strutted around the tiny stage but the heckling reached a climax only when he assaulted the king; what seemed to be a playful scuffle quickly turning into a full-blown punching match. Pyke wasn’t certain whether the fight was real or staged — certainly both actors, to the delight of the audience, didn’t seem to be holding back — but when the thuggish king was caught by a blow that lifted him clean off his feet and knocked him from the stage, no one knew whether to applaud the actor for his skilful fall or continue to rail against the unpopular duke.

Moments later, another actor appeared on the stage and carefully placed an orange sash around Cumberland’s bulging neck, briefly getting the material caught on the tips of his horns. More vociferous booing ensued. In booming voices, the two men congratulated each other over the king’s death and made plans to mobilise every man in their order to seize the crown, repeal the Reform Act and further enslave the poor. There followed a few hammy soliloquies, the best of which saw the duke reminisce about how he’d once slit his valet’s throat and later forced himself on his sister Sophia. These confessions drew gasps of astonishment from the crowd. At one point, one of the crew had to prevent an enraged costermonger from climbing up on to the stage and assaulting the duke himself.

The final act saw a tall, sneering figure introduced as Sir John Conroy conspiring with Cumberland to murder young Princess Victoria, played by a ripe-looking girl who, much to the crowd’s delight, took every chance to show off her ample cleavage, which was barely hidden under a flimsy muslin dress. The climactic scene featured Cumberland atop a ladder, his shadow covering much of the stage, rubbing his hands together while Conroy administered droplets of poison to the princess. As she weakened, Cumberland climbed down from his vantage point and seized the tattered crown from her head. Pandemonium followed his triumph and a shower of vitriol, and a few rotten carrots, rained down on the stage. At some point, this segued into applause, as the actor who had played the duke took off the crown and basked in the limelight.