a fabulous resource

Joseph Parks of Saltburn-on-Sea published the magazine “Vanity fair” from 1917 to 1927. It then became the “Collector’s Miscellany” from 1928 until 1953. It was a publication for collectors of all sorts of things, including Toy Theatre. It had articles by George Speaight and others. The information is not always accurate but it has period interest and some of it does not appear elsewhere. A lot of the issues have been scanned and can be viewed for free on http://www.friardale.co.uk.

The following is a list of the main items related to Toy Theatre that appear in the issues currently available:

VANITY FAIR

Vol.2 issue 16, November 1925. “March’s Theatre”, Frank Jay.

Vol.2 issue 18, January 1926, “March’s Mother Goose”, Edward Herdman.

Vol.3 issue 28, December 1926, Daily mirror photo of Benjamin Pollock in his shop.

COLLECTOR’S MISCELLANY

Vol.1 issue 6. February 1929. “Juvenile Theatre its History and Development” part2. Frank Jay.

Vol.1 April-May 1932, Letter “Juvenile Drama”, FS

New series:

No.1 November-December 1932. “Plays in Packets” , E.Percival.

No.7 December-January 1933/4 “Juvenile Theatre”, M.W.Stone.

No.8 February-April 1934 “W.West 1811-1831”, M.W.Stone.

No.9. May-September 1934 “The Plays of Hodgson 1822-1834”, M.W.Stone.

No.10 March 1935 “J.K.Green (1808?) 1811”, M.W.Stone.

No.13 October 1935 “Price of sheets 1811-1935”, G.Speaight.

No.14 December 1935 “Juvenile Theatre”, Gerald Morice.

No.15 August 1936 “Practical performances on the Toy Theatre”, G.Speaight.

No.16 October 1936 “The Juvenile Drama Abroad”, Gerald Morice.

No.17 December 1936 ditto part 2.

No.18 February-May 1937. Front cover shows first page of the first issue (1870) of the “Boy’s Halfpenny Weekly Budget of Plays, Stories, Characters and Scenes”, which included 2 free plates of “Timour the Tartar”.

No.22 August-December 1938 “The Toy Theatre”, Gerald Morice.

No.24.January-June 1939 “Side Lines of Toy Theatre Publishers”, G.Speaight.

Fourth series:

No.2 Winter 1941 “Same scene but different play” , Charles Williams

No.3. February 1942 “About Webb’s Plays”, Charles Williams.

No.4. July 1942 “Some Mathew Revivals”, Charles Williams.

No.5. Undated. “Revivals of Andrews & Co.”, Charles Williams.

Wonderful things

One must admire the very welcome initiative of the British Museum to digitise and put many of its treasures on line for anyone in the world to enjoy for free. This includes quite a lot of Toy Theatre prints, including over 60 images from the great publisher William West, which would normally not be seen elsewhere.

If you visit their website and then search the catalogue, you can look at the full entries for everything to get masses of details or just tick the “images only” box.

Put in “Ralph Thomas” to get over 650 items. Many of these “items” consist of multiple sheets such as scenes for a play or in one case a collection of about 50 West combats. Ralph Thomas, a lawyer, sold his collection to the museum in 1886. It is the oldest that exists. William West was still publishing when he was a boy and his mother bought him one copy of every sheet remaining, what a mother! After West’s business folded he managed to buy a box containing the original drawings for some of the very earliest plays. Other treasures that you can actually download include the beautiful coloured scenes for “Battle of Waterloo”, “Olympic Revels”, “Aladdin” and the “Invasion of Russia” and characters for obscure plays.

In addition put in “Toy Theatre” and other items will appear in full glory including a set of Hodgson scenes for “King Richard the Third” that make an interesting comparison with the still available Green version.

Mysterious Mr.Mathews

We have carried out some research and discovered that Mathews, a fairly late Toy Theatre publisher, was not the person everyone thought he was! We have also discovered how his interest in the Toy Theatre developed and why he had rather strange views on who was important. Also we now know two exact addresses from where he conducted his business in Acton and another where he lived later. The note which can be downloaded here reveals all these secrets for the first time! We have revised it to include new information from Val Copley.

Mathews notes revised

Mr.Webb and Mr.Fraser

Dodie Masterman’s son has kindly given me notes that his mother made in 1987 of an interview with Mr.Fraser who had worked in Webb’s Toy Theatre shop in the 1920s. I have made a transcript which you may download.

It talks mainly about tinsel and seems to refer to a photo that has a man, a girl and a dog in it.

Webb and Mr.Fraser

Danish Toy Theatre publications

In what must be a record for a republication of original Toy Theatre series, Netherlands expert Harry Oudekerk has made available virtually all the publications of the Danish Illustrated Family Journal. Between 1914 and 1931 this popular magazine “gave away” original stage fronts, scenery, characters and texts that readers could cut out and perform. They illustrate a transition between the traditional publications of Alfred Jacobsen and the modernistic productions of Carl Aller. The Toy Theatre stages that could be made up from the pages of the journal progressed in design with innovative methods of moving the characters and use of background panoramas. In all some 14 Toy Theatre stages and 53 different play titles were issued plus various novelty sheets, shadow theatres etc. Harry Oudekerk has republished most of these sheets in 12 volumes that can either be purchased or downloaded for free via his storefront on the www.lulu.com website. He has other similar publications in mind including the pruduction of the Spanish Toy Theatre publishers, Seix and Barral. Be warned however, if you do decide to download these volumes they can be very large, over 300MB in some cases!

Danish Toy Theatre Shop

There is a Toy Theatre shop in Copenhagen! Oldfux opened one for the sale of their reprinted traditional sheets, although it is not open every day. Their reprints include the work of early Danish publishers, Winckelman, Shcreiber and other German publishers and Trentsensky of Vienna. These delightful sheets greatly enhance the possibility of enlarging collections or performing period plays. Full details are available on their website www.oldfux.dk

 

English Toy Theatre

In the nineteenth century Toy Theatres were very popular in England and the output of the numerous publishers was very prolific. The English Toy Theatre was closely linked to the real stage. It had its beginning in the popular and highly coloured prints of actors and actresses that were sold in the print shops of London’s Theatre Land. In 1811 William West published prints consisting of portraits of the performers in particular plays on one or two sheets. He had used the format of the “Children’s lottery sheets” that featured about eight drawings of figures in small boxes, the first ever “play” issued in this way was “Harlequin and Mother Goose”. Sheets of scenery and prosceniums followed; using these it was possible to set up Toy Theatres and with some imagination, perform plays.

The development from portraits in proper Toy Theatre plays was a gradual process. Major steps were the representation of the characters in the different costumes and poses they adopted through the play, and the publication of specially adapted playbooks. Plays were printed from etched copper plates and coloured by hand, they were sold at the rate of one penny plain or tuppence coloured. By 1830 numerous publishers were producing very artistic Toy Theatre plays, the problem was that the sophistication had greatly increased the cost and few children could afford them.

The popularity of the Toy Theatre owes much to the “Halfpenny publishers” such as Green and Skelt who by some simplification were able to halve the price and thereby reach a much larger market. “Skelts Juvenile Drama” sold all over the country and became a household name.

Later in the century, as the real theatre changed in character so the popular appeal of Toy Theatre declined. the established publishers were driven out of business by foreign theatres imported for the upper class market and cheap prints given away with boy’s magazines. the quality of the work of the remaining publishers greatly declined, reduced to cheap prints from worn secondhand plates sold in packets at a penny a play or even a halfpenny. The traditional Toy Theatre was kept alive by the two minor London publishers Webb and Redington.

The survival of the Toy Theatre in the twentieth century has been based on nostalgia and the efforts of a handful of enthusiasts. Up until 1939 one could still buy Toy Theatres from Webb and Benjamin Pollock (who had succeeded Redington), old men who struggled on with an old fashioned trade but whose work was increasingly being appreciated by the artistic world. At the end of the war, only the Pollock business survived but with a bombed out shop the final curtain was due for the Toy Theatre.

There had been several attempts at revival, none of which had much success. In 1946 a company was formed, Benjamin Pollock Ltd., to take over the Pollock stock and to publish new productions on a large scale. After ten years the project had failed as a business. The wreck was salvaged by Mrs.M.Fawdry who with family friends and enthusiasts created Pollock’s Toy Museum which diversified but at the same time ensured the survival of traditional Toy Theatre in England.

German Toy Theatre

  

As in England, the Toy Theatre produced in the German states was popular, prolific and derived from the real theatre. In other respects however it was very different. The sheets tended to be much larger, in later days they were printed by colour lithography and usually only one sheet of characters were issued so performance was not very realistic.Sheets of characters published as costume guides to provincial theatre managers gradually evolved into Toy Theatre sheets. there were many publishers from about 1830.The repertoire was taken from the real stage, it included opera, drama and also specially adapted plays from legend, folk and fairy tales. It was these latter types which eventually became most popular. the standard of design varied, some sheets were extremely artistic others charm because of their crudity. Copying between publishers was the norm and it is fascinating to trace designs back to their sources.Large solid Toy Theatre stages were built for the middle class drawing rooms. Performances were not very  realistic because figures were moved by ugly wires from above, a tradition handed on from marionettes.Although most of the German publishers’ productions were mid-nineteenth century in character, one of them, Schreiber, modernised their products to represent the later realistic movement. To do this he engaged a notable Bavarian scenic artist, Theodor Guggenberger. His scenes are among the most amazing ever produced for the Toy Theatre, an Egyptian Temple for “Magic Flute”, a cave of snakes worked by an elaborate mechanism and a toy shop crammed with detail are some of the best known examples.Schreiber outlived the other publishers, their plays carried on being sold right up to the second world war. In the last few years the firm, which remains an important German publishing house, has reprinted some of the traditional favourites.

Austrian Toy Theatre

The German tradition of Toy Theatre also flourished in the Austrian Empire in Vienna and Budapest. the name which stands out however is that of Matthias Trentsensky, a retired army officer, who began lithographic printing in 1815.

He published a very attractive Toy Theatre and a miniature stage with smaller scenes. Over 40 plays were published. The character sheets were distinctive with one row of characters, very nicely drawn. scenes were also extremely artistic and in deep perspective, enhanced by use of tapering height wings. The principal artist was Theodor Jachimovicz, he later became scene designer at the State Opera. The beauty of the sheets was completed by very fine hand colouring.

An interesting development was the export to England, via the London firm of Myers and Co., of a number of plays with English lettering. In British middle class homes the Trentensky sheets appeared neater and more sophisticated than the home produced Juvenile Drama. Of all imported Toy Theatre sheets, these had the most in common with the English tradition, including pantomime tricks.

After Trentsensky’s death in 1868 the business was carried on by Stockinger and Morsach who introduced colour lithography.

As with other Toy Theatres, the Trentsensky products which survive bring alive all the colour and warmth of the real theatre, in this case that of Imperial Vienna.

The Austrian Empire was very centralised but there were also Toy Theatre publishers in Bohemia (see “Czech Toy Theatre”) and in Hungary, where the publisher was J.E.Riegler of Budapest. Among the plays that he published were “Julius Caesar”, “Lohengin” and “Siegfried”.

Danish Toy Theatre

German Toy Theatres found their way into Denmark, but a need to represent some national subjects caused minor publishers to come into existence. these sheets supplemented rather than replaced the German product.In 1880 the situation changed dramatically, Alfred Jacobsen, a young lithographer published a magazine “Prompter” about children performing Toy Theatres. Given away with each issue were the text and sheets of characters and scenes for a play “Captain Grant’s Children”. The standard was high and rapidly improved, each sheet was colour lithographed, artists of high calibre took pride in producing extremely good work. Jacobsen quickly abandoned “Prompter” and became a conventional publisher. Plays were adapted from the Copenhagen stage, although even this distinguished firm was not above copying the work of earlier ones. The weakness of the Jacobsen sheets was that the characters were rigid in attitude and lacked life but despite this the Toy Theatre became an important part of Danish culture.Toy Theatre has never declined in Denmark. From 1914 until 1931 Toy Theatre sheets were once again given away with a popular magazine “The Illustrated Family Journal”. These designs were inspired by the cinema as much as the real theatre. This tradition of modern but extremely attractive designed was perpetuated by Carl Aller during the 1940s.The Jacobsen sheets were perpetuated by Wilhelm and later Estrid Prior. This business has survived and many of the original designs from the 1880s are now available once again.  A Danish printing house, which has been reprinting these sheets, has now set up a new Toy Theatre business to sell them as well. There has also been a thriving Toy Theatre club, which publishes a regular magazine, for some years. This reflects the considerable interest in the Toy Theatre which exists in Denmark even today.