Brief description: Letter, from Charles Dickens to Angus Fletcher, 22 June 1848
Label: In this letter to the sculptor Angus Fletcher, Dickens gives precise instructions as to how he wanted the playbills, tickets, band and stage to be set up when his theatre production went on the Scottish leg of its tour. Dickens instructs that the credit for the character 'Nym' is to be left blank on the playbill because he is yet to find a replacement for his son, Augustus, who was unable to join them in Scotland. Dickens also refers to looking forward to seeing their old friend John Thomson Gordon and fondly comments on their first meeting.
Collection: Archives & Manuscripts
Object number: A782
Object type: letter
Production person: Dickens, Charles
Production date: 22/06/1848
Inscription content: Devonshire Terrace. | Twenty Second June 1848.
My Dear Sir
I am greatly obliged to you for your letter, received last night. The cordial response we have received both from Edinburgh and Glasgow (where they are making great preparations) assures me of a glorious conclusion to our exertions for Knowles. He needs them sorely, poor fellow!
To make my letter the clearer and easier for reference, I will write what I have to write, under separate heads; premising that we are obliged to make the night, Monday the 17th.
PLAYBILLS
I send you the draught of the bill. You will observe that one part (Nym) is left blank. It must remain so, in the first impression, as I am not quite certain who will play it, in the Northern Expedition. As soon as I know, you shall know. Anything the Committee may wish to add, about the distribution of tickets, had best be added where I have left the blank for the prices. You will order such posting bills to be printed for the Walls and so forth, as your local knowledge suggests the necessity of. I would merely ask that no greater prominence is given to my name, than to those of the other gentlemen concerned--unless it should be deemed indispensably necessary. We usually put at the bottom of the bills and tickets EVENING DRESS but that you will insert or omit as you think right.
TICKETS.
I send you the form of ticket, I have always hitherto adopted. It is printed on a card, which is cut as this rough draught is. The ticket-taker tears off the smaller portion, and returns it (the bit torn off) to the person entering; it then becomes the authority and reference to the place-keeper to give him or her, that particular seat. The same form, with the substitution of "Pit" for "Box", or whatever it may be, answers for all parts of the House. You will observe that there is some printing, on the back of the card.
It is a great convenience and avoidance of confusion to use a different colored card for each description of places. As, red for the pit, green for the lower boxes, yellow for the upper boxes, &c. Every seat, except in the galleries, should be numbered.
BAND.
It will require to be a larger and better one, I imagine, than the usual Orchestra of the Theatre. But the Leader will undertake to augment and make it an efficient one, if he be spoken to, and authorized to do so. That will not be very expensive. I have selected the Overtures (subject to his assent) and put them in the bill.
STAGE.
Mr. Willmot (Mr. Macready's Stage Director at Drury Lane and Covent Garden) will make an appointment to meet the Master Carpenter, Property Man &c, a day or two beforehand, at the Theatre, and will bring his Scene and Property Plots with him. Also a list of the required Supers &c. This is a babylonic kind of jargon to read, but Murray will understand it, and it will set his mind at rest, as to that part of the proceedings. I shall ask him, through you, as an especial favor, to take care for us that the Stage is kept perfectly clear, and that nobody (himself excepted, of course) comes behind, who is not engaged on the night.
Looking over your kind letter, and thanking you very earnestly for the trouble you are taking with so much cordiality, I see nothing else that I need mention, except the Committee. I will tell you candidly how this point stands on our side--Wherever we have been, on a similar occasion, the first men in the place have always connected themselves with the occasion. And this, my band, I know, feel a kind of attention and recognition, which is of a different sort of importance from any amount of attraction that the names of such a Committee would present to the local satellites. Therefore, I do not hesitate to say, that they would greatly esteem an Edinburgh Committee-ship, and missing a general public knowledge that there was an influential Committee, would beset me with enquiries why Edinburgh was different in this regard from all other places. If it be practicable therefore to make it notorious in the place that the influential and worthy take an interest in the arrangements, and are not aloof from their general direction, I would ask that much of my friends, as urgently as I may.
Gordon I shall be truly delighted to see. I have remembered him well, ever since--and his speech too. I called at his house when I was last in Edinburgh. But he was--as a wonderfully stalwart and handsome little boy who came running into the entry, informed me--"joost at Doomfries".--I think it was Dumfries at least.
The prices are capital; and everything else seems, like the general arrangements of Goldsmith's Bear-Leader, "in a concatenation accordingly". I really am very much indebted to you for your promptitude and kindness. And I shall make your old Master happy, by telling him how you end your letter.
Believe me always | Very faithfully Yours
CHARLES DICKENS
Angus Fletcher Esquire

Letter, from Charles Dickens to Angus Fletcher, 22 June 1848