Samuel Weller, or, The Pickwickians explained

Samuel Weller, or, The Pickwickians is an 1837 comedy in three acts adapted from Dickens's novel The Pickwick Papers by William Thomas Moncrieff. It was first performed at the Royal Strand Theatre in London on 17 July 1837.

W. T. Moncrieff's 'Farcical Comedy' Sam Weller; or the Pickwickians opened at the Royal Strand Theatre in 1837 in a production directed by William John Hammond (1797 - 1848) and that ran for 80 performances before touring the provinces.[1] The production was memorable for the Alfred Jingle of John Lee and the Sam Weller of Hammond.[2] [3] In the same year a production opened in New York and Philadelphia where it had a good run despite poor reviews.[4]

Dickens complained against this adaptation[1] with Moncrieff defending his plagiarism in a long advertisement on the playbill in which he stated, 'Late experience has enabled him to bring Mr. Pickwick's affairs to a conclusion rather sooner than his gifted biographer has done, if not so satisfactorily as could be wished, at all events quite legally.'[5] While Moncrieff had apologised to ‘Boz’ in his notes on the playbill this failed to placate Dickens, who caricatured Moncrieff as the 'literary gentleman' and actor-manager Vincent Crummles in his novel Nicholas Nickleby "who had dramatized in his time two hundred and forty-seven novels, as fast as they had come out – some of them faster than they had come out".[6] Moncrieff's response was to plagiarise Nickleby in another production in 1839.

At least four productions of Pickwick were being performed on the London stage while the novel was still being serialised, with Moncrieff's adaptation described as the most successful.[7] As the title suggests, Moncrieff decided to focus on Sam Weller, the main comic character in the novel, rather than on Samuel Pickwick himself.[8] [9] [10]

The play had a revival at the New Strand Theatre in May and July 1838 with largely the original cast.[11] [12]

The play was adapted in 1850 by Thomas Hailes Lacy as The Pickwickians; or the Peregrinations of Sam Weller as a comic drama in three acts in prose.[7] [13]

Original cast

Honorable Simon Slumkey; Horatio Fizkin, Esq.; Rackstraw, a patent Cabman; Dogsflesh, a Waterman; Canteen, a Suttler; Alleycampain, his man; Two-Good, a Drunken Liberal; Catnach, a Ballad Singer; Allpine, a Match Seller; Roker, a Turnkey; Grammer; and numerous other characters by Messrs Dearlove, Burton, Searle, Chapman, &c. &c. and numerous Supernumeraries engaged for the occasion.[15]

Mrs Barclay, Landlady of White Horse, Boarders, Visitors, Servants, &c. &c.<ref>Samuel Weller, or, The Pickwickians, Published for the Author, T. Stagg, printer (1837), Google Books

External links

Notes and References

  1. https://www.kent.ac.uk/library/specialcollections/theatre/dickens/plays/pickwick-papers.html Charles Dickens Theatre Collection: The Pickwick Papers
  2. https://www.yvonnejerrold.com/FamilyTree/L-HammondFamily.html Biography of W J Hammond
  3. Matz, Bertram Waldrom. The Dickensian (1970), p. 202
  4. Baer, Florence E. Wellerisms in "The Pickwick Papers", Folklore, Vol. 94, No. 2 (1983), pp. 173-183, Published By: Taylor & Francis, Ltd
  5. Patten, Robert L.Charles Dickens and 'Boz': The Birth of the Industrial-Age Author, Cambridge University Press (2012) Google Books, p. 157
  6. https://www.kent.ac.uk/library/specialcollections/theatre/dickens/plays/nicholas-nickleby.html Nicholas Nickleby
  7. Grego, Joseph (ed). 'Pickwick on the Stage', Pictorial Pickwickiana: Charles Dickens and his Illustrators, Vol. II, London: Chapman and Hall, Ltd. (1899), p. 9
  8. Sally Ledger and Holly Furneaux. Charles Dickens in Context, Cambridge University Press (2011) Google Books, p. 30
  9. Bolton, H. Philip. Dickens Dramatized, London and Boston: Garland and G. K. Hall, 1987 p. 78
  10. http://www.victorianweb.org/art/illustration/phiz/pickwick/12.html The First Appearance of Sam Weller
  11. Fax, Felix (ed). Sam Weller at the New Strand Theatre, The Torch (1838), Volume 1, Google Books, p. 44
  12. https://newspaperarchive.com/london-conserbatibe-journal-and-church-of-england-gazette-jul-07-1838-p-1/ Newspaper Archives
  13. https://books.google.com/books?id=mEE_AQAAMAAJ British Museum Catalogue of Printed Books
  14. https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Page:Dictionary_of_National_Biography_volume_12.djvu/88 George Cooke (1807–1863)
  15. https://www.bl.uk/collection-items/playbill-for-the-new-strand-theatre-advertising-sam-weller-or-the-pickwickians# Original playbill for the New Strand Theatre production of Sam Weller! Or the Pickwickians dated Monday, 10 July 1837

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