Frederick Robson, born Thomas Frederick Brownbill (22 February 1821 – 12 August 1864) E.L. Blanchard refers to him dying late on the night of 11 August: '12th August 1864. Hear of F. Robson's death as having occurred late last night: write the memoir.'Death of Mr. Robson, Bell's Life In Victoria And Sporting Chronicle, 22 October 1864, also cites Thursday night 11 August 1864 as the date of Robson's death. was an English comedian, actor and ballad singer. During his acting career, he combined outstanding comic gifts with the power of moving an audience to a sense of tragedy or pathos. Although Robson's career spanned more than two decades, the period of his greatest success was at the Olympic Theatre, beginning in 1853 and lasting only a few years.
Early life Robson was born in Margate as Thomas Brownbill, son of Philip Brownbill and his wife Margaret. Philip Brownbill is described on his son's wedding certificate in 1842 as 'deceased, stockbroker' and appears to have died early, as no allusion to him by his son has survived.Sands, p. 15
In November 1828 the young Robson went with his mother to London, possibly to visit relations. He was deeply impressed by the performances he saw there at the Coburg Theatre, in a week when the bill included both plays and comic songs.Sands, p. 16 While still a boy he later took part in amateur theatricals, with his mother's encouragement: the actor Walter Lacy recalled seeing him play the title role in Richard III in a juvenile performance at Mile End Assembly Rooms. By this time Robson and his mother may have settled in London, as they were certainly living there in 1836, when he was apprenticed to a copperplate-engraverThomas George Smellie, New Round Court, Bedfordbury, Strand. Sands, p. 17 near the Strand.Joseph Knight, 'Robson, (Thomas) Frederick (1821–1864)', rev. Paul Ranger, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004; online edn, January 2008, accessed 10 September 2013 Although his apprenticeship was not fully served out, due to the early retirement of his master, Robson was skilled enough to set up in business for himself, and according to one source was 'a seal engraver of considerable talent'.Sands, p. 18 By this time he had also earned a reputation among colleagues as a flamboyant and idiosyncratic character.Robson was only five feet tall and had small hands and feet, but a large head with a mass of curly red-gold hair. He dressed flamboyantly, and was known by the nicknames 'Little Bill' and 'Little Big Head'. Sands, p. 17 He was also a clever mimic, and his interest in the stage was growing. On 12 May 1842 he bought a partAt this time some theatre managers would sell parts to aspiring actors to allow them to showcase their talents. Sands, p. 18 and appeared as Simon Mealbag in Grace Huntley at a small theatre off the Strand. He was not a success: nevertheless he gave up his engraving business and began to try to break into acting.
Early career According to one source Robson's first professional engagement was late in 1842 at Whitstable: another suggests he may have begun at a London tavern-cum-concert hall, the Bower Saloon,Known informally as 'the Sour Balloon' and previously as the Duke's Arms, it had a small stage but no dramatic licence, served drink and food to audiences, permitted smoking and was closer to a music hall than a legitimate theatre. Sands, p. 19. where he began developing his repertoire as a comic singer.Sands, p. 19 He still described himself as engraver, however, when on 21 September 1842 he married Rosetta Frances May, a woman with theatrical connections, in Lambeth.Sands, p. 22 He signed the marriage register as Thomas Frederick Brownbill, beginning the change to his stage name. Shortly thereafter Robson began work as a strolling player in the provinces, a precarious existence but a recognised method of learning his craft before attempting to work in the London theatres. His first earnings were meagre, about five shillings per week in Whitstable, and he faced frequent privation.Sands, pp. 22–24 After some eighteen months in the provinces, in February 1844 he won an engagementDion Boucicault records a tradition that Robson was first hired at the Grecian as a waiter. Sands, p. 25 at the Grecian Saloon, City Road, London, where he began his climb to success.He was billed as 'Mr Robson from the Nottingham Theatre'. An actor called Robson had in fact recently appeared at the Nottingham Theatre; but not the same Robson. Sands, p. 24 The entertainment provided at the Grecian varied from Shakespearean drama to ballet to comedy song solos, and, while there, Robson considerably extended his range, appearing in everything from The Merchant of Venice (as Shylock) to a blackface comedy sketch, More Ethiopians.More Ethiopians ingeniously combined the craze for the American minstrel troupe the Ethiopian Serenaders with that for "the Swedish Nightingale", opera singer Jenny Lind. Robson, in drag, played Miss Lind; he also played the bones. Sands, p. 27
Ireland The engagement at the Grecian gave Robson varied experience, but though the venue presented plays, its theatrical standing (and that of its performers) was tainted by its downmarket past as a saloon.Mid-Victorian British theatre distinguished between places where comedy acts, singers and dancers predominated, and food and drink was served and smoking was allowed during performances – often described as saloons or music halls – and the 'legitimate theatre', dedicated largely to plays. In the late 1840s when Robson was already well-known in London as a Grecian performer, actor William Davidge recommended him to the manager of the Drury Lane Theatre: 'Wouldn't have him if he came for nothing!' was the reply. Sands, p. 30 In 1850 Irish theatre manager John Harris offered Robson an engagement, and he moved to Dublin, acting first at the Queen's Theatre and later, after Harris himself had moved, at the Theatre Royal.Sands, p. 34 Over the next three years he played some 150 parts, including some in Shakespeare, and was popular enough twice to put on his own one-man show, Seeing Robson. Early in 1853, however, occurred an incident in which during a performance Robson appeared to insult the Roman Catholic faith by a slighting reference to a priest. According to one report it was an unfortunate slip of the tongue; according to another the result of a bet.Sands, p. 37 The Irish audience identified closely with the Catholic church, and any slur on it was an insult to them. Robson did not appear at all for two weeks during January 1853, and although he then played till the end of the season, appearing last on 12 March 1853, he left shortly after for London.Sands, p. 38
The 'Olympic' and stardom
Later in March 1853, Robson was offered an engagement at the Olympic Theatre in London under the management of old-school actor William Farren.Farren came of an established theatrical family and had acted with the likes of Edmund Kean and Mrs Siddons. In the first pieceAs Bomba Becatelli in Salvatori, Or, The Bandit's Daughter. Sands, p. 44 Robson did not seem to connect with his audience, but in the short farce which followed he introduced a comic song he had sung already at the Grecian, The Country Fair, which allowed him to improvise characters and introduce comic business. "That's very good: he's an actor!" was his manager's satisfied verdict, and Robson's place was assured. By April his performance of the song was being advertised on the bill separately in bold type.Sands, p. 45
On 25 April, Robson took the lead in a burlesque version of Macbeth, a freewheeling adaptation that poked fun at the solemn and scholarly productions of Shakespeare offered by the likes of Charles Kean, while also including as many popular American minstrel songs as it could.Tunes included Who's dat knocking on de door, Lucy Neal, Such a gittin' upstairs, Jim Crow (to which Macbeth and King Duncan danced a reel) and 'an Apparition of an Ethiopian Serenader' in the second Witches scene. Sands, p. 47 Reviewers were impressed, commenting that Robson's Macbeth was more than a simple caricature: "His peculiarity is that he really seems to be aware of the tragic foundation which lies at the bottom of the grotesque superstructure".
Then on 23 May 1853 Robson appeared in a revived one-act farce called The Wandering Minstrel playing Jem Bags, a bedraggled Cockney street-singer. He produced a realistic portrayal which astonished and delighted his audience with its originality,"the exquisite truth by which he imitates the voice, dress, manner and general appearance of his man draws forth shouts of laughter". but which may have owed something to personal experience.Irish writer John Duggan describes Robson in his early days, half-starved, trying unsuccessfully to sing for pennies outside a tavern near Canterbury barracks. John Duggan, 'Robson. A Memoir' Duffy's Hibernian Magazine: Vol. 2, August 1862, p. 140 His culminating song, Villikins and his Dinah,Adapted from a genuine street ballad, William and Dinah, and according to some sources sung previously at the Grecian. Robson had certainly performed it in Ireland prior to coming to the Olympic. Sands, pp. 49–50 quickly became the rage of the season and within two years was known throughout the English-speaking world, reaching Australia and America.New York Times,13 July 1855: "Vilikins and his Dinah" was already so popular a journalist describes a newsboy reaping extra profits by selling the song sheet alongside his usual papers.
Robson's talent for burlesque came to the fore again in Shylock, or The Merchant of Venice Preserv'd in which, playing the title role, he again produced the unsettling effect of veering from comedy to tragedy and back within a single speech.: "Mr. Robson's genius is unique. ... Many of his bursts are truly tragic, and might have done justice to Edmund Kean in his best days. ... Is there after all only a step from the sublime to the ridiculous?" His most memorable performance in burlesque was as Medea, in which he parodied the strongly-emotional, gestural acting of the Italian star Adelaide Ristori in the same role. Between the laughs, however, he also made his audience shiver at the sheer desperation of an abandoned wife.The Times (London, England), 15 July 1856, p.12: 'The dark, lowering look with which he surveys his intended victim comprises so much of tragic intensity, with so much that belongs to the moody virago of low life, that it leaves you in doubt whether you ought to laugh or to shudder.' Dickens, who saw both, preferred Robson – not for his comedy, but because he found him more moving in the tragic passages, writing: "[T]he extraordinary power of his performance ... points to the badness of Ristori's acting in a singular way by bringing out what she might do, and does not. The scene with Jason is perfectly terrific. ... He has a frantic song and dagger dance, about 10 minutes long altogether, which has more passion in it than Ristori could express in 50 years."
Ristori herself came to see his version on its opening night,14 July 1856. Sands, p. 77The Times (London, England), 15 July 1856, p.12 At the end of the performance Robson sang 'an apologetic song' and revealed a bust of Ristori, 'standing on a pedestal inscribed with the names of her most celebrated characters.' Aware she had been watching (and laughing) from a private box, the audience redoubled its cheers. and Robson, who suffered badly from stage fright, was so disconcerted he forgot his lines and was unable to go on: he was saved only by the presence of mind of the little girlRosina Ranoe, later the second Mrs. Francis Burnand. playing his stage 'son', who cued his first lines.Robson rewarded her with a gift of money and a doll. Sands, pp. 78–79