Famous Black Shakespearean actor visits Jersey for the first time!

The first black “Othello” wows Jersey audiences!

From our research we’ve discovered that the first black “Othello” Ira Aldridge visited Jersey for the first time in 1860.

By then he was a big celebrity, and had toured the English regions and the continent, where he’d been a huge success.

Our playbill “detective” Hannah Manktelow who is a doctoral student from the University of Nottingham working with the British Library, has been examining extracts from “The Jersey Independent and Daily Telegraph”. That’s where she discovered that the actor trod the boards for the first time in Jersey from Monday 20th to Friday 24th August 1860. Among other roles, audiences were treated to his portrayals of “Othello”, and his “Shylock” from “The Merchant Of Venice”.

He proved so popular that he was re-engaged for another five nights from Mon 27th to Friday 31st of August, where he repeated his two Shakespearean roles and gave the spectators the opportunity to see another – King Lear on Thursday 30th. Although it was noted that on one particular night the theatre boxes weren’t full, the crowd in the gallery more than compensated and was described as “thick as herrings in a barrel”.

His “Lear” earned him a glowing review in the local newspaper which praised “the histrionic power” which he brought to the role of the ageing King, conflicted by poor judgement, buffeted by madness, and at the mercy of his two scheming daughters. Words like “thrilling” and “terrible” are used to describe his treatment of the innocent Cordelia and his performance is summed up as “excellent” leaving us in no doubt about how the play went down with the spectators.

The range of the actor is also praised by the reviewer of “The Merchant of Venice”. He notes that Ira’s portrayal as “Shylock” is described as capable of 'calm and deeply impassioned eloquence', adding that 'Mr Ira Aldridge' has given proofs of his versatile powers in comedy, by the manner in which he performed his afterpieces.'

Hannah Manktelow

Ira’s final night included his famous performance of “Othello”, and then a series of waltzes were performed as a tribute to the actor. The evening was rounded off, in the fashion of the day with a lighter piece, a “screaming farce” called “The Virginian Mummy”

“Two things stand out to me” says Hannah. “The first is that this is his first visit to Jersey and it’s very late into his career. The second is that the listing talks about how expensive Aldridge was to engage, which tells us something of his celebrity by 1860”.

Another sign that he had become well-known as a performer in his own right, is that the actor is described by his real name as well as by the sobriquet he adopted of the “African Roscius”.