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The first black Shakespearean actor stars in Nottingham

In and among the thousands of theatre playbills stored for posterity in the British Library is this advertisement for a performance in Nottingham of Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar in 1827.

What is striking is the reference to what’s coming up the following week, what is referred to at the time as an extraordinary “novelty”.

Ira Aldridge as Othello © Victoria and Albert Museum, London.

It’s an appearance from the man who had become known as the ‘African Roscius’…Ira Aldridge – the first black actor to play Shakespeare’s parts.

His appearance would have caused a sensation and although there is no playbill for his performance of Othello, another playbill makes reference to his up and coming role.

Detail from the playbill advertising Ira Aldridge's up and coming performance
Details of playbill referencing Ira Aldridge's performance as Othello

We don’t know where the theatre is exactly, it was not the current Theatre Royal but there was a Theatre Royal in St Mary’s Gate that was built in 1760 and closed in 1837.

Fingers crossed for Julius Caesar

This theatre playbill from Nottingham in 1827 advertises Julius Caesar, and suggests the venue’s managers may be taking quite a risk.

Julius Caesar is not traditionally one of Shakespeare’s more popular plays, and indeed has not featured in this Nottingham theatre for some twenty years.

When the play was first written and performed, Queen Elizabeth was an elderly monarch and the court was consumed by who would succeed her.

The writer Maria Wyke believes that the play reflects the anxiety of an Elizabethan England that feared the possibility of a civil war.

It’s arguably quite a challenging choice for theatregoers on a Monday evening.

It’s interesting that the organisers of the night’s entertainment, Messrs Freer and Carrol, have cast themselves in the parts of the two strongest roles – Brutus and Cassius.

They’re clearly hoping that their benefit event will go down better than last year, as the playbill suggests it was a ‘failure’ and that this is their ‘second attempt’!

Detail of the 1827 playbill

The actor who overcame prejudice to win over audiences

By Zoë Wilcox, Curator at British Library

The African American actor Ira Aldridge was born in New York City and came to Britain as a teenager to pursue a career on the stage.

Zoë Wilcox

He first performed in Britain in 1825 and quickly became popular with audiences across the country. Almost all of Aldridge’s professional career was spent continuously touring because theatre managers would not employ him for longer periods, meaning that he was probably seen by a wider variety of people than any other Shakespearean actor of the day.

The best known event in Aldridge’s life is his ill-fated appearance as Othello at Covent Garden in 1833, which garnered hostile reactions from sections of the press opposed to a black man performing Shakespeare in such a prestigious venue.

The cancellation of the engagement after only two nights might lead us to believe that audiences in London were less accepting of a black Shakespearean actor than elsewhere, but this is not exactly true.

Audiences for Aldridge’s Covent Garden performances were thin on the ground due to an outbreak of the flu (and the fact that numbers were lower even than other nights during the period of the outbreak might suggest that some people stayed away on principle), but the majority of theatregoers were enthusiastic about his performance. Even the critic from The Times, one of the harshest reviewers, grudgingly admitted that Aldridge was ‘extremely well received’.

Read more....

About Shakespeare on Tour

From the moment they were written through to the present day, Shakespeare’s plays have continued to enthral and inspire audiences. They’ve been performed in venues big and small – including inns, private houses and emerging provincial theatres.

BBC English Regions is building a digital picture which tracks some of the many iconic moments across the country as we follow the ‘explosion’ in the performance of The Bard’s plays, from his own lifetime to recent times.

Drawing on fascinating new research from Records of Early English Drama (REED), plus the British Library's extensive collection of playbills, as well as expertise from De Montfort University and the Arts and Humanities Research Council, Shakespeare on Tour is a unique timeline of iconic moments of those performances, starting with his own troupe of actors, to highlights from more recent times. Listen out for stories on Shakespeare’s legacy on your BBC Local Radio station from Monday 21 March, 2016.

You never know - you might find evidence of Shakespeare’s footsteps close to home…

Craig Henderson, BBC English Regions

Related Links

Shakespeare on Tour: Around Notthingham

Shakespeare on Tour: Around the country