Herbert Beerbohm Tree's King Henry VIII: Expenditure, Spectacle and Experiment

Abstract

Soon after breakfast-time on the morning of 1 September 1910 ‘suburban ladies with their camp stools, sandwiches, and crochet work took up position outside the pit and gallery doors’ at His Majesty's Theatre in London's Haymarket; later they were joined by messenger boys reserving places for more affluent enthusiasts, and by the time the doors opened at 6.15 p.m. the queue had swelled to the extent that only half could be admitted. Amongst the more privileged members of the audience which thronged the theatre that Thursday evening were to be seen Prince Francis of Teck, the Ranee of Sarawak and Sir Arthur and Lady Conan Doyle, a notable turn-out at a time of year when, according to Vanity Fair, ‘London is supposed to be deserted by that fraction of the population whose absence or presence causes it to be designated as empty or full’. Such intense anticipation is rarely generated by a theatrical event, yet throughout that summer the press had dutifully recorded the latest developments in what was to prove to be Herbert Beerbohm Tree's most lavish Shakespearian production King Henry VIII. Whilst the press and public eagerly awaited the latest Bardic offering (his fourteenth) from the foremost actor-manager of the day, his theatre, from his office in the dome downwards, was a bustle of activity involving actors, designers, costumiers, and all the other participants in a great theatrical enterprise. Tree's own grasp on the mechanics and economics of theatre production was legendarily vague, but, fortunately for him and indeed for us, those matters were handled and meticulously recorded by his manager Henry Dana, and it is through Dana's account books, now in the Tree Archive in the Theatre Collection at the University of Bristol, that the financial framework, on which was to be placed the sumptuous spectacle of Henry VIII, can be found.