Jacobi on Garrick: Godfather of the British Stage Secret Knowledge

London's Theatreland - a buzzing,

thriving community in the heart of the West End.

A melting pot of tourists, theatre-goers,

hawkers and of course actors.

But way before my time, there was one man more than any other

whose name was synonymous with the profession that is my life.

He was hailed as a genius,

a master of his art.

And it was said of him also that he had no rival.

At his best, when he really gave everything,

there was just nobody who could match him.

A man who delighted in reviews, hailing him

as the best tragedian and comedian in England.

He certainly wasn't backwards in coming forwards.

He was so well known, he was the George Clooney of his day. Ah.

This made him legendary. Yes.

That man was David Garrick.

At the height of his fame, in the mid-18th century,

David Garrick was the most famous actor the world had ever seen.

As both manager of the Theatre Royal, Drury lane,

and its star performer,

he was the undisputed lord and master of the British stage.

In my career, I have had the privilege of working with great

names like Olivier and Gielgud, but though in his time Garrick was at

least as famous, I didn't know much about him.

I want to uncover the secret of Garrick's immense success,

go behind his theatrical mask, get to grips with his acting

technique and find out how a penniless young

man from the provinces became a national, cultural icon.

Walk down London's Garrick Street

and you will come to the Garrick Club, a private members club,

established in 1831 and named in Garrick's honour.

It is one of the oldest, most prestigious

private clubs in the capital...

and a veritable shrine to Garrick.

Dr Moira Goff is the librarian.

Welcome to the Garrick Club library. Thank you. Do come and have a look

at some of the things we have out -

all to do with Garrick. These look very pretty.

So we have some memorabilia. What is that? Yes.

Two hands, I think. It's a powder puff. Like a bellows.

Yes, it is. Can you imagine Garrick sitting in his dressing room,

with a cape over his shoulders, and a mask, somebody behind him

puffing powder onto his wig before he gets ready to go on stage?

While he's still learning his lines! SHE LAUGHS

Yes, very likely!

'Amongst the trinkets and curios is a significant item,

'key to unlocking Garrick's story.'

Goodman's Fields, October 19th, 1741.

Now, this is the beginning of it all, isn't it?

This is the playbill that announced

"the first appearance of Mr Garrick...

"in an historical play called

"The Life And Death Of King Richard III.

"The part of King Richard... by a gentleman

"who never appeared on any stage."

This was...a legend.

This made him legendary. This is where he

burst into public consciousness as

the great actor from the beginning, I think.

Absolutely, from the very beginning. I mean, the audiences raved,

he suddenly became king of the theatre in one night!

Why did they say "a gentleman who never appeared on any stage?"

Was it a fail-safe thing? "If I'm rotten, if I'm bad, it's because I've

"never been on the stage." If you

make a mess of it and it doesn't happen,

then you can withdraw gracefully because

people don't really know who you are. Of course, with him,

it had the opposite effect.

He obviously made quite a stir.

People would see this performance and they think,

"My God, for a beginner, he isn't half good."

"Oh, well, I wonder what's going to happen next."

And they tell their friends, and people start

flocking to it.

So that playbill of Garrick's Richard III

is one of the most important items

in the whole of British theatrical history. Everybody raved

about his performance. It was the most-stunning debut on the London

stage ever. But who was this

gentleman who has never appeared on any stage?

I'm meeting Ian Kelly, a fellow actor, author

and a long-time Garrick admirer.

Ian, I want to talk to you about the man Garrick,

not particularly the actor, but where he came from, who he was.

Amazingly, this sort of superstar of the 18th century

comes from a small provincial town... Yes.

..and he's born in Hereford, but he is brought up in Lichfield and

part of a very small-town world

that becomes even smaller, in a sense,

because he ends up at this minuscule, little school

with less than a dozen pupils, but their teacher is Samuel Johnson.

And this is the beginnings of one of the most important friendships of

that era, or any era. They are a very odd couple all round,

Sam Johnson and David Garrick, because Garrick is this lithe,

little fella. Febrile, charming,

handsome, quick-witted, quick of movement.

Very short, very small, I hear.

Do you know his exact height?

We think about 5ft 4.

Five-four. He's a wee fella. He's a wee fella.

And his boon companion, Sam Johnson, this lumbering hulk of a man,

as he was described.

And when exactly they hatch a plot to, as it were, run away to

London, we don't know, but they do. And by repute, both of them,

rather touchingly, with, as it were, half a play script

under their arms... Yes, describe that journey.

Garrick is about 20, and his former schoolmaster is about 27, 28.

And they come to London, where they've got a single horse

and sort of took turns to ride and walk from...

One rode and tethered the horse... Mm-hm. ..and walked on.

Then the second one, who was walking, untethered it, got on it and rode.

HE LAUGHS

On arrival in London, Garrick half-heartedly

tried his hand as a lawyer.

Then equally half-heartedly

went into business with his brother as a wine merchant.

The play was called Lethe, a dramatic satire

first staged here at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane

What is remarkable is that Garrick's play gives us

an extraordinary insight into the theatre of his day.

was known, before he has done his Richard III, called Lethe.

It was a satire, wasn't it? That's right.

The central character is Aesop.

And various characters come to see Aesop.

There's a scene where it is the fine gentleman

talking about the pleasures of his life and what he does.

And there's one point where he talks about this stage experience.

And he talks about how he has gone onto the stage

during the performance

as a member of the audience. "I stand upon the stage, talk loud

"and stare about, which confounds the actors

"and disturbs the audience.

"Upon which the galleries, who hate the appearance of one of us,

"begin to hiss and cry, 'Off, off!'

"while I, undaunted, stamp my foot so,

"loll with my shoulder thus,

"and take snuff with my right hand

"and smile scornfully, thus. DEREK LAUGHS

"This exasperates the savages, and they attack us

"with volleys of sucked oranges and half-eaten pippins."

Wonderful! DEREK LAUGHS

The whole theatre experience was different, so the audience

behaviour, the audience expectation was different.

It was very much an interactive

experience, and barracking the actors was a big thing.

Where the premium seats are these days,

that was the pit then, that was

bench seating and that would really be full of all the young dandies.

They would be there to play cards with each other,

to drink and carouse,

to have a good time, to show off to other people who are around.

There would be prostitutes working the room down there as well.

So what was in it for the actors?

So even then, Garrick was obviously perturbed by the way

the theatre worked, as somebody trying to break into it.

Garrick's first-ever play was a smash hit and became a staple

of the 18th century theatre repertoire, but despite his success

as a playwright, in his heart of hearts Garrick still wanted to

be an actor. However, he wouldn't be making his debut here at Drury Lane.

As a novice, he would need to start at the bottom.

At that time there were only two official theatres here in London,

Covent Garden and Drury Lane.

All the rest operated on the margins

of legality, a rather dubious and seedy existence.

Plays were squeezed in between song recitals and rope dancers.

So it was at one of these

less salubrious establishments, Goodman's Fields in the East End,

that Garrick's career began. And he was going to have to work very

hard to convince his family that acting was a reputable profession.

Amazingly, the letters Garrick wrote home during his debut

season at Goodman's Fields still survive,

and are kept here at the Victoria and Albert Museum.

This is interesting. It's a letter from David to his brother Peter.

"My mind, as you must know,

"has always been inclined to the stage.

"I know you will be much displeased at me. Yet I hope when you

"shall find that I may have the genius of an actor,

"without the vices, you will think less severe of me

"and not be ashamed to own me for a brother"

It's sad to think that our profession was, for

so long, considered unacceptable.

It's wonderful that Garrick changed all that.

Like him, I always wanted to go on the stage, I don't know why,

I don't know where it came from.

Some odd gene must have got in on the night of my conception.

But unlike Garrick, I had

huge support from my parents.

Now, here is another letter from Garrick. "London, Tuesday

"night. My dear brother,

"as you finished your last letter

"with saying that you did not approve

"of the stage, yet you would always be my affectionate brother, I may

"now venture to tell you I am very near quite resolved...

"to be a player."

Oh, there you... Now he goes on to say,

"I have the judgment of the best judges who, to

"a man, are of the opinion that I shall turn out,

"nay they say I am not only the best tragedian

"but comedian in England."

He certainly wasn't backwards in coming forwards.

But what he says is true, he was wowing the audience.

Packed houses...screaming for him.

So what was it that Garrick was doing that was so very different?

I'm intrigued, I really want to understand

the technique of this charismatic performer.

When Garrick arrived on the scene,

the London stage was still dominated by a very formal

style of acting that went back to the restoration period.

What went before him was declamation,

decorum, beauty. Ah.

So that the whole thing was declaimed.

Now, I think what Garrick rediscovered is that

basis of great acting, which is to surprise an audience. Ah, yes.

Changes of pace, rhythm, pauses. Yes, yes.

Garrick was brilliant at observing.

And like a modern actor who is given a different role, they might go

and do some research in a particular environment. He would do

that, so he's often described, for instance, if he's playing the part

of a servant. He's watched the way the man would have been scratching

his leg and used the same gesture. He will borrow from real life.

He will borrow... Oh, yes.

I think actors are scavengers. Yes, put it in the box of tricks.

I mean, it's very lovely to say,

you know, it's art...

it's craft, it's skill. Yeah.

It's also tricks. Yes. And I am sure Garrick was as tricky as anybody.

He was, definitely. Yes.

So how natural was Garrick's naturalness?

HE CHUCKLES

For us, it probably wouldn't seem natural at all because when you look

at the drawings and the portraits of him, they are very statuesque poses.

Yes.

The naturalness of Garrick comes from his emotional commitment

and involvement.

Did he not have a trick wig

for Hamlet, that he could

make his hair stand on end?

He did, I think, for some performances use that.

The very first time he did Hamlet in the 1740s.

And it was an attempt... He was fascinated by modern

studies of physiology, so what he wanted to try

and communicate to people was that this sight made

literally his hair stand on end, so he did that, the wig came up a bit

and his hat fell off. But I don't think he always did that.

But at his best, when he really gave everything, there was just

nobody who could match him.

Less than a year after his debut on the seedy fringes of London

theatre, the plucky young actor from the provinces went legit

In his first season, Garrick played King Lear, Hamlet

and, by royal command, Richard III.

British theatre had a new shining star.

Garrick fever may have gripped the nation but Garrick never allowed

his head to be completely turned.

He took his art very seriously,

and published an actor's guide to the craft.

Garrick's essay on acting first appeared as a short sixpenny

pamphlet...issued just before his own debut as Macbeth in 1744.

The essay offers a wonderful insight into Garrick's move towards

realism and a more natural way of acting.

So, here we have the notes on how to act as Macbeth after

murdering Duncan.

"He should, at that time, be a moving statue,

"or indeed as a petrified man.

"His eyes must speak, and his tongue

"be metaphorically silent.

"and his body from his soul.

physically what to do, but Garrick also added

spirit, emotion, passion.

Macbeth was one of many Shakespearean roles that

Garrick made his own.

I've come to his country residence in Hampton to meet Ian Kelly

again, who wants to show me something that might help me

understand Garrick's deep regard for Shakespeare.

This is the temple to Shakespeare in the grounds of his villa.

contemplate the greatness of the arts or the evanescence of life.

But Garrick wanted to contemplate Shakespeare and have his guests

do the same, so the great and the good would come down the river

and would visit Hampton.

Tell me about the statue.

It looks like Shakespeare, but at the same time it looks...

It's too real to be Shakespeare, I mean the bulging tummy

and all that. Yeah. Well, the truth

of the story is, the body is David Garrick

and the head is an idea of Shakespeare.

So he... Garrick's almost single-handedly

revived Shakespeare and his reputation?

He's huge in the process of that.

It's partly to do with what's going on legally,

because there is a Theatre Licensing Act in 1737.

And it requires every new play to be submitted

to the Lord Chamberlain for censorship.

And as a result of this, there's a lot of new interest in Shakespeare,

but also...

and I think this is the key to understanding Garrick's interest in Shakespeare,

there was a growing awareness that it was a wonderful vehicle for

the new style of acting and the new way of understanding performance.

Why then did Garrick muck about with him so much?

Um. I mean, he wrote scenes,

he changed the end of Lear.

Why did he do that, do you think? It is of course ludicrous that

we should have a happy-ending Lear,

where Cordelia comes back to life. Yes. Or indeed a happy-ending

Romeo And Juliet. Yes. However, he was sometimes

using Shakespeare in different contexts, because sometimes it

would be the afterpiece for... It needed to be foreshortened to go

at a different part in the evening. So there was a lot of reimagining

of Shakespeare, which you could see as disrespectful, but was

also part of the agenda that allowed it

to be properly on the stage again.

Also, he was responsible for...

putting Shakespeare in Stratford

and anchoring him in Stratford.

He hit upon the idea of putting on a jubilee, a sort of Shakespeare

festival in Stratford, with a vast rotunda,

the first-ever festival theatre there. There were going to be

fireworks and horse racing and balls

and masquerade and a whole shebang.

But...something went wrong.

It goes horribly wrong for poor Garrick,

and everybody else who's traipsed out,

because a lot of the great and the good, hundreds of people turn up.

All the nobility of London arriving.

And it pours with rain, it could not have been more of a disaster.

But it wasn't the end. Garrick rewrote the pageant

and put it on at Drury lane, where it was a tremendous success,

packing the houses and recouping his money four times over.

So David Garrick wasn't only a great actor,

he was a rather brilliant impresario.

Garrick was 30 when, in 1747, he became joint manager of the

Theatre Royal, Drury Lane, the scene of his many great dramatic triumphs.

But it wasn't just acting that Garrick revolutionised.

He also transformed the business of theatre.

First off was to clean up the rowdy behaviour of the audience.

He stopped people sitting on the stage

so they didn't interrupt the action.

He did away with the

cheap admission halfway through the show, so that stopped that.

And presumably that then had a big effect on the way

people reacted to the drama.

And really set the tone for what is obviously our modern theatre.

And focused it much more on the play, on the players.

He insisted on rehearsing. Yes, he introduced rehearsals.

Garrick was not only very keen on changing the acting style

and making the play the thing, if you like. Yes.

Introducing scenic effects,

introducing costumes that made sense with the character

and the action. And when he employed Philip De Loutherbourg to come over.

Oh, the designer.

Before there would be probably, right at the very back of the stage,

there might be a semblance of a wooded glen

or a frontage of a house.

Loutherbourg used different materials. He'd use translucent

materials, which means that they could actually move a lantern

up behind the cloth to make it look as if the moon was rising.

Yes. That was part of his realism and his naturalism.

Not just in his own performances,

but the presentation... Of the whole thing.

And that was all a completely different and new experience.

And presumably people then saw that as an attraction.

Garrick understood how to put on a show.

He understood that audiences wanted spectacle and surprise.

But also, Garrick quite cannily knew the importance of self-promotion,

capitalising on the explosion of print media at the time.

The V holds a vast collection of Garrick prints,

including his Richard III, as captured by one of the most

famous artists of the era,

William Hogarth.

So this was published in 1746.

And it says, "Mr Garrick in the character of Richard III,

"Shakespeare, act five, scene seven."

And Hogarth complained about the difficulty of painting Garrick,

because his face changed so much, because he had all these...

It was so expressive?

Yes. He had to keep trying and trying again to capture

Garrick's likeness. Really?

The other interesting thing is, because Garrick knew

so many of the artists, and he moved in that world, he was painted

so much, he was the most painted person,

after the king, in his age.

Yes, how extraordinary. Do you know how many?

Over 200 different representations, which were then engraved

and etched.

I mean, Garrick knew the marketability of his own image.

These were all part of his celebrity, weren't they?

These were the equivalent now of endless photographs.

Yes. Of course, everyone would

have recognised Garrick by this time,

he was so well known. He was the Georg Clooney of his day!

Ah.

Amongst all these images of Garrick, there is

one that is particularly poignant.

And this is one that Garrick wouldn't have seen,

because it was published after his death.

It shows Garrick being lifted up from his coffin.

By angels.

By angels.

And being taken up to Heaven, but calling off on the way.

Oh, saying hello to...Shakespeare.

Shakespeare's waiting there with the muse of comedy and the muse

of tragedy and then they'll probably go on up to have a high old time...

Oh, yes. It's party time up there, isn't it?

Yes, so they needn't worry.

Don't look so sad, he's going to have a lovely time up there.

David Garrick died in 1779 - he was 61.

Ironically, he was about to put on the biggest show

he ever staged - his own funeral.

There are reports of close to 50,000 tickets

being sold to see him lying in state.

The cortege stretched from his Southampton Street home,

all the way along the Strand to Westminster Abbey.

I have been keen to uncover the real David Garrick.

To find out if he really was the great actor,

the great manager, the great showman that I had heard about.

And I have to confess to being rather sceptical,

but the truth is, he really was all these great things.

He was a man who loved to perform,

to write, loved to gossip, to entertain.

The theatre was at the heart of everything he did,

rightly or wrongly,

and for me, as a mere actor, that is what this life is all about.

The urge, the compulsion...to act.

And not just the desire to act. It's not enough to WANT to act.

It is the NEED to act.

And I think Garrick had that in spades.

In an age before TV and film, acting was totally ephemeral.

There was absolutely no way of capturing the actor's inspiration.

But I don't think Garrick's achievements are lost to us.

Far from it.

They're built into the bricks and mortar of this place.

They blaze brightly in the wider world of London's Theatreland.

They're written into the DNA of the living,

breathing tradition that is British theatre.

MUSIC: Boombastic by Shaggy

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