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Description: | A collection of playbills, letters, photographs and drawings accumulated by six generations of the Fisher family. This archive records the theatrical careers of the Fisher family, beginning with that of David Fisher, a carpenter, who was recruited as singer and actor by the Norwich Theatre Royal, and went on to take over the management of a small travelling company of comedians. This family business turned into a popular theatre circuit in Norfolk and Suffolk, and Fisher opened his own playhouses throughout the region. This archive traces the rise to respectability of provincial touring theatre in the Georgian era and its growing importance as a training ground for the London stage - David Fisher's own son played at Drury Lane with Edmund Kean.
Following the closure of the circuit in 1844, succeeding generations of the Fisher family worked further afield. The third David Fisher became an acclaimed comedian on the Victorian London stage, and his cousin, Charles Fisher, was a leading actor on the New York stage. In the 1880s a fourth David Fisher played throughout Britain and Europe with D'Oyly Carte, and in the twentieth century his son, another David Fisher, was at the Prince's Theatre, Bristol, in the heyday of Edwardian pantomime. Several other members of the family appeared on stage, including Edward Andrews who toured in musical shows, and Kitty Fisher, who acted with the Birmingham Repertory Company.
Archive reference number:(THM/44) | Format: | Correspondence Press cuttings Playtexts (typescripts) Documents (business) Personal items Programmes Photographs (portrait) Playbills Written / typed ephemera Books Props Ephemera, e.g. tickets Scrapbooks Playtexts (printed) Playtexts (manuscripts) Volumes | Subjects: | Circle stock theater - England - East Anglia - 18th century; Circle stock theater - England - East Anglia - 19th century; Theater - Great Britain - 19th century; Theater - United States - New York - 19th century; Repertory theater; Musical theater; Pantomime (Christmas entertainment); Operetta - 19th century; Comedians | Temporal: | 19th century 1760s-1920s 20th century 18th century | Source: | Backstage | Address: | Blythe House, 23 Blythe Road, London,,
W14 0QX | Creator: | Fisher, Kitty | Identifier: | www.backstage.ac.uk/records/collection/c | Language: | en | Format: | Correspondence Press cuttings Playtexts (typescripts) Documents (business) Personal items Programmes Photographs (portrait) Playbills Written / typed ephemera Books Props Ephemera, e.g. tickets Scrapbooks Playtexts (printed) Playtexts (manuscripts) Volumes | Go to resource |
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