He Who'd Be A Governor

He Who'd Be A Governor is a scenario for a comic opera written by S.E. Hudson.

The text is inscribed in his journal as "The New Comic Opera", and lampoons and heavily criticizes the officials and prominent citizens (including Lady Anne Barnard) at the Cape who were at odds with sir George Yonge. The work was never performed, but the text is contained in The Diary of Samuel Eusebius Hudson Chief Clerk in the Customs, Cape Town 1798-1800, which is held by the South African Library in Cape Town.

There are a number of anomalies in references to this work by a range of authors. For instance Bosman(1928: p. 108), citing Miss Fairbridge (most probably Fairbridge's edited versions of Lady Anne Barnard's Cape Diaries), has the title as He Wou'd Be A Governor; both Bosman and Fletcher (1994: p.24) cite Hudson's second name as "Esuibuis", and Gosher illogically dates the text as 1861 - i.e. 33 years after the author's death.

Sources

F.C.L. Bosman. 1928. Drama en Toneel in Suid-Afrika, Deel I: 1652-1855. Pretoria: J.H. de Bussy.[1]: p. 108.

Jill Fletcher, 1994. The Story of Theatre in South Africa: A Guide to its History from 1780-1930. Cape Town: Vlaeberg: p. 23

Sydney Paul Gosher 1988. A historical and critical survey of the South African one-act play written in English. Unpublished doctoral dissertation. Pretoria: University of South Africa.

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