Lend Me Five Shillings

Lend Me Five Shillings is a farce in one act by John Maddison Morton (1811-1891)[1]

Also found as Who'll Lend Me Five Shillings?

The original text

Said to be an English version of Riche d'amour, a short "comédie-vaudeville" in one act by Augustin Théodore de Lauzanne de Vauroussel, Félix-Auguste Duvert, X.-B. Saintine, which was first performed in Paris at the Vaudeville Theatre on 20 November 1845, and published by Beck, 1845.

Morton's play was first performed at the Haymarket Theatre, London, on 19 February 1846, and at the Park Theatre, New York on 27 April of the same year. The English text was published in London by T.H. Lacy in 1846 and in New York by William Taylor & Co. in the series Modern Standard Drama (no. 24), also in 1846. A new American edition, published by Dick and Fitzgerald, New York, appeared in 1889.

Translations and adaptations

Performance history in South Africa

1859: Performed as Who'll Lend Me Five Shillings? by the Sefton Parry and his company in the in the Cape Town Theatre, on 25 November, with a "Highland Fling" by Miss Powell and The Farmer's Story, or The Three Trials of Life (Bernard)

1867: Performed as Lend Me Five Shillings on 4 March 1867 during a Benefit Performance for the Somerset Hospital in Cape Town was arranged by the officers of the 9th Regiment, led by Captain Borton, and performed in the Theatre Royal in association with Mrs Marie Duret and Mrs Cooper. It also featured the regimental orchestra, led by Signor Bonicoli and a performance of Macbeth Travestie (Talfourd).