Walter Melville Dramatic Company

The Walter Melville Dramatic Company was a famous London-based travelling theatre company under the management of Walter Melville (1875–1937)[1].

The Melville Brothers

Walter Melville (born Walter Melville Robbins, 1875-1937) and his brother Frederick Melville (born Frederick Melville Robbins, 1877-1938), were actors, playwrights and impresarios, also known as "The Melville Brothers", who for a long while managed the Lyceum Theatre in London, putting on a series of their melodramas, popularly known as "Bad Women Dramas".

A number of their plays were performed in South Africa.

For plays by Walter Melville, see for example the entries in ESAT on The Worst Woman in London, Her Second Time on Earth, The Girl Who Took the Wrong Turning and The Beggar Girl's Wedding

Walter Melville Dramatic Company

Walter Melville brought his touring theatre company (the Walter Melville Dramatic Company) to South Africa in 1910.

In Cape Town the company appeared briefly in the Opera House under the auspices of the Wheeler Theatre Company, and according to Boonzaier (1923) performed a number of the so-called "Melville melodramas", including The Girl Who Took the Wrong Turning and The Beggar Girl's Wedding.

Sources

The Melville Story: Walter and Frederick Melville[2]

Elaine Ashton and Ian Clarke. 1996. "The Dangerous Woman of Melvillean Melodrama" in New Theatre Quarterly 45: Volume 12, Part 1 (pp.30-42.)[3]

D.C. Boonzaier. 1923. "My playgoing days – 30 years in the history of the Cape Town stage", in SA Review, 9 March and 24 August 1923. (Reprinted in Bosman 1980: pp. 374-439.)

F.C.L. Bosman. 1980. Drama en Toneel in Suid-Afrika, Deel II, 1856-1912. Pretoria: J.L. van Schaik: pp. 434

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