Fun on the Bristol

Fun on the Bristol is a musical comedy created by John F. Sheridan (1848-1908)[] and George Fawcett (1834–1889)[1]

Also known as Fun on the Bristol, or A Night on the Sound.

Translations and adaptations

The play was inspired by Sheridan’s involvement in a short sketch called Muldoon's Trip to Boston devised at the Brooklyn Playhouse - a skit on the H.M.S. Pinafore craze then sweeping America, in which a Mrs. Muldoon takes her daughter, who was crazy about the musical, from New York to Boston to put her in an insane asylum. Once on board ship, an impromptu concert was then organised in the saloon.

The success of the slight farce impressed Sheridan, particularly the role of the Widow, which he saw as a potential vehicle for himself.

Working with the actor and dramatist George Fawcett (George Fawcett Rowe, 1834–1889), the actor committed his ideas to paper, they talked over the scenes, and ultimately the text for Fun on the Bristol was written by Fawcett.

The action of the play takes place in an uptown New York house and later on the Sound steamer "Bristol", the story revolving around the elderly Irish Widow O'Brien and her two daughters who also have a Pinafore fixation and are being taken to an asylum.

First performed at Newport, Rhode Island in 1879, then opened at the Theatre Royal in Manchester on May 15 1882, the play was an immediate sensation across the world, Sheridan himself touring widely with it over the years.

Performance history in South Africa

1904: Performed at the Good Hope Theatre, Cape Town, on 10 September, with John F. Sheridan in the role of the Widow.

Sources

https://www.oxfordreference.com/view/10.1093/oi/authority.20110803100431756

https://ozvta.files.wordpress.com/2011/07/fawcett-george-26102014.pdf

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 1932. (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.203-205

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E. Le Roy Rice. 1911. Monarchs of Minstrelsy, from "Daddy" Rice to Date. Рипол Классик: p.183[2]

J.P. Wearing. 2013. The London Stage 1890-1899: A Calendar of Productions, Performers, and Personnel. (Second, revised edition, p. 423). Scarecrow Press, Google E-book: p. 183[3]