The Patent Ramoneur Company
The Patent Ramoneur Company is a piece by an unknown author.
Contents
The original text
No reference to a play by this name has been found.
The title may in fact have been reference an actual company, formed, according the prospectus, "for the purpose of cleansing chimneys with the Patent Ramoneur Machine, and introducing various other improvements in the business of chimney sweeping. Chimneys are daily swept with this machine where others have failed" (cited in Mayhew, 1851[1]).
Perhaps what F.C.L. Bosman (1980, p. 282) lists as a "performance" was simply a live demonstration/advert done by a local agent in Cape Town?
Translations and adaptations
Performance history in South Africa
1865: Performed as part of a benefit for victims of the great storm that had recently (in May) raged by what could be referred to as the Robben Island Amateurs - a cast probably made up of inmates and staff members of the asylum on Robben Island[2]). Also part of the programme were Did I Dream It? (Wooler) and Fearful Tragedy in the Seven Dials (Selby).
Sources
Henry Mayhew. 1851. London Labour and the London Poor, volume 2, Tufts Digital Library[3]
F.C.L. Bosman. 1980. Drama en Toneel in Suid-Afrika, Deel II, 1856-1912. Pretoria: J.L. van Schaik: p.282
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