James Lycett

(18**-18**)Influential Freemason, hotelier(?) and amateur actor and manager.

Biography

Born in England, he had been an amateur actor in Stratford upon Avon, where he had acquired a love of Shakespeare.

Lycett and his family arrived in the Cape from England in 1848. It appears that he lived in, owned or managed the London Hotel in Cape Town, since theatre tickets could be obtained from him there. He was also a Freemason, and on his arrival in Cape Town became the Noble Grandmaster of a newly founded Lodge in Bree Street. Lycett re-introduced the Cape to Shakespeare and was apparently the leading spirit in Cape amateur theatricals.

His contribution to South African theatre

Shortly after his arrival in Cape Town, he organised an English amateur company, often referred to as Lycett's Company, to raise funds for the Masonic Lodge.

Initially, in 1848, he may have performed something in the Drury Lane Theatre, but in 1849 he fitted up Haupt's wine store at 21 Hope Street as a theatre. The opening performance was (possibly?) Shakespeare’s Richard the Third with Lycett as "Richard". They repeated this performance in the Drury Lane Theatre in July 1850. This production established his name in Cape Town theatre.

There would follow William Tell and The Party Wall (Friday, 6 September 1850); The Devil's Elixir, or The Shadowless Man and Twice Killed (Oxenford) on Saturday 24 November, 1850; and between 1850 and 1852 he did a few more plays, among them a performance of Pizarro, or The Conquest of Mexico.

However, hereafter he seemed to have become otherwise occupied for a while, at least till after Sefton Parry’s arrival in 1855.

Lycett was accidentally wounded on stage in 1858 while playing Macduff to Sefton Parry's Macbeth.

[TH, JH]

Sources

F.C.L. Bosman, 1928: pp. 412-428; 480-503.

F.C.L. Bosman, 1980:

Laidler, 1926;

Du Toit, 1988

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