J.E.H. English

ENGLISH, J.E.H. A "celebrated comic vocalist" from the Theatre Royal, Sheffield, who arrived in Cape Town early in 1858 with the Sefton Parry Company. After two months he broke away to set up a rival company called "The Gentlemen Amateurs" (qv), in The New Music Hall, Buitekant Street, which English had fitted for himself. Performed mainly comic sketches and songs, based on local events (vide A Portfolio of Oddities). A great promotor of his own cause, he for example utilized a waterlogged seaman-hero from the burning ship Eastern City, to play "Iago" in his hastily prepared production of Othello (a benefit for the survivors) in September 1858. He followed this by The Corsican Brothers, and later some farces. His success initially drove Sefton Parry to quit the Cape, but by November 1858 English had disappeared from the scene. (See: Bosman, 1928; Fletcher, 1994)

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