When Knights were Bold

When Knights were Bold is a comedy by Charles Marlowe (pseudonym of Harriett Jay (1853-1932)[1])

The original text

The play tells of Guy De Vere, a British officer who has returned from service in India after inheriting an estate and a baronetcy in the village of Little Twittering. There he finds a number of eccentrics and his cousin Rowena, who falls in love with him.

The play was first performed in Nottingham and London during 1906-1907, with James Bromley-Challenor (1884–1935)[2] in the leading role of "Sir Guy de Vere" and his wife, Marjorie Bellairs ()[], in the role of "Lady Rowena Eggington". The play was the author's greatest known success and the one regular and lucrative source of income for the Bromley-Challenors, particularly after he had purchased the rights to the play outright in 1915. They performed it throughout the UK and other countries and are claimed to have produced and/or performed in it more than 6000 times over the course of James's lifetime, doing well out of it throughout.

Translations and adaptations

The play was filmed four times, as a silent British film by Maurice Elvey (1916), an Italian adaptation by Aquila Films (1916), a third silent film by Tim Whelan (1929) and a sound version by Jack Raymond (1936).

Performance history in South Africa

1909: Performed in February by Leonard Rayne and his company in the Opera House, Cape Town, with Charles Howitt in the role of "Sir Guy de Vere".

1915/196(?): Probably performed as an inevitable part of the repertoire of the

Sources

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/When_Knights_Were_Bold_(play)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/When_Knights_Were_Bold

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harriett_Jay

Obituary, The Argus, Melbourne, Australia, Thursday, 19 Dec 1935: p.12

J.P. Wearing. 2014. The London Stage 1920-1929: A Calendar of Productions, Performers, and Personnel, Rowman & Littlefield: p.5 [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 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.429, 430

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