Somewhere A Heart Is Breaking [The Coward Who Made Good]

Examiner of Plays' Summary:

The heroine whose lover, once a lieutenant in the army has got into disgrace through a momentary lack of nerve which suggested cowardice, and has been cast off by his father, a peppery general. War breaks out and the young man enlists and promptly gains the VC through fortunate valour. He would soon retrieve his good name and win back his sweetheart but for the machinations of his cousin, an out and out villain who, with his mistress for accomplice, undertakes wild schemes of iniquity for the purpose of keeping the lovers apart and thus securing the money left to them by the general. These schemes which include attempted murder, abduction, and colossal fraud. are foiled by aid of comic but benevolent policeman who is responsible 'for the rude humour which is sandwiched between the thrills of crude and extravagant melodrama. Innocuous in its ridiculous extravagance' and accordingly licensed by Ernest A. Bendall.

Researcher's Summary:

The play is often described as 'the anti-depression play' and as 'written by a soldier for the women who wait at home'. After its first performance at the Theatre Royal, Bilston on 20 March 1916 it is difficult to be precise about performance dates because the play was toured by Winifred Maude’s company in conjunction with, primarily, another play by Gore, ‘The Mormon and The Maid’. For example, at Merthyr Tydfil in the week beginning 26 July 1916 ‘Somewhere A Heart Is Breaking’ was played for the first three nights and ‘The Mormon and the Maid’ for the rest of the week. Advertisements seeking theatres for both plays sometimes described ‘The Mormon and The Maid’ as a ‘special Friday night attraction’ implying that ‘Somewhere A Heart Is Breaking’ was played in the rest of the week, although the arrangement could be reversed: at the Lyric Opera House, Hammersmith, 25 February - 2 March 1918, The Coward Who Made Good [see below] was the Friday attraction. But Winifred Maude’s company had other plays in their repertoire: in a four-week stay at the Hippodrome, Hamilton from 2 to 28 July 1917 they performed two plays each week including ‘Somewhere A Heart Is Breaking’ for the first four nights only. And in October-December 1917 they played both plays by Gore and Ibsen’s ‘Ghosts’ in the same weeks. So the fact that an advertisement in The Stage, 8 November 1917, announced the ‘78th week of [the] present tour’ of the two Gore plays by Winifred Maude's company does not necessarily imply that both had been played each week. A further complication is that from May/June 1917 ‘Somewhere A Heart Is Breaking’ is displaced in the company’s repertoire by ‘The Coward Who Made Good’, but a review of the latter in the Derby Daily Telegraph, 4 December 1917, makes clear that ‘The Coward Who Made Good’ is ‘Somewhere A Heart Is Breaking’ under a new title – one, perhaps, that was more obviously descriptive of its melodramatic plot. The list of performance dates included here errs on the side of completeness, and avoids leaving too many gaps, by including dates from the time when Winifred Maude’s company was touring both ‘Somewhere A Heart Is Breaking’/‘The Coward Who Made Good’ and ‘The Mormon and The Maid’; reference to the narrative for each date provides more information about which plays were being performed where this is known. Performances planned at the Garston Empire, Liverpool, 26-31 March 1917, may not have gone ahead following the detention of two leading cast members for avoiding military service. Also included are performances by the repertory company of Her Majesty’s Theatre, Walsall in May 1916, and by Albert Sember’s repertoire company at the Theatre Royal, Sunderland in September 1916.