Opera House, Leicester

The Leicester Daily Post, 1 November 1915, advertised ‘Vedrenne and Eadie’s company, in the Royalty Theatre Spy Play The Man Who Stayed at Home’, with George Tully, at the Royal Opera House from Monday 8 November. Reviewed in the Leicester Daily Post, 9 November 1915 (largely illegible in the copy on the British Newspaper Archive).

Performed on Friday and Saturday matinee.

Advertised in the Leicester Daily Post, 27 and 31 March and 4 April 1917: to be performed from Saturday 7 April for seven nights and one matinee on Saturday 14 April.

The Stage, 7 June 1917, listed The Mormon and The Maid as On Tour from 4 June at the O.H., Leicester, but did not mention Somewhere a Heart is Breaking/The Coward Who Made Good.

After having been thoroughly re-decorated, the Leicester Opera House will re-open next week, and the attraction will be a new romantic play of the Napoleonic period, entitled "Never Give In," by William Boyle and Gil Byan, and operatic musical numbers by Riddell Hunter. The cast is headed by Mr. E. C. Hedmont, whose acting ability, combined with his magnificent singing, is well known to Leicester playgoer. The play is beautifully staged" (Leicester Chronicle, 28 July 1917)

The Era, 11 September 1918, listed Bubbly as On The Road from 16 September at the O.H., Leicester. The Leicester Daily Post, 16 September 1918, advertised Bubbly at the Royal Opera House, Leicester, for six nights, from that evening, and a Saturday matinee.

‘“Nurse Benson,” playing at the Opera House this week, may be written down at once as a “pretty” play, with a judicious admixture of sentiment and humour, and a modicum of plot sufficient to carry through four acts. Judged on “Liberty Hall” standard, the play is perhaps a little disappointing, for Mr. Carton scarcely attains the strength or variety of characterisation that is so marked a feature of his earlier work. The nouveau riche mother and father, Mr. and Mrs. Joseph Tibbenham, parents of the V.C. hero, are the only two who attain may great individuality. “Nurse Benson,” too, is a war play, for it tells of the super-conscientious patriots who “ration” themselves and everybody else to a most drastic degree'. Leicester Daily Post, 11 March 1919.

Arthur Hardy (producer)

Presented for the week by Thomas C. Dagnall's company.

‘“Nurse Benson,” paying its second visit to the Royal Opera House this week, is one of the batch of plays that appeared during the war, with the war more or less for their theme. It may rank as a war play, but really the war has very little to do with it beyond the fact that the hero is a V.C., and there is some preliminary talk about an economy campaign. Indeed, with the fact in mind that people would much rather put all thought of the war out of their recollections, “Nurse Benson” might very well be rearranged and made into an ordinary little human comedy. The plot would suffer nothing, and the interest in it would with very little trouble be kept more up-to-date' (Leicester Daily Post, 4 May 1920). ‘I should have liked to have seen a larger attendance at the Opera House when I was in on Monday night, for “Nurse Benson” is the sort of play which ought to be encouraged. I know that the days are lengthening, and that theatre-going is therefore becoming less of an attraction, but if we do not make a point of encouraging really clever and artistic plays we cannot expect to be provided with them. As I said last week, the authors of the play, Mr. R. C. Carton and Mr. Justin Huntly McCarthy, are two of the ablest playwrights that this generation has produced in our country. Both, I admit, have done better things than are to be found in “Nurse Benson,” but there is still enough good stuff in the comedy to fit up two or three comedies of the average type with wit, humour, and character delineation. Watching the play for a second time, I was again struck with the unreality of Mr. and Mrs. Ray Marrison. They are quite inconceivable characters, from the real life point of view (and the stage should always be reasonably near to life), and they constitute the one weakness of a play which has many good points and some brilliant ones' (Leicester Daily Post, 6 May 1920).