Tyne Theatre, Newcastle

Performers:Cecile Barclay, Rupert Lister

‘“The Man who Stayed at, Home” ... did so to very good purpose indeed ... Those who have not seen the play should not miss the present opportunity, for it is certainly one of the most interesting productions on tour. It demonstrates the spy peril and is full of exciting incidents and is not by any means lacking in fun’. The cast is George Tully, Laurie Flockton, Frank Woolfe, C. Haviland-Burke, J. Augustus Keogh, Ernest H. G. Cox, George Hewetson, Eugenie Vernie, Christine Jensen, Gladys Hamilton, Valerie Richards [members of the Vedrenne and Eadie company]. Newcastle Daily Chronicle, 12 October 1915.

The Era, 13 and 20 September 1916, listed The Man Who Stayed at Home (Red) as On The Road from 18 September at the Tyne, Newcastle-on-Tyne. ‘Although Messrs. Worrell and Terry wrote their play, “The Man who Stayed at Home,” with a purpose yet, after that purpose has been fulfilled, so amusing and so thrilling is it that many people are still willing to pay for admission and enjoy it sheerly on its merits, and the audience at the Tyne Theatre, Newcastle, last night, evidently enjoyed it. In truth the play seems to have improved since its first performance, or it grows on the spectator, and the cross purposes of the German spies and their English hosts are well worked out. Mr. Taylor Platt has placed the play in the hands of a competent company. Mr Clifford Marle proves himself an excellent actor in the part of Christopher Brent, and John Preston, J.P., finds a refined interpreter in Mr J. Edward Pearce. Mr. Charles H. Mortimer, Mr C. Laverack Brown, Mr. Russell Bendle, Miss Greta Wood, Miss Ethel Coleridge and Miss Edith Cuthbert fill other parts with credit’. Newcastle Daily Chronicle, 19 September 1916.

‘The war has been responsible for not a few plays which are popular, but one of the newest is that of “Kultur at Home,” now located at the Tyne Theatre … where it bids fair to become quite as popular as it has proved in London and in several provincial towns. The plot chiefly centres round the German idea of life, and is worked out with realistic effect. It gives a sound insight into both home and public life, and we see the arrogant German, with a touch of the Prussian militarism in him, painted true to his character. An English audience would have smiled at such a personage a few years ago, but to-day they think differently, and readily accept the pictures drawn, and these are by means exaggerated'. Newcastle Journal, 7 November 1916.

(The Stage - Thursday 20 September 1917)

Reviews: "Latest sensation - prior to London", Newcastle Journal