Henry Irving: The Actor and His World

"Probably the first biography of an actor I bought, when I was about ten, was a biography of Laurence Olivier by Felix Barker. When I was eight, nine, ten, Laurence Olivier was my great hero. I’ve got a whole shelf of books about Laurence Olivier. I then went on to write a biography of John Gielgud, and I’ve got an even longer bookshelf of books on Gielgud. So, I have a lot of books about actors of that vintage: Olivier, Gielgud, Ralph Richardson, Michael Redgrave. And several shelves of books on Noël Coward, who was not only an actor, but a playwright and composer. And a remarkable human being. But I’ve picked Henry Irving’s because I think it was the first substantial theatrical biography that I read. It’s written by his grandson, Laurence Irving, and was published in 1951. It’s a monumental work, running to many hundreds of pages. I bought it second hand, and amazingly I found a letter inside it from Henry Irving himself. “There are people who thought he was a sort of mesmerist – that he somehow hypnotised the audience” It’s a beautifully written book. Of course, Laurence Irving admired his grandfather who, as you know, was the first actor to receive a knighthood. His knighthood was announced on the very day that Oscar Wilde was sent to jail for two years; the two news items appeared in the same paper, in 1895. As the first actor to receive a knighthood, the fascination of Irving is very great. How did he do it? He wasn’t particularly handsome. Some say he had a slight speech impediment. He had a strange gait. There are people who thought he was a sort of mesmerist – that he somehow hypnotised the audience, controlled huge audiences. This is a book that explores that. It’s got wonderful photographs of him in his great roles. He spanned the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th century. In a way, reading that book introduced me to that late-Victorian world. It’s still, for me, probably the best theatrical biography. I mean, there are so many, I could list you 100 of the top theatre biographies. But this, I think, is my favourite. It’s also got a wonderful epigraph, that I often quote, by Robert Louis Stevenson: [T]he great man produces beauty, terror, and mirth[. T]he little man produces cleverness… instead of beauty, ugliness instead of terror, and jokes instead of mirth So there you are. He could produce beauty, terror and mirth. That was Henry Irving."