“. . . anything like the words”: how Stage Performances from Ivanhoe Brought Scott’s Characters to the Widest Audiences

“. . . anything like the words”: how Stage Performances from Ivanhoe Brought Scott’s Characters to the Widest Audiences

The publication of Ivanhoe and its rapid uptake by the theatres of his day came hard on successful stage adaptations of earlier novels, particularly Guy Mannering and Rob Roy. Amidst the highly structured format of the Georgian theatre industry, divided between the Patent houses, able to perform the spoken word, and the Minor houses, supposedly confined to music, dance, mime and the nebulous burletta, the Scott adaptations were almost uniquely placed to cross class and genre divides as a form of parallel contemporary reception. They were already causing shifts in the theatre industry when Ivanhoe appeared and audiences at a range of venues now had particular expectations of the work of playwrights with this material. This article aims to place adaptations of Ivanhoe within their overall theatrical contexts, to trace their debts one to another, to look at their stage careers beside those of other Scott adaptations and to trace their progress throughout the nineteenth century across different types of venues and genres, from parlour music to hippodrama.