ABSTRACT
This chapter provides the life and career of Frederick Lonsdale. Lonsdale's first play, Who's Hamilton, was performed in Jersey in 1903 with its author in title role. It was the first of several false starts and it was not until 1908 that Lonsdale had his first taste of success. Lonsdale then worked on another musical, The Balkan Princess, which opened at the Prince of Wales Theatre on 19 February 1910. In Lonsdale's play, the safety of the suburban villa allows families to cocoon themselves from the harsher realities; they experience the conflict in sanitized form, fed titbits via the evening newspaper. The Patriot was an unusual departure for Lonsdale. It is the only play in which he deals with the war, albeit still in a drawing-room setting. The Patriot opened at the Grand Palace Theatre, Clapham Junction, on 14 May 1915 as part of a special patriotic programme.
