ABSTRACT
Besides austerity, sentimentality, respectability and Christian engagement, the Victorians enjoyed fun. Farce flourished as a minor form throughout the period. Arthur Wing Pinero’s farces, two or three decades later, include The Magistrate and Dandy Dick and show the influence of French farce. They deal with a higher class of character who is most tormented by the possibility of losing face, though sometimes this comes perilously close to losing personal identity. And even later, the perennially popular Charley’s Aunt by Brandon Thomas, journalist, creator of music hall songs and actor, shows the form continuing to prosper. Tom Taylor, a successful playwright, was another enthusiastic amateur. He was a founder member of the oldest surviving amateur dramatic group in the world, the Old Stagers, established in 1842 by Hon. Fred Ponsonby to perform in the evenings during the new Canterbury Cricket Week.
