Samuel Foote

Samuel Foote (January 1720 – 21 October 1777) was a Cornish dramatist, actor and theatre manager. He was known for his comedic acting and writing, and for turning the loss of a leg in a riding accident in 1766 to comedic opportunity.

Early life Born into a well-to-do family, Foote was baptised in Truro, Cornwall, on 27 January 1720. His father, Samuel Foote, held several public positions, including mayor of Truro, Member of Parliament representing Tiverton and a commissioner in the Prize Office. His mother, née Eleanor Goodere, was the daughter of Sir Edward Goodere Baronet of Hereford. Foote may have inherited his wit and sharp humour from her and her family which was described as "eccentric ... whose peculiarities ranged from the harmless to the malevolent." About the time Foote came of age, he inherited his first fortune when one of his uncles, Sir John Dineley Goodere, 2nd Baronet, was murdered by another uncle, Captain Samuel Goodere.

Foote was educated at Truro Grammar School, the collegiate school at Worcester, and at Worcester College, Oxford, distinguishing himself in these places by mimicry and audacious pleasantries of all kinds. and friends encouraged Foote's going onto the stage to make a living.

Initial theatrical ventures

Foote's first training for the stage came under the tutelage of Charles Macklin. By 1744, when they appeared onstage together, Macklin had made a name for himself as one of the most notable actors on the British stage, after David Garrick. His appearance as Shylock in Shakespeare's The Merchant of Venice at the Drury Lane Theatre in 1741, mesmerized London audiences. Dismissing the conventional comedic approach to the character, Macklin played the character as consummately evil. Following his debut, George II reportedly could not sleep, while Georg Lichtenberg described Macklin's interpretation of Shylock's first line—"Three thousand ducats"—as being uttered "as lickerously as if he were savouring the ducats and all they would buy." Following less than a year of training, Foote appeared opposite Macklin's Iago as the titular role in Shakespeare's Othello at the Haymarket Theatre, 6 February 1744.

Following his unsuccessful London appearance, Foote spent the summer season in Dublin at the Theatre Royal, Smock Alley, where he found his first success. Returning to England, he joined the company at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane, which at that time included such noted actors as Peg Woffington, David Garrick and Spranger Barry.

The Haymarket Theatre Even with his success onstage, Foote remained impoverished. Foote began writing in earnest, producing two pamphlets, A Treatise on the Passions and The Roman and English Comedy Considered.

The Author himself The Fielding quarrel was followed by a more serious quarrel with actor Henry Woodward. This resulted in a small riot that was damaging not only to the Haymarket Theatre but to Foote's reputation. He began to deflect criticism only with the opening of his play, The Knights. This play, unlike his earlier satirical revues, was a romantic comedy set in the country, though he did use this play as a vehicle to satirize such things as Italian opera and the gentry of Cornwall.

Scene from Taste in a painting by Robert Smirke. Lady Pentweazel, played by Foote, wore a large headdress, satirizing the elaborate headdresses of the day, with feathers that fell out throughout the play.

At the close of the Haymarket season in 1749, Foote left London for Paris in order to spend money he had recently inherited.

Taste opens with Lady Pentweazel who believes that the works of art, the Venus de' Medici and the Mary de Medici, are sisters in the Medici family. Two other collectors, Novice and Lord Dupe, claim to be able to determine the age and value of coins and medals by tasting them while Puff, an auctioneer, convinces them and Sir Positive Bubble that broken china and statuary are worth far more than perfect pieces. Lord Dupe follows this advice by purchasing a canvas with the paint scraped off. The foibles of ignorant art collectors and predatory dealers were presented by Foote in this high burlesque comedy. In order for an audience to appreciate high burlesque, they must understand the standards of true taste before they can recognize the conflict between those standards and the characters' standards. The audience that saw the premier of Taste evidently did not understand this conflict as the play was not successful and played only five performances. Here, Foote satirized the boorish behaviour of English gentlemen abroad. The play garnered wide acclaim and became a part of the repertoires of the Drury Lane and Covent Garden theatres where it remained for a few decades. While his success was becoming more solidified as a writer, Foote was also in demand as an actor, working at Drury Lane and Covent Garden during the 1753–4 season.

When he found himself out of work in November 1754, Foote rented the Haymarket theatre and began to stage mock lectures. Satirizing Charles Macklin's newly opened school of oratory, these lectures created a sort of theatrical war, especially when Macklin began to appear at the lectures himself. At one particular lecture, Foote extemporized a piece of nonsense prose to test Macklin's assertion that he could memorise any text at a single reading.

So she went into the garden to cut a cabbage-leaf to make an apple-pie; and at the same time a great she-bear, coming up the street, pops its head into the shop. "What! No soap?" So he died, and she very imprudently married the barber; and there were present the Picninnies, and the Joblillies, and the Garyulies, and the grand Panjandrum himself, with the little round button at top, and they all fell to playing the game of catch-as-catch-can till the gunpowder ran out at the heels of their boots.

This introduced the nonsense term "The Grand Panjandrum" into the English language and the name was adopted for the Panjandrum or Great Panjandrum, an experimental World War II-era explosive device.

With Foote's success in writing An Englishman in Paris, Irish playwright Arthur Murphy was moved to create a sequel, The Englishman returned from Paris. While Foote readily encouraged Murphy's plan, Foote secretly wrote his own version which opened at Covent Garden on 3 February 1756. While early biographers scorned Foote's plagiarism of Murphy's play, the 1969 discovery of that manuscript laid it to rest when it was proven that Foote's play was far superior. The play was successful at Covent Garden and played regularly until 1760.

Two rival actresses captured the attention of London audiences and Foote's satire. Peg Woffington and George Anne Bellamy apparently took their roles rather seriously in a production of Nathaniel Lee's The Rival Queens. When Bellamy's Parisian fashions began to upstage Woffington, Bellamy was driven offstage by a dagger-wielding Woffington thus providing a source for Foote's The Green-Room Squabble or a Battle Royal between the Queen of Babylon and the Daughter of Darius. The text of this farce is now lost. The plot concerned a poor author's father who disguises himself in order to spy on his son. Again, Foote created the role of Cadwallader for himself and used it to satirize John Apreece, a patron of authors. While critics derided Foote's attack on Apreece, audiences flocked to the theatre. Apreece even appeared and sat "open-mouthed and silly, in the boxes, to the delight of the audience, and mystified by the reflection of himself, which he beheld on the stage." Foote noted later that Apreece finding "the resemblance [...] too strong, and the ridicule too pungent [...] occasioned an application for the suppression of the piece, which was therefore forbidden to be anymore performed." The play was forbidden further productions by the Lord Chamberlain. While success may have been limited, Richard Brinsley Sheridan adapted the plot in his School for Scandal. Modern critics would point out that The Author shows great development in Foote's ability in creating characters and sustaining plot.

Returning to London, Foote's financial situation was still quite poor. After renting the Haymarket theatre and revising The Minor into a three-act version (up from the two-act version presented in Dublin), the play opened in London. Doran remarks that while "The Minor failed in Dublin, very much to the credit of an Irish audience, [...] they condemned it on the ground of its grossness and immorality[,]" English society, nevertheless, while hearing condemnations of the play, filled the theatres. The play played for full houses for 38 nights.

The Minor utilizes a fairly pedestrian plot to satirize the Methodist movement. Before its premiere, Foote showed the text of The Minor to the Archbishop of Canterbury, Thomas Secker. Secker objected to several passages, but particularly to Mrs Cole referring to herself as a "lost sheep". This expression, he said, was sacred to the pulpit. Foote besought the archbishop to take the manuscript and strike the exceptionable passages; he agreed on the condition that it should be published "Revised and Corrected by the Archbishop of Canterbury."

Later life While riding with Prince Edward, Duke of York and Albany, in 1766, he was thrown from his horse and the injury cost him his leg. Even in this state, he continued to act and as possible compensation for his injury was granted a license to legally operate the Haymarket Theatre. He produced a summer season of "legitimate plays" in 1767, engaging Spranger Barry and his wife to perform. and continued to operate the theatre until he was forced to give up his patent to George Colman the Elder the following year. Near London, Foote lived and wrote in his much loved villa, 'The Hermitage', in North End village in the parish of Fulham. He died on 21 October 1777 in Dover, while en route to France.

One play, The Cozeners, is clearly based on the politician Charles James Fox who was a spendthrift and gambler. He had been duped by Elizabeth Harriett Grieve who had promised that she could arrange for him to marry a West Indian heiress. Grieve was tried and transported in 1773 and in the following year The Cozeners opened with Mrs Gardner in the part of Mrs Fleece'em. Foote's satires are based on caricatures of characters and situations from his era. His facility and wit in writing these earned him the title "the English Aristophanes." While his subjects could find his literary jabs just as humorous as his audiences, they often both feared and admired him.

Mentions of Foote In William Makepeace Thackeray's 1844 novel The Luck of Barry Lyndon, which was later published as Barry Lyndon; The Memoirs of Barry Lyndon, Esq. the protagonist claims Foote as a friend. Foote is also referred to in The Brothers Boswell by Philip Baruth.

Dramatic works

Books Cooke, William. Memoirs of Samuel Foote, Esq: With a Collection of His Genuine Bon-mots, Anecdotes, Opinions, &c 1805. (Online.) Foote, Samuel. The Dramatic Works of Samuel Foote, Esq.; to which is prefaced A Life of the Author. London, 1809. Reprinted by Benjamin Bloom, Bronx, New York. Kelly, Ian. Mr Foote's Other Leg: Comedy, tragedy and murder in Georgian London, 2012. Picador; later adapted as a play under the same title