PLAYBILL - A History of the theatre in the West Country.

Plymouth: Macdonald and Evans Ltd , 1980. FINE usually indicates that a book is as new THIS book lives up to that description! In this masterly survey of the theatrical history of Devon and Cornwall, Harvey Crane begins the story with what he believes may be the very origins of British theatre, the Cornish ordinalia, or word books, on which the peasant and clerical players of the 13thC based their popular presentations of biblical and religious themes. As the narrative moves on, the author has a wealth of characters to introduce - such as the rough, tough young man, black-haired and with a wild eye, who trailed his wife and two children into Exeter looking for work on a cold December day in 1811 : and thus the strange, almost demonic, power of Edmund Kean was charged into the British theatre of the early nineteenth century : or Miss Eliza Emma Couch, of Caroline Place, Stonehouse, who left her native Plymouth far behind when she climbed to the pinnacle of the Parisian demi-monde as Cora Pearl, poule de luxe of the Second Empire : or Plymouth-born Maria Foote, who acted Juliet in the Dock Theatre at the age of twelve and ended her full life as Countess of Harrington. Crane's wide sympathy and deep knowledge enable him to cover almost every aspect of the triumphs and disasters which mark the long struggle between the stern Puritanism of the South West and the pleasurable seductions of the stage:the successes and failures of the strolling players, the actor-managers,the speculative builders and the stars of successive generations of theatre-goers. The history is brought right up to the immediate present (1980), tracing the links between the West Country and the modern world of entertainment through such varied personalities as Agatha Christie, Paul Rogers, Danny La Rue and Angela Rippon. This is a book, not only for the actor, historian and student, but for all those who have the furtherance and well-being of the theatre at heart. 290pp inc bibliography and index. A truly LOVELY copy.. SIGNED BY THE AUTHOR. This is the GENUINE First Edition. Black Cloth. Fine ( AS NEW)/Fine Not Price Clipped. Illus. by Black and White Photographs and Line Drawings . 8vo - over 7¾" - 9¾". HARDBACK.