Robert Soutar

Robert Soutar (1830 – 28 September 1908) was an English actor, comedian, stage manager, writer and director for the theatre. He began his career as a journalist but soon moved into acting. In 1867, he married actress Nellie Farren, and the next year, the two joined the company at the Gaiety Theatre in London. There, he stage managed and wrote for the theatre in addition to acting. His wife became well known for her roles as the "principal boy" in musical burlesques at the theatre. Soutar also directed plays and wrote pantomimes and other pieces. His son was the actor and singer Joseph Farren Soutar.

Robert Soutar in 1870

Early life and career

Born in London the son of Susan and Robert Soutar (1796–1866),[1] Soutar trained as a journalist, in which capacity he worked for a period on the Morning Advertiser, of which his father was for many years an editor. He began his connection with the theatre in 1852 as an amateur actor.[2][3]

After a period at the Brighton Theatre he played Captain Pertinax in Taming a Truant at London's Olympic Theatre in 1863.[4] He married the actress Nellie Farren on 8 December 1867;[3][5][6] they met when they were both members of the company at the Olympic Theatre. Their sons were Henry Robert Soutar (1868–1928), an actor and later a general labourer,[7] and the actor Joseph Farren Soutar.[3][5][8] At the Adelphi Theatre in 1868, Soutar's one-act farce, The Fast Coach, written with C. J. Claridge, was produced, and at the same theatre he played the role of Green Jones in Tom Taylor's melodrama The Ticket-of-Leave Man.[9]

On 21 December 1868 Farren and Soutar joined the Gaiety Theatre for the re-opening of the theatre under John Hollingshead's management, where Soutar served as stage manager, writer and actor for some 10 years.[10][11] In 1868 he played Old Bailey (a wax figure from the Chamber of Horrors) in W. S. Gilbert's operatic parody Robert the Devil.[12] In 1870 he played Prince Casimir in The Princess of Trebizonde, also at the Gaiety.[13]

Directing and later years

Soutar's grave in Brompton Cemetery

In 1871, Soutar created the role of Tipseion in Thespis, the first Gilbert and Sullivan opera;[14][15] he also directed the piece. In 1878 he directed a production of The Forty Thieves written by Robert Reece, W. S. Gilbert, F. C. Burnand and Henry J. Byron as an amateur production for the Beefsteak Club of London. His comedy Blindfold was played at the Gaiety Theatre in 1882,[16] and in October of the same year, his farce The Fast Coach was revived. In 1884 he played Lenoir in F. C. Burnand's Just in Time,[17] and in 1885 he again played Green Jones in The Ticket-of-Leave Man (opposite his wife, who played Sam), a role he reprised in his benefit performance in 1891 at the Gaiety Theatre.[18] In 1890 he was the stage manager at Adelphi Theatre.[19] In May 1891 he appeared in the comic drama The Rocket by Arthur Wing Pinero.

In 1892, Soutar edited Joseph A. Cave's reminiscences, A Jubilee of Dramatic Life and Incident.[20] On the 1901 census he was listed as a retired actor.[21]

He died in London in 1908, four years after the death of his wife,[22] and was buried beside her in Brompton Cemetery.

References

1. "Robert Soutar" in 1851 England Census for Middlesex, St Clement Danes, St Mary, 5bb and 7, Ancestry.com (subscription required), accessed 24 April 2019
2. Stewart, Maurice. "The spark that lit the bonfire", in Gilbert and Sullivan News (London), Spring 2003.
3. Lee, Sidney, ed. (1912). "Farren, Ellen" . Dictionary of National Biography (2nd supplement). 2. London: Smith, Elder & Co. pp. 12–14.
4. Revival of Olympic Theatre, Footlights Notes, reprinting information from The Sporting Gazette, London, 11 April 1863, p. 383b, accessed 8 October 2013
5. "Robert Soutar", England & Wales, FreeBMD Marriage Index, 1837–1915, Ancestry.com (subscription required), accessed 16 October 2013
6. Article about the Gaiety tour of Australia
7. "Death Certificate for Henry Robert Soutar (1928)", Ancestry.com (subscription required), accessed 16 October 2013
8. Farren Soutar on the Internet Movie Database
9. Lee, Alfrida. "The Adelphi Theatre Calendar" 1867–1868, The London Stage 1800–1900, The Adelphi Calendar Project, accessed 3 October 2014
10. Parker, J. "Farren, Ellen (1848–1904)", rev. Patty S. Derrick, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004, accessed 8 October 2013
11. Hollingshead, John. Gaiety Chronicles, p. 39
12. Gilbert, W. S. Robert the Devil, libretto (1868)
13. Soutar in The Princess of Trebizonde, Victoria and Albert Museum, accessed 8 October 2013
14. "Gilbert and Sullivan Memories'", The New York Times, 19 June 1912;
15. Rees, Terence (1964). Thespis – A Gilbert & Sullivan Enigma. London: Dillon's University Bookshop., pp. 12–18
16. "Kate Vaughan on tour in England, 1890", Footlight Notes website
17. Just in Time, The Illustrated Sporting and Dramatic News, Vol. 2, 29 November 1884, p. 359
18. "Dramatic and Musical Intelligence", The Colonies and India, 14 November 1891, p. 18
19. "The Adelphi Theatre 1806–1900" – Theatre Management
20. Soutar, Dickens Journals Online, accessed 8 October 2013
21. "Robert Soutar" in 1901 England Census, Ancestry.com (subscription required), accessed 24 April 2019
22. "Theatrical and Musical Deaths, N–S", The Longmore Pages, accessed 3 October 2014