A VERY memorable night to me was the 28th April 1908, when Mrs D'Oyly Carte initiated a further series of Savoy revivals, commencing with the evergreen and ever-popular Mikado, followed at certain intervals by Pinafore, Iolanthe, Pirates of Penzance, Gondoliers and Yeomen of the Guard.

The idea on this occasion was to form a repertory very much on the lines of the enormously successful touring company which has been a household word in the provinces since the seventies, and which maintains its popularity and "drawing" power to the present day.

Whether this lengthy association with one form of art makes for the progress of the individual in his or her profession is a question which I do not remember to have seen argued, but my personal opinion on the matter is, that it is unavoidable that the talent of the artist must become cramped and, to some extent, mechanical. An odd confirmation of this, although, perhaps, hardly coming under the category of "mechanical art," recurs to me in connection with the original performances of Sorcerer and Pinafore. I had evolved a species of attitude of the legs which seemed to me to lend clerical character to the Vicar, and the habit remained with me during the earlier part of the run of Pinafore, thus perhaps giving the suggestion of a clerical captain in the navy; at any rate it struck one of the eminent critics of the day, who took me severely to task on the matter.

My views, however, have received confirmation in more than one quarter, of which, perhaps, the most striking was the admission once made to me by a long-standing member of the D'Oyly Carte Touring Company that he has, on occasions, when arriving at the theatre, found himself quite unable to remember a word of the part he was expected to play, and so quietly returned to his rooms, leaving his task to an understudy, who may possibly have suffered from the same momentary forgetfulness, for the reason that he had not been called upon for a long period. Whatever may be the truth of the matter, my own experience is that a prolonged playing of one particular rôle induces a sufficiently mechanical performance to allow of the consideration, during an act, of any exciting incident of the past few hours, occasionally, indeed, becoming so absorbing as to bring about the horrible experience of not knowing what the next line is!

I have myself, on occasions, replayed in memory certain triumphant or disastrous holes on the golf links, and once in particular the reflection of a faulty brassy shot that had cost me the match, together with a certain amount of what golfers describe as "London money," produced a feeling of annoyance and irritation so diametrically opposed to the benevolent scene I was depicting as to very nearly result in disaster.

Obviously this danger is considerably lessened when playing five or six different operas a week, as the attention must be concentrated on the work in hand in such a case; but curious results may even then occur should an artist have played more than one of the parts in the same opera; more especially, of course, when the different characters played have met in the same scenes. This was amusingly illustrated one night, during the last revival of Mikado, by Henry Lytton, who had times out of number played Koko and was then playing the Mikado; Workman was taken seriously ill, and Mrs Carte requested Lytton, as a personal favour to her, to take up the part of Koko for a few nights, which he naturally did, and, to the great delight of the Pish Tush and Pooh Bah, spoke one of the Mikado's lines to Koko, and answered it as Koko in due course. The hilarity caused by such a trifling slip – and whatever the theatre or play it is always the same – is chiefly due, I fancy, to the obligation not to laugh when on duty, a form of self-restraint which is most difficult to practise, as I believe anyone will admit who has suffered the like provocation in church.

H.M.S. Pinafore was once more put into commission on 25th July, and started on a pleasant little cruise extending to January of the following year – with occasional spells in harbour, when the officers and crew were granted short leave to enable them to appear in other operas. Lytton gave us another proof of his versatility by playing the deformed Dick Deadeye in a manner which I have never seen excelled by any exponent of the part; he put into it a pathetic touch which gave an added value to several of the situations. He also very kindly deputised for Workman in this play, but his reading of Sir Joseph was too full of a delightful upstart dignity to allow of any amusing little contretemps such as he furnished us with in Mikado. Sir William expressed great dissatisfaction at the dress-rehearsal with the costumes of the ladies of the chorus, which were certainly not made by Paquin, but were, or so I ventured to think, adequate if not imposing. The lavish manner in which money was spent on all the original productions of these operas cannot well be maintained when it is a question of revivals for short runs, though it is easy to understand that this line of argument scarcely appeals to an author, whoever he may be, whose natural desire is to see his play have the best possible exploitation.

I ventured to advance this theory to Gilbert later on, when he was suggesting the possibility of a syndicate being formed to revive certain of the operas on the original basis of unstinted production, giving it as my opinion that it would not prove a commercial success, but he was firmly convinced that my judgment was in error, did not hesitate to say so – naturally – and left me quite convinced that I was right. With the exception of such a hardy annual as Peter Pan, I fancy no revival of anything would be a commercial success were more than about half the original cost of production spent upon it, a fact which no one is better qualified to speak to than Mrs Carte, who could also doubtless produce figures to prove the argument.

Also, in the matter of criticising costumes the appointment of a judge would be a difficult matter, for at a later revival Gilbert expressed his entire approval of some dresses which I overheard a lady present describe as "worse than Pinafore."

I had great doubts as to my figure being slim enough to admit of my wearing the dinner-dress in Act 2, which includes a white waistcoat; however, adherence to tradition being one of my characteristics, I ran the risk of being told I was growing portly and donned the regulation vest. Naturally I was told so, told by the press and the photographers – the latter being possibly the more convincing, for a very obvious reason; indeed I felt impelled, by consideration for my personal feelings, to "condemn" one proof, that of a group of myself and waistcoat taken in profile! However a neighbour of mine brought me great consolation as the outcome of a visit paid to the theatre in company with an old lady who had seen all the original productions. On my appearance she remarked: "That's not the old original Rut land Barrington?" My friend being very much interested in the play and, as he put it, not wanting an argument, answered: "No, it's his son." To which his old lady with a smile of triumph replied: "I knew it!" Someone was wrong somewhere, as I find one critic remarking that – "his increasing years certainly add dignity to a dignified rôle, but have one disadvantage: by no possible means can one imagine him to be the foster-brother of the youthful Rackstraw." At first sight this appears to be sound reasoning, but the writer seems to overlook the fact that in the original production, when I was young enough to be the foster-brother of George Power (the then Rackstraw), I was even then sufficiently old to own a daughter of marriageable age! After all, what has age or any such trifling inaccuracy to do with Gilbert if he chooses to ignore the existence of such a thing.

The frequenters of the pit and gallery at the Savoy have an intimate acquaintance with the words and music of all these operas, which is strongly in evidence on the different premières, with very happy results, all the concerted numbers being given during the time of waiting for the commencement of the play – with the sole exception of those contained in the opera about to be presented. This is a very striking proof of loyalty to Sullivan, and always appears to be appreciated by the rest of the audience, but these same enthusiasts have been the cause of not a little trouble and friction owing to their desire and determination to have all their favourite numbers repeated at least once.

Many patrons of the stalls and boxes do not ardently desire to hear the same opera practically twice in one evening – the result being that about this period Mrs Carte was inundated with remonstrances from them at the frequency with which encores were taken, these remonstrances being the evident sequel of some rather stormy scenes between the occupants of stalls and balconies and pit and gallery, each demonstrating that they intended to have things their way.

These scenes, which at first were conducted with a certain amount of good humour on both sides, eventually developed a feeling of rancour which became so pronounced that it was felt imperative that something must be done.

Mrs Carte, whose constant endeavour it is to satisfy all her patrons in every possible way, and whose consideration for her artists is too well known to need referring to, having carefully thought over the matter, issued an edict that no encores beyond those decided upon by herself were to be taken under any circumstances, tradition being once again employed as the method of selection, and its value as applied to art (in the shape of encores at least) being once more shown to be an "unknown quantity," for such a decree was obviously more easy to pronounce than to enforce, and one evening, shortly afterwards, a certain encore was conceded after a quite lengthy stoppage of the play, Cellier being on the horns of a dilemma between the insistent demand of an audience which for once appeared unanimous in desire, and the very definite instructions he had received from his employer. This was no enviable situation for one with the inbred awe of "the management" which seems to have impregnated all who served under its banner, from time immemorial (tradition again), and his misgivings were realised, for, forced to concede the encore, he was promptly carpeted for not riding to orders.

With Mrs Carte's invariable sweetness of temper, consideration and keen sense of justice the "carpeting" partook more of the nature of a friendly council of war, at which she proposed to take the onus entirely on her own shoulders, and, with this intention, seriously contemplated announcing, through the medium of the Press, the stern decree that for the future there would be no encores at the Savoy.

She relinquished this idea on consideration, however, and the trouble righted itself in some way of its own without any further discussion, possibly the encorists became less demonstrative, or the artists less deserving.

Tradition was of course responsible for the whole affair, the entire Gilbert and Sullivan ménage – if one may use the word in this connection – from author, through manager, down to call-boy, being convinced that encores obtained in 1878 should be rigidly enforced in 1908, and any secured outside the recognised sequence to be regarded almost as a breach of confidence on the part of the artist – and, as such, to be dealt with in a peremptory manner.

Oddly enough, a striking illustration of the misapprehension on the part of a member of the audience as to the person responsible for taking an encore was furnished for me immediately after I had written the foregoing paragraph, in this way. I had just been reading the criticisms of The Girl in the Train, and amongst others I found Mr Westminster Gazette saying, with reference to a quintette and dance in which I was concerned – "which made one of the hits of the evening largely, it may be added, in consequence of the efforts of Mr Barrington himself. The house was especially tickled when, seeing how well it had gone, Mr Barrington, entirely ignoring the conductor, insisted on repeating it."

Evidently Mr Westminster Gazette entirely failed to notice that, during the applause following the first performance of the number, the conductor performed the usual ceremony of tapping the desk, as a signal that we might do it again. I would not for any consideration take on my shoulders the onus of accepting an encore for four confrères, including Phyllis Dare and Huntley Wright, each of whom had worked quite as hard as I had done in the number in question, and each of whom has as definite a sense of their own privileges in such a manner as I have; the fact of my appearing to accept the compliment on behalf of the quintette arising solely from the necessity of my being left alone on the stage at the conclusion of the dance.

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