Event Comment: Benefit for
Reddish [and his la
st appearance on the
stage]. Tickets sold at the Doors will not be admitted.
Public Advertiser, 1 May: Tickets to be had of Reddish, No. 14, near the
Turnpike,
Tottenham Court Road. "Poor Reddish, on the 5th of May, had a benefit, and it was resolved to try whether he could not go through the character of
Posthumus. He was now infirm; in common occurrences imbecile, but to be exited by his former profession, or nothing. The late
John Ireland gave an affecting detail of this attempt. He met his friend an hour before the performance began. Reddish entered the room with the
step of an idiot, his eye wandering, and his whole countenance vacant. Mr Ireland congratulated him, that he was sufficiently recovered to perform his favourite Po
sthumus. 'Yes', said he, 'and in the garden scene I shall a
stonish you.' 'The garden scene! I thought you were to play Po
sthumus?' 'No, Sir, I play
Romeo.' His friend assured him that Po
sthumus was the part he was to act--and he walked to the
theatre, reciting Romeo all the way. When dressed for Po
sthumus, and in the green-room, it was
still hard to undeceive him--at length he was pushed upon the
stage....The in
stant he came in sight of the audience his recollection seemed to return; his countenance resumed meaning, his eye became lighted up, he made the mode
st bow of respect, and played the scene as well as he had ever done. But Romeo again met him in the green-room, and it was only the
stage cue that had the power to unsettle this delusion; and that never failed to do it through the whole play. Mr Ireland thought him, on this occasion, less assuming and more natural than he had seemed in the full enjoyment of his reason" (
Boaden, Kemble, I, XVI-XVII; Ireland, 58-60)