Event Comment: Benefit for
Reddish [and his last 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 Posthumus. 'Yes', said he, 'and in the garden scene I shall astonish you.' 'The garden scene! I thought you were to play Posthumus?' 'No, Sir, I play
Romeo.' His friend assured him that Posthumus was the part he was to act--and he walked to the theatre, reciting Romeo all the way. When dressed for Posthumus, and in the green-room, it was still hard to undeceive him--at length he was pushed upon the stage....The instant he came in sight of the audience his recollection seemed to return; his countenance resumed meaning, his eye became lighted up, he made the modest 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)