70,000 Programmes.

Kaipara and Waitemata Echo, 14 August 1914, Page 8

70,000 Programmes.

For the historian of the drama there is no source oi information so important as old theatre programmes, it is over ten years since Airs. Charles Enthoven commenced to makp up her collection, which now numbers over 70,u0(i, u nd represents probably the must important of its kind in the country. At Mrs. "Enthoven's house every room has some case, chest, or cabinet filled with indexed programmes. They go back as far as 1732, and come I'ighL up Lo July 26th, 1913. She has the programme for every night of Covont Garden Opera between 1810 and 1840, for the Haymarket between 1819 and 1885, and a set of Lyceum playbills which goes back to 1S0(>. I The collection lias been got together at a considerable cost of time and money, and already Mrs. Enthoven has received a big offer for it from America. It is her hope, however, that the programmes will ultimately find a home in the British or the London Museum. Among them are records of the first appearance of Mrs. Siddons, and with the critics' opinions of the

new actress. We are told that " as Portia she proved a terrible fiasco; her voice was weak, her movements were awkward ; her dress w-ias old, faded, and in bad taste.

Mrs. Enthoven is anxious to obtain a record .of every change of cast, even in plays now running. "One never knows," she said to an ' Evening News ' representative "whether the appearance of the understudy may not be the first public performance of a second Mrs. Siddons." j

She has the programme giving the first appearance of Sir, Herbert Tree as Grimaldi in a charity performance at Newcastle, and there is not one of the leading actors or actresses whose history is not in this way-catalogued in her cabinet.