The action takes place in London in the early 1860s

Act 1

A Lodging House in Brydon Crescent, Clerkenwell, May

Act 2

Sir William Gower's Residence, Cavendish Square, June

Act 3

Again at Brydon Crescent, December

Act 4

On the stage of the Pantheon Theatre, a few days later

Programme Notes

Arthur Wing Pinero (1855-1934) wrote 'Trelawny of the Wells' in the late 1890s, looking back at the 1860s when plays made no attempt at realism. The character of Tom Wrench is based upon Tom Robinson, who was the first realist playright. Imogen Parrot is based upon Marie Wilton, an actress at the fashionable Olympic Theatre, who later bought and restored the Queen's Theatre in Oxford Street, renaming it the Prince of Wales (the Pantheon in the play). Actors played stock characters, for instance General Utility, the humblest of parts, and Low Comedian. They would not rehearse a complete text, merely have their own lines written down, known as a 'Part'. Edmund Kean was the foremost English tragic actor of the nineteenth century. His son, Charles, was also an actor-manager (hence the reference to 'Which Kean?').