Dramaturgy Packet
Compiled by Julia Rufo
Table of Contents
Stephen Sondheim, the Art of the Musical ………………………………….. 2
http://www.theparisreview.org/interviews/1283/the-art-of-the-musicalstephen-sondheim
True or False? ………………………………………………………………….. 3
www.pbs.org/kqed/demonbarber
Newspaper, Novel, Blood ……………………………………………….…..... 4-5
www.pbs.org/kqed/demonbarber
Trial and Punishment ………………………………………………………..... 6-7
www.pbs.org/kqed/demonbarber
A String of Pearls ………………………………………………………………. 8
www.pbs.org/kqed/demonbarber
19th Century England Social Hierarchy …………………………………….… 9
http://www.hierarchystructure.com/19th-century-england-social-hierarchy/
Glossary of Terms ……………………………………………………………… 10-21
1
Excerpt from:
Stephen Sondheim, The Art of the Musical
INTERVIEWER
Sweeney Todd was operatic, using leitmotifs, as opera does. Characters had
themes and the themes assembled, disassembled, reassembled. You’ve said
that you were influenced by, of all people, Bernard Herrmann.
SONDHEIM
True. When I was fifteen years old I saw a movie called Hangover Square,
another epiphany in my life. It was a moody, romantic, gothic thriller starring Laird
Cregar, about a composer in London in 1900 who was ahead of his time. And
whenever he heard a high note he went crazy and ran around murdering people.
It had an absolutely brilliant score by Bernard Herrmann, centered around a onemovement piano concerto. I wanted to pay homage to him with this show,
because I had realized that in order to scare people, which is what Sweeney
Todd is about, the only way you can do it, considering that the horrors out on the
street are so much greater than anything you can do on the stage, is to keep
music going all the time. That’s the principle of suspense sequences in movies,
and Bernard Herrmann was a master in that field. So Sweeney Todd not only has
a lot of singing, it has a lot of underscoring. It’s infused with music to keep the
audience in a state of tension, to make them forget they’re in a theater, and to
prevent them from separating themselves from the action. I based a lot of the
score on a specific chord that Herrmann uses in almost all his film work and spun
it out from that. That and the “Dies Irae,” which is one of my favorite tunes and is
full of menace.
2
True or False?
Sinister, depraved, monstrous ... true? Was Sweeney Todd a real person,
or was he an invented bogeyman? The character has gone from a minor
madman in a 19th-century newspaper serial to the melancholy murderer in
Stephen Sondheim's beloved Broadway musical. His macabre career as a
maniacal frightener of young and old has spanned two centuries, but is it
grounded in fact?
For generations, scholars and historians have debated the existence of
the Demon Barber. Sweeney Todd's first known appearance in print was in an
1846 "penny dreadful," a type of horror tale of the era published in serial form,
The People's Periodical. The razor-wielding barber who turned his victims into
meat pies was a secondary character in the short story The String of Pearls: A
Romance, written by Thomas Prest. With its bloody killing spree, ghoulish villain
and macabre recipe for disposing the evidence, "The String of Pearls" was
perfect fodder for the Victorian imagination.
George Dibdin Pitt, a hack playwright of the time who commonly purloined
other people's ideas, immediately dramatized Prest's story for the stage. Retitling
it The String of Pearls: The Fiend of Fleet Street, Pitt advertised his production
one year later as "Founded on Fact." The play, set in the reign of George II (the
late 18th century), debuted on March 1, 1847, at the Hoxton Theatre, a London
"bloodbath" - a theater specializing in sensational melodramas. Ever since,
speculation has raged about whether the Demon Barber was man or myth.
There are no clear answers. No public records substantiate the existence
of a London barber named Todd in the late 18th century or, for that matter, of a
barber shop located on Fleet Street. But there were certainly enough bits and
pieces of real-life horror floating around at the time, reported in "The Old Bailey"
section of the London Times, as well as other daily newspapers. The public had
an enormous appetite for all things gruesome and devoured local news accounts
of wicked deeds and nefarious crimes. And because news commonly traveled by
word of mouth (much of the population was still illiterate), stories of shocking
criminal exploits passed from person to person (with probable embellishment
along the way) and were asserted to be "true fact."
To add to the confusion, many penny dreadfuls were fictionalized
accounts of real crimes. And Thomas Prest, the writer who first set down
Sweeney Todd's name in print, was known to hunt regularly through newspapers
for his story ideas.
3
Newspaper, Novel, Blood
Fleet Street, the supposed home of the dreaded barber, has long been
associated with newspapers, booksellers and the printing industry. Most English
people could neither read nor write at the beginning of the 18th century, though
literacy grew as printed materials became more readily available. The first
newspaper, or "one-sheet," to be published in London was the Daily Courant,
which ran from 1702 to 1735. Mass publications like the Courant found an
increasing audience, and London had upwards of eight daily newspapers in
publication at the century's close.
Books in the 1700s were terribly expensive, being printed and bound by
hand, and sold in very limited editions. Few people could afford them, so they
were available to the mass market only in serial form or in cheap pirated copies.
Episodic stories, which eventually evolved into the English novel, were
distributed to the public through newspapers and other printed entertainments.
The novel as we know it actually materialized between 1715 and 1750, and was
largely the achievement of four professional writers, all of them Londoners.
These pioneering works include Daniel Defoe's Robinson Crusoe and Moll
Flanders, Samuel Richardson's Pamela, Tobias Smollett's Humphrey Clinker and
Roderick Random, and Tom Jones by Henry Fielding (the very same law
enforcement pioneer who formed the Bow Street Runners).
This period witnessed a rising interest in the natural sciences. Rather than
relying on theories passed down through generations, barber-surgeons began
dissecting bodies; botanists went out into fields to collect samples; geologists
dug up fossils with their own hands. The more bizarre the discovery, the more
the public's curiosity was aroused. So-called Books of Wonder became highly
popular, chronicling "strange but true" phenomena such as dwarves,
hermaphrodites, and other "memorable accidents and unheard-of transactions."
A generation later, when readers were illuminating their books with
flickering oil lamps that cast spooky shadows across their heavy Victorian rooms,
horror tales became an immensely popular form of entertainment. Monsters,
vampires, ladies in distress, sensational criminals and unspeakable acts of terror
populated a new type of publication geared toward the masses - the penny
dreadful. Also known as bloods and shilling shockers, penny dreadfuls were
inexpensive novels published in serial form, usually eight pages at a time.
Distributed at newsstands and dry goods stores, they were cheaply made so they
could be sold for a penny per copy, hence their name. Penny dreadfuls were
gory and violent, with graphic, lurid illustrations. Henry James' The Turn of the
Screw was a penny dreadful serialized in 1888. Michael Anglo notes in his book
Penny Dreadfuls and Other Victorian Horrors, "There were dark dungeons and
torture chambers, sepulchral vaults, secret panels and stairways, cobwebs, and
bats. The eerie atmosphere, reeking of the charnel house, was designed to make
the hackles rise, the flesh creep, and the blood curdle - no easy task in the days
when people were inured to the gruesome and the macabre by the frequent
4
public hangings and floggings, and the sight of criminals' decomposing corpses
dangling on gibbets."(1)
Like tabloid newspapers today, penny dreadfuls were churned out at a
furious pace. Publishers unscrupulously culled their ideas from whatever sources
they could find - popular fiction, legendary tales, newspaper accounts of petty
crimes - and embellished these stories with as many gruesome details as
possible. The sinister Sweeney Todd made his print debut in issue number 7 of
The People's Periodical and Family Library, dated November 21, 1846. He
appeared as the villain, an evil, murderous barber, in a serial written by Thomas
Prest with the improbable title "The String of Pearls; or the Sailor's Gift. A
Romance of Peculiar Interest." Todd was only a secondary character in this
story, but his activities earned him the moniker of "the Demon Barber of Fleet
Street" right from the first publication.
5
Trial and Punishment
The workings of a criminal court in the 18th century were quite different
from what we expect today. For one thing, the magistrate often acted more as
public prosecutor and chief detective than impartial judge. Between 1750 and
1850 most criminal cases were characterized by face-to-face confrontation
between the prosecutor and the accused. Defense counsel rarely appeared. The
assumption was that the accused had no need of counsel, since the burden of
proof was on the prosecution and the accused was a greater expert on the truth.
When clarification was needed, the trial judge was expected to assist the
accused with advice.
Prisoners were not allowed to see the evidence against them before trial,
and, once in the courtroom, were not allowed to testify (since they could not be
trusted to uphold an oath). They were also not entitled to sum up their defense
for the jury, though the prosecution was given the opportunity to make a final
statement. Before trial, the prisoner was expected to submit a written defense
that was to be read aloud in court. This was a grave disadvantage for the poor
and the ignorant, who frequently could neither read nor write.
Some prisoners "stood mute," refusing to answer "guilty" or "not guilty" to
the charges against them. In such cases, they would be stretched out on the
ground and pressed with crushing lead weights until they spoke. Sometimes they
died in the process.
Defense counsel, according to evidence of the Old Bailey Sessions Papers,
began to make very rare appearances in criminal trials during the 1730s, but for
the 18th century and the early part of the 19th century their role was not strictly
defined. It was not until the late 19th century that cross-examination was
consistently practiced, with objections to leading questions - but there was still a
willingness to allow so-called expert witnesses to give decisive opinions on the
whole question of guilt.
Up until 1774, prisoners who were discharged or found not guilty through
trial usually had to pay back the expenses related to their imprisonment - these
were known as "jailor's fees." Because many could not afford to pay, they found
themselves re-imprisoned, this time as debtors. It was a vicious circle.
Punishment
In an age virtually without police, the machinery of law was
uncompromising and brutal. In total, 240 offenses were punishable by death, and
hanging was prescribed for accessories as well. Punishments ranged from
standing in the pillory to branding and whipping to burning (for particularly
shameful crimes, like treason). A number of 18th century theorists believed
hanging was not punishment enough for felons and proposed "breaking on the
wheel" instead. In 1752, a law was passed that required "some further Terror and
peculiar mark of Infamy be added to the Punishment of Death" for murder. The
6
convicted murderer was to be kept on bread and water in a special cell, and after
execution, his body was to hang in chains before the public, then go to the
surgeons for dissection.
"Dr. Samuel Johnson was one who saw that capital punishment satisfied a
sinister human craving for power over others' lives, but did not really deter crime.
Undiscriminating severity simply made criminals more cunning and more
desperate, and confused small crimes with great ones." -Clive Elmsley, Crime
and Society in Society in England 1750-1900 (11)
Juries were generally loath to convict people for property crimes, since the
penalty of death seemed disturbingly harsh. In fact, many victims declined to
pursue matters through the legal system out of a sheer unwillingness to see the
perpetrators hanged for their offense. However, imprisonment was not
considered a reasonable alternative to capital punishment, since it placed young
criminals into contact with older, hard-bitten ones, encouraging partnerships. The
ingenious idea of transportation became an alternative punishment beginning
around 1718. Criminals were deported to the remote colonies of Maryland and
Virginia on the American shore and, later in the century, were sent off to settle
New South Wales, Australia.
7
A String of Pearls
For almost two centuries, the enduring legend of maniacal barber
Sweeney Todd and his savory human pies has inspired terror in the hearts and
minds of the public, whether through the printed page or the theatrical stage.
1825 - The French story of a murderous barber appears in Tell-Tale Magazine under the
title "A Terrible Story of the Rue de la Harpe."
1846 - Thomas Peckett Prest serializes the story, retitled The String of Pearls. It is
published in one of London's penny dreadful newspapers. (The title came from a necklace
that Sweeney steals from one of his victims.) Weekly installments of the barber's homicidal
exploits become immensely popular.
1847 - The String of Pearls is dramatized by George Dibdin-Pitt. His melodrama, subtitled
"The Fiend of Fleet Street," is set in London during the "Reign of George II," or the second
half of the 18th century. The play opens at the Britannia Theatre, where audiences demand
bloodcurdling entertainments, and is advertised as being "Founded on Fact."
1848 - The enormous success of Dibdin-Pitt's play spawns dozens of imitations. In some, the
hero is a dog whose master has met his end via Sweeney's blade. The faithful dog haunts
the barber's doorstep and eventually leads authorities to the fiend. These bloody
melodramas were continuously produced in and around London throughout the remainder of
the 19th century.
1936 - The Demon Barber of Fleet Street, directed by George King, becomes the first film
version of the story. Todd Slaughter, the film's star, makes a career out of portraying
Sweeney Todd on stages around the world.
1959 - The Royal Ballet Company produces a ballet version, with music by Malcolm Arnold
and choreography by John Cranko.
1973 - Sweeney Todd, The Demon Barber of Fleet Street by Christopher Bond opens at
the Theatre Royal Stratford East. This version is seen by composer/lyricist Stephen
Sondheim, who recruits book writer Hugh Wheeler to collaborate with him on a musical
treatment of Bond's play.
1979 - Sondheim and Wheeler's Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street opens
at Broadway's Uris Theatre in a production directed by Harold Prince and starring Angela
Lansbury and Len Cariou. The recipient of eight Tony Awards, Sweeney Todd is instantly
recognized as a landmark in musical theater inspiring productions in both theater and opera
companies around the world.
2001 - Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street is performed in concert with the
San Francisco Symphony. The performance, starring George Hearn and Patti LuPone (as
Sweeney Todd and Mrs. Lovett), is filmed by Ellen M. Krass Productions. The resulting
television program premieres on PBS October 31, 2001.
8
19th Century England Social Hierarchy
9
Glossary of Terms
Page
1
Line
Environs
Definition
pl. The areas surrounding a place (freq. an urban area);
one's surroundings.
- OED
1
Fleet Street.
n. a street in London
devoted largely to
the production and
publication of daily
newspapers and
periodical journals;
hence allusively, the
national newspapers
generally, the
journalistic press,
journalism.
- OED
http://charlesdickenspage.com/images/fleet_street_then_and_now.jpg
2
A lavabo and a fancy n. The basin used for the washing.
chair.
- OED
2
A mug of suds and a
leather strop.
n. A strip of leather (or of a special textile), or a strip of
wood covered with leather or other suitable material, used
for sharpening a razor; a razor-strop.
- OED
4
Todd is described as
“saturnine.”
adj. Hence (in later use without allusion to the primary
sense), sluggish, cold, and gloomy in temperament.
- OED
5
Alms
n. Charitable relief given to the poor or needy, usu. (now
only) in the form of material gifts, typically of money or food;
(in later use esp.) the goods given in this way.
- OED
10
8
Meat pies in England. “In medieval England, they were called pies, and instead of
being predominantly sweet, they were most often filled with
meat — beef, lamb, wild duck, magpie pigeon — spiced
with pepper, currants or dates.”
http://content.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1862315,00.html
http://static.guim.co.uk/sys
images/Guardian/Pix/pictu
res/2009/10/2/125449823
0700/Meat-pie-001.jpg
12
Beadle
n. One who delivers the message or executes the
mandates of an authority.
- OED
12
13
14
Every day they’d
nudge and they’d
wheedle.
v. To entice or persuade by soft flattering words; to gain
over or take in by coaxing or cajolery.
So they merely
shipped the poor
blighter off south
they did.
n. slang. A contemptible or unpleasant person; often merely
as an extravagant substitute for ‘fellow’.
The dumb show
vanishes.
adj. Destitute of the faculty of speech. deaf and dumb. (i.e.
silent)
-OED
- OED
- OED
15
Arsenic.
n. Poison.
- OED
15
Apothecary.
n. One who kept a store or shop of non-perishable
commodities, spices, drugs, comfits, preserves, etc.
- OED
11
16
Razor case.
http://www.freedm
us.demon.co.uk/R
azor4b.jpg
16
I could have got five,
maybe ten quid for
‘em, any day.
A pound sterling (£), in British slang, possibly derived from
the Royal mint at Quidhampton, Wiltshire, England, but
more likely from the Latin phrase ' Quid pro quo' (This for
that) meaning an exchange of goods.
http://www.reference.com/browse/quid?s=t
16
18
My, them handles is
chased silver, ain’t
they?
adj. Ornamented with embossed work, engraved in relief.
- OED
Green Finch
http://www.birdinginmalt
a.com/species_greenfin
ch.html
18
Linnet Bird
http://www.fotoplatform
a.pl/fotografia/en/5971/
12
18
Nightengale
http://cambsbirdclub.blogsp
ot.com/2010/04/nightingale
_26.html
18
Blackbird
http://www.telegraph.c
o.uk/earth/wildlife/857
9702/Starvingblackbirds-turncannibal-due-to-dryweather.html
19
Ringdove
http://www.backyardbirdcam.co
m/gallery/rtdo.htm
19
Robinet
http://birding.about.com/od/birdp
rofiles/p/europeanrobin.htm
13
19
Lark
http://www.photodictionary.com/phr
ase/4863/malabarcrested-lark.html
23
Fondling the
truncheon.
A truncheon or baton... is essentially a stick of less than
arms-length, usually made of wood, plastic, or metal,and
carried by law enforcement, corrections, security, and (to a
less common degree) military personnel for less-lethal selfdefense, as well as control and to disperse combative and
non-compliant subjects. A truncheon may be used to strike,
jab, block,and aid in the application of armlocks.
http://www.reference.com/browse/wiki/Baton_(law_enforcement)
24
How sweet you look
in that light muslin
gown.
n. Any of various lightweight cotton fabrics in a plain
weave. Also: a piece of such fabric; a dress or other article
of clothing made of muslin.
- OED
24
St. Dunstan’s
Marketplace
Dunstan served as an important minister of state to several
English kings. He was the most popular saint in England for
nearly two centuries, having gained fame for the many
stories of his greatness. Adding to Dunstan's myth was his
legendary cunning in dealing with the Devil...He functions
as the patron saint of goldsmiths, as he worked as a
blacksmith, painter, and jeweller.
http://www.reference.com/browse/wiki/Dunstan
14
24
A hand drawn
caravan, painted like
a Sicilian donkey
cart...
Hand-drawn
caravan:
http://www.wildhorseboo
ks.com/Plans/Thompson
/Bow_top.JPG
Sicilian donkey cart:
http://almostitalian.com/i
mages/sicilian-cart-anddonkey.jpg
24
Pirelli’s Miracle
Elixir.
n. A sovereign remedy for disease. Hence adopted as a
name for quack medicines, as Daffy's elixir, etc.
- OED
26
Doffs his cape
dramatically.
v. To put off or take off from the body (clothing, or anything
worn or borne); to take off or ‘raise’ (the head-gear) by way
of a salutation or token of respect.
- OED
28
See that chap with
hair like Shelley’s?
Percy Bysshe Shelley was
an English romantic poet,
born 1792 died 1822 who
was also known for his
thick and wavy hair.
http://www.reference.com/brows
e/shelley?s=t
15
33
...a sinister-looking
tooth extractor.
https://c1.staticflickr.com/7/
6197/6045720540_785b36
8865_z.jpg
42
Sweeney Todd’s
Tonsorial Parlor.
adj. Of or pertaining to a barber or his work; often used
humorously, as ‘a tonsorial artist’.
- OED
42
43
44
...my uncle’s cousin
and arrived from
Birmingham...
Mea culpa, mea
culpa
Mea maxima culpa
Mea maxima
maxima culpa
He picks up a
scourge from the
table.
A town in Warwickshire, in England.
- OED
My fault, my fault
I have failed
My biggest fault
- Google Translate (Latin)
n. A whip, lash. Now only rhetorical, with reference to the
torturing of human beings, or to ascetic discipline.
- OED
45
I’ll wed you on the
morrow.
n. The following day; the day subsequent to any specified
day; tomorrow, the day immediately following today.
- OED
47
At the foot of the
outside staircase is a
brand-new barbers
pole.
http://www.zandkantiques.com/a
ntiques/Trade_Sign_19th_Centu
ry_American_Painted_Antique_
Barber_Pole_7.jpg
16
48
...after his leg gave
out from the dropsy.
n. A morbid condition characterized by the accumulation of
watery fluid in the serous cavities or the connective tissue
of the body.
- OED
50
Gillyflowers,
maybe...
http://thecranberrychronicle.b
logspot.com/2010/05/giddyover-gillyflowers.html
50
...’Stead of daisies.
http://www.hdwallpapersare
na.com/wpcontent/uploads/2014/04/dai
sies-summer-1920x12003.jpg
51
Now I must hurry for
surely the Judge is
off to the Old Bailey.
The Old Bailey is the Central Criminal Court in England,
commonly known as the Old Bailey , is a court building in
central London, one of a number housing the Crown Court.
http://www.reference.com/browse/Old+Bailey?s=t
54
56
56
Benjamin Barker,
later transported to
Botany Bay for life.
Botany Bay, is an inlet, New South Wales, SE Australia,
just S of Sydney.
Those who thought
him a simple clod.
n. A blockhead, clodpate; a clodhopper.
http://www.reference.com/browse/Botany+bay?s=t
- OED
n. Full armour; a complete suit of armour. Freq. with
Judge Turpin in fully
panoply of wig, robe, connotations of brightness and splendour.
etc.
- OED
17
58
That’s what I’ll do, I’ll
get some lye.
n. The limpid acrid fluid which runs from a blister or the like;
the ‘water’ which collects in the body in dropsy.
- OED
60
St. Dunstan’s, noon.
n. The church of St. Dunstan.
- OED
62
Given their genteel
proclivities...
n. An inclination toward something (esp. something
considered morally wrong); a predisposition, a tendency.
- OED
62
64
64
Perhaps at times I
am a little overyhasty
with my morning
ablutions...
n. The act or process of washing clean.
- OED
I’m a silly little
ninnynoodle
Ninny: n. A simpleton; a fool.
I’ll take my reticule.
n. A small handbag, typically made of a soft fabric, tied with
a drawstring, and decorated with embroidery or beading.
- OED
- OED
69
...he’s half seas over Half-drunk.
already with the gin.
- OED
70
...while I get a new
bottle from the
larder.
n. A room or closet in which meat and other provisions are
stored.
So fetch the
pomade...
n. Originally: a scented grease or ointment applied to the
skin as a perfume, cosmetic, or salve. In later use : a
scented ointment or oil used to dress the hair.
70
- OED
- OED
18
70
...and pumice stone.
n. As a mass noun: a very light, porous, grey or palecoloured volcanic rock, proverbial for its dryness and often
used as an abrasive in cleaning, polishing, removing dead
skin, etc., or as an absorbent for moisture.
- OED
75
“The fat’s in the
fire, for sure!”
A course of action with inevitable bad consequences has
begun; there's trouble ahead.
http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/fat+is+in+the+fire,+the
78
82
Later I can fob him
off with some story
easy.
v. To cheat, deceive, delude, trick, impose upon.
...but not as bland as
curate, either.
n. A clergyman who has the spiritual charge of a parish (or
parochial district); the parson of a parish.
- OED
- OED
83
More like vicar.
n. One who takes the place of, or acts instead of, another; a
substitute, representative, or proxy. Chiefly Christian
Church.
Pronunciation: /ˈvɪkə(r)/
- OED
86
It’s fop, finest in the
shop.
n. One who is foolishly attentive to and vain of his
appearance, dress, or manners; a dandy, an exquisite.
- OED
88
At that delicate,
luscious ambrosial
smell.
adj. orig. in the Greek mythology: Belonging to or worthy of
the gods, as their food, anointing oil, locks, raiment,
sandals, etc.
- OED
95
Oh well, got her
comeuppance.
n. A punishment or fate that someone deserves.
http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/
19
96
That glaze, those
crimps...
n. to pinch and press down the edges of (a pie
crust),especially to seal together the top and bottom layers
of pastry.
http://dictionary.reference.com/
101
101
...noxious plume of
black.
adj. Harmful, poisonous, injurious; unwholesome.
- OED
n. A straw bed or mattress; an inferior bed or sleeping
...carrying a meager
straw pallet, her bed. place.
- OED
101
106
107
Every night at the
vespers bell.
n. a bell rung at evening.
That’s the sort of
scalawag that gets
this neighborhood
into disrepute.
n. A disreputable fellow; a good-for-nothing; a scapegrace,
blackguard; in Trade Union slang, a man who will not work.
Sitting at a
harmonium.
n. A keyboard instrument, the tones of which are produced
by free metal ‘reeds’, tongues, or ‘vibrators’, actuated by a
current of air from bellows, usually worked by treadles; a
kind of reed-organ.
http://dictionary.reference.com/
- OED
- OED
Strictly distinguished
from the American
organ by the fact that
the air is driven
outwards through the
reed-pipes, whereas in
the latter it is sucked
inwards; but the name
is sometimes extended
to include the American
organ.
http://tardis.dl.ac.uk/FreeReed/organ
_book/node17.html
20
109
...Aunt Nettie used to
take me to the
seaside August
Bank Holiday...
A holiday on the last Monday in August.
“The curious history of our official bank holidays begins in
1871, when they were first recognised in an Act of
Parliament authored by Sir John Lubbock. He was a banker
who, it is said, was so keen on cricket he chose dates when
village matches were played in his home county.”
- BBC News - The Politics of Bank Holidays
109
We’ll have our
kippered herring...
n. this method of curing
fish.
- OED
http://www.eatwithmagnus.com/
2010/12/30/kippered-herringsfrom-cley-smokehouse/
126
But if three bells ring
in the Tower of
Bray.
The 'Bray' in the title is most probably the village of Bray,
Berkshire, on the south bank of the Thames immediately
east of Maidenhead, and the church of St Michael, Bray
was the living which the vicar was so keen to hang onto.
The Vicar of Bray: The song starts with the Restoration of
the monarchy and has the main character changing his
views with every change of monarch through to the
Hanoverian George I.
http://www.britainexpress.com/attraction-articles.htm?article=29
132
Anthony stops briefly
to reconnoiter
nervously.
v. To inspect, examine, or survey (a district or tract of
ground) in order to discover the presence or position of an
enemy, or to find out the resources or military features of
the country.
- OED
140
Quickly, sir, a splash
of bay rum!
n. an aromatic liquid, used by perfumers, obtained by
distilling rum in which bay-leaves have been steeped.
- OED
21