On the 11th of June 1821, Sir Walter Scott wrote to Joanna Baillie alerting her the fact that a Scottish actor, Charles Mackay, was to play the part of Bailie Nicol Jarvie for a single night at Covent Garden. Scott had already seen Charles Mackay play the part of Bailie Nicol Jarvie at the Theatre Royal in Edinburgh in 1819, and he told Joanna Baillie that ‘I am not sure I ever saw anything in my life possessing so much truth and comic effect at the same time: he is completely the personage of the drama …. His variety of feelings towards Rob Roy, whom he likes, and fears, and despises, and admirers, and pities all at once, is exceedingly well expressed. In short, I never saw a part better sustained’.

Charles Mackay’s performances in a wide variety of roles were a towering success. Even King George IV during his famous visit to Edinburgh in 1822, came to the theatre and saw Mackay perform. And on one occasion when Mackay was unwell and called in too late to have the name of his understudy announced, the disappointed crowds in the theatre chanted ‘It’s no’ The Real Mackay! It’s no’ The Real Mackay!’

In her acknowledgements, Helen Graham tells us that Charles Mackay was her five-times great-uncle and she began writing this story of his life about seven years ago. The biography she has written is immensely successful, minutely researched and very moving. She conjures up the vibrant world of the multi-talented actors who performed in the packed theatres of the early nineteenth century. The rowdy, responsive audiences crossed all social classes. Theatre managers and lease-holders were on a roller coaster of success and failure, constantly producing new dramas. There was a tribe of free-lance actors who roamed the country, Ayr, Glasgow, Aberdeen, Edinburgh. Only a minority were salaried, a still smaller minority became national figures.  Actors at this time had to be extraordinarily resourceful and adaptable. Comedy was a reliable vehicle. Many of Sir Walter Scott’s novels were turned into three or five act musical dramas. To succeed, an actor or actress had to be able to mimic, to sing, to dance or jig, and to interact with their audience. Migrant living in this way, competing for roles, putting on appearances and always a brave face took a terrible human toll, especially on the women as is vividly told in Helen Graham’s book.

Charles Mackay was the foremost Scottish actor of his day, even being awarded an honorary Doctor of Laws from the University of Glasgow, which was no mean accolade. His art rested on his acute observation of the voices and mannerisms around him. Most famously, he played Bailie Nicol Jarvie, but among many other roles, he also played the Dominie in Guy Mannering, Dumbiedikes in The Heart of Midlothian and Meg Dodds in St Ronan’s Well. The latter, modelled on an historical person, was a closely observed cross-dressed classic with a speech at the end in the character of Meg Dodds. These dramatizations were intensely contemporary. St Ronan’s Well was put on the London stage only three weeks after the publication of the novel. It can be said that the dramatizations were one of the earliest reader-responses to the novels. In them, Mackay showed his genius. He seized on what was pawky and comic and may be said to have paved the way for Sir Harry Lauder’s much loved and comic characterisation of Scottishness a generation later. It is an utterly enthralling, moving book, recreating another world. I most heartily recommend it.

Iain Torrance

 

Iain Torrance