How the first ever pop star blazed a trail of innovation

Chandler first became fascinated by Dibdin because, as an academic researching the Romantic era, he kept tripping over Dibdin's name in newspapers. Dibdin clearly had a rather tempestuous nature, and was often getting into financial difficulties, fighting with the critics, and falling out dramatically with other figures in the London theatrical scene – including David Garrick, who exploited Dibdin's musical talents for his Drury Lane theatre in the 1760s and 1770s, when Dibdin was a young man.  

Dibdin's reputation as being tricky to work with ultimately led to his staging one-man shows from 1787. He called these innovative, touring performances his "Table Entertainments", and it is a selection of these – alongside The Jubilee, a work written for Garrick's bonanza Shakespeare festival in 1769 – that have lately been performed and recorded by Retrospect Opera, with baritone Simon Butteriss bringing Dibdin back to life.

"Dibdin made enemies, certainly, like a lot of large personalities do. And that's why he ended up having to work on his own," laughs Butteriss. "It was a struggle – he very much had to do everything himself, having been feted at Drury Lane."

The Table Entertainments, however, were a hit. A charming raconteur, Dibdin would play multiple characters, blending comic storytelling with songs played on the piano. In his most successful, titled The Wags, for instance, Dibdin conjures up a villa outside of London – a "camp of pleasure" where English eccentrics eat and drink, tell jokes and stories, and sing songs. First performed in 1790, The Wags was his fourth Table Entertainment, and saw Dibdin "able to refine his product to the point where it had an almost perfect appeal," says Chandler. Dibdin performed it 108 times in its first London season alone – and went on to churn out new Table Entertainments for the next 20 years.

from Hacker News https://ift.tt/2jaOgEF