Pope, Jane

1744?

1818

The daughter of William Pope, peruke-maker and Drury Lane Theatre barber, Jane Pope was born about 1744. (The BDA contains a typographical error and shows her born about 1774.) Jane’s first certain mention in the bills was on 3 December 1756, when she was Lalcon in a production of "Lilliput" at Drury Lane in which most of the roles were taken by children. Her adult debut was on 23 October 1759 as Corinna in "The Confederacy". Also in that cast was Kitty Clive, the consummate comedienne, who advised young Jane and became a life-long friend. Jane followed Lalcon with Dolly Snip in "Harlequin’s Invasion", Biddy in "Miss in her Teens", Prue in "Love for Love" and Miss Notable in "The Lady’s Last Stake". She was engaged at Drury Lane until 1808 and developed a fine repertoire of comic roles that included Cherry in "The Stratagem", Beatrice in "Much Ado about Nothing", Flora and Violante in "The Wonder", Miss Sterling in the premiere of "The Clandestine Marriage", Olivia in "The Plain Dealer", Polly and Lucy in "The Beggar’s Opera" (though critics said she was a dreadful singer), Lady Minikin in "Bon Ton", Audrey in "As You Like It", Letitia in "The Old Bachelor", Mrs Malaprop in "The Rivals", Mrs Page in "The Merry Wives of Windsor" (G0685), Mrs Candour in "The School for Scandal" and a host of other choice characters, many of them calling for the kind of pertness that was second nature to ‘Popsie,’ as she was called. Remarkably, in her maturity she specialized in maturity; Hazlitt said she was ‘the very picture of a duenna, a maiden lady, or antiquated dowger.’ She took some of Kitty Clive’s old roles and made many of them her own; William Hawkins especially liked her Nell in "The Devil to Pay", Beatrice in "Much Ado" and Phyllis in "The Conscious Lovers", all of which he called matchless. By 1775 she was earning £8 weekly, a good salary for a specialist in low comedy, and she augmented that with engagements in Dublin and Liverpool during some summers, though she did not tour as much as many of her colleagues. Jane Pope by 1807 was having trouble with her memory, so she sensibly announced her retirement, making her last appearance on 26 May 1808. At the end of the evening, in the character of Audrey in "As You Like It", she bid her audience farewell. Jane died on 30 July 1818. (BDA) [EAL]