Reddish, Samuel

1735

1785

The son of a tradesman, Samuel Reddish was born in Frome, Sussex, in 1735 and at 15 was apprenticed to a surgeon. He gave that up and tried the stage, first in Norwich, then at Richmond, Surrey, and finally in London, where neither patent theatre showed an interest in him. But he was engaged by Henry Woodward for the Crow Street Theatre in Dublin, where he made his debut as Lord Townly in "The Provok’d Husband" on 12 October 1759. After that he tried Edinburgh, Dublin again, Norwich again, Cork, Dublin again, and so on, attracting creditors wherever he went and fleeing them in the nick of time. By 1770 he was involved in company management at Bristo1, and on 18 September 1767 he made his Drury Lane debut as Lord Townly; with him was his wife Polly (née Hart), who acted at Drury Lane for a few seasons until Samuel replaced her with Mary Anne Canning. Reddish turned out to be a useful enough actor, playing such roles as Iago in "Othello", Alexander in "The Rival Queens", Romeo, Lothario in "The Fair Penitent", Jaffeir in "Venice Preserv’d" and Faulkland in "The Rivals". His salary at Drury Lane was £12 by 1777-78, and he was usually hard-working, good at prologues and epilogues, and a quick study, but many critics found him unsuitable for the characters he acted. In 1772 "The Theatres" said Reddish had no ‘expression, dignity, or ease’ and was limited by a weak voice, a lack of spirit, and no grace. By 1774 he was behaving erratically, occasionally not knowing what character he was to act, sometimes hissed off the stage, and often missing engagements. His Bristol connection dissolved, he gave up Drury Lane, tried Covent Garden briefly, returned to Edinburgh and Dublin. Reddish received aid from the Drury Lane Theatrical Fund, but there was little that could be done to save him; he died on 13 December 1785 at the Asylum for Lunatics at York. (BDA)[EAL]