Charles Mathews

Charles Mathews (28 June 1776 – 28 June 1835) was an English comic actor and theatre manager born in London and known for his exceptional skill at impersonation and one-man theatrical entertainment. He made his Broadway appearances in 1834, starring in Mathews At Home!/The Comic Annual and appearing in A Bull in a China Shop. He also wrote the book for productions during his career. Mathews died in Devonport on his fifty-ninth birthday.

Born to James Mathews, a Wesleyan Methodist bookseller, printer, and pharmacist on the Strand who also served as a minister in one of the Countess of Huntingdon's chapels, Charles was educated at Merchant Taylors' School in London. His father, for religious reasons, prohibited his children from attending theatres. During his youth, however, Mathews encountered the actor Robert William Elliston and visited Drury Lane, an experience that drew him irresistibly toward the stage. He left his father's household in September 1793 to make his first public stage appearance at the Old Richmond Theatre. The following year his father relented, allowing him to pursue acting in Dublin, providing him with his indentures and twenty guineas while leaving open the possibility of his return to a different profession. Mathews never claimed the additional twenty guineas his father had offered should he abandon the stage.

For several years Mathews took minor roles before making his first London appearance on 15 May 1803 at the Haymarket, playing Jabel in Cumberland's The Jew and Lingo in The Agreeable Surprise. His success there led to an engagement at Drury Lane. A particular gift for mimicry allowed him to transform his stage persona without relying on costume changes. In 1808 he launched his one-man show, variously described as a monopolylogue and a monodramatic entertainment, entitled At Home or Mathews at Home, at the Lyceum Theatre. The production, in which he performed every character himself, was the first work of its kind and became the defining example of the monopolylogue genre. The show incorporated mimicry, storytelling, recitations, improvisation, quick-change artistry, and comic song. Leigh Hunt wrote that Mathews's table entertainments were as good as half a dozen plays distilled.

In 1822 and 1823 Mathews toured the United States, where he achieved considerable success. During his stay he was libeled by the Philadelphia Gazette and brought suit against the paper, receiving an award of 3,000 crowns in damages. He developed a series of impressions of American types during the tour, among them a portrayal of an African American said to have been based on the actor James Hewlett, who performed Shakespeare roles at the African Grove. His subsequent show, A Trip to America, included a version of the slave freedom song "Possum Up a Gum Tree," performed in dialect and possibly in blackface. One author described Mathews as the paterfamilias of the Yankee theatre and the progenitor of all native American dialect comedy. The show also prompted a public exchange of critical essays between Mathews and American critic John Neal in The European Magazine and London Review, with Neal arguing that Mathews's portrayal of New Englanders was inaccurate and unworthy of the subject.

Returning to England in autumn 1823, Mathews joined Frederick Henry Yates, manager of the Adelphi Theatre. He subsequently purchased a half-share in the Adelphi, a connection that proved critically and popularly successful though not financially rewarding. During his career, Mathews was received as a guest by George IV alongside John Kemble and John Braham. In 1834 he undertook a second American tour, during which he made his Broadway appearances. He cut the tour short after his final New York City performance on 11 February 1835, returning to England in poor health. He died without appearing again on a British stage, in Plymouth in June 1835.

In his personal life, Mathews married Eliza Kirkham Strong of Exeter in 1797. She was an actress and the author of a volume of poems and several novels; she retired from the stage in 1801 and died in 1802. In 1803 Mathews married Anne Jackson, an actress and half-sister to the actress Frances Maria Kelly. Anne Jackson Mathews later wrote a biography of her husband. Their son, Charles James Mathews, became a successful actor. The character of Alfred Jingle in Charles Dickens's novel The Pickwick Papers is said to have been inspired by Mathews.