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Life
1802-1875 [John Baldwin Buckstone]; b. London; manager of the Surrey and later the Haymarket theatres; author of numerous farces, including The Boyne Water or the Relief of Londonderry (Adelphi [London] 1831), - presum. after John Banim; The Irish Lion (Haymarket 1838); Presumptive Evidence (Abbey St. 1844), set in Munster; also The Green Bushes (Adelphi 1845); Tyrone Power frequently played for him in leading roles; his Irish Lion [Dick’s Edn.], has a preface in which Buckstone repudiates charges of imitating Le Tailleur de Jean-Jacques Rousseau; also produced an adaptation of The Death Fetch by the Banims, which appeared in the Dicks series in c.,1887. ODNB GBI ODQ OCIL
Works
The Death Fetch, &c. Founded on one of the Popular Tales of “The O’Hara Family”) [Dicks’ Standard Plays, 831 (London: [1887]), 14pp., 8°. [Other works in Dicks’ Standard Plays series.]
Commentary
Frank Fay, Towards a National Theatre: Dramatic Criticism, ed. Robert Hogan (Dublin: Dolmen Press 1970), incls. Fay’s remarks on The Green Bushes: played in Dublin in 1893 and 1895 and again in 1899 when Fay reviewed it for United Irishman (16 Sept. 1899): ‘I suppose the day of The Green Bushes is nearly over. He calls it not a great play but a good example of a common type.’ (pp.30-31.)
References
Belfast Central Public Library holds Boyne Water (1831), Green Bushes [q.d.]; Irish Lion [q.d.], all in Dick’s standard plays.
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