Henry Edward Payne and Frederick Alexander Payne were the sons of
William Payne, a classic
pantomime artist, who invented much of the 19th-century
Harlequinade action. Known as "the King of Pantomime", he trained with
Joseph Grimaldi and the great
Harlequin,
Jack Bologna, at
Sadler's Wells Theatre, and starred at
Covent Garden in the 1830s and 40s. The dancing of the Payne Brothers was so celebrated that
W. S. Gilbert referred to it in two of his comic
Bab Ballads, "The Bishop of Rum-ti-Foo" and "The Bishop of Rum-ti-Foo Again". When the Paynes appeared in
The Grand Duchess at the
Gaiety Theatre in 1871, a reviewer in
The Olio wrote, "People go rather to see the eccentric dancing than to hear the eccentric music. However, in justice to the latter, it may be urged that we have all heard enough of the
Grand Duchess, while we are all agreed that we would never see sufficient of the Payne pantomimists – perhaps, taken for all in all, the best in the world."
Harry Payne Harry Payne began his career playing Harlequin at Covent Garden. In 1859 he was playing a bear, and he had to take over as
Clown in the middle of a performance when
Richard Flexmore collapsed. He was so successful in the role that he remained as Covent Garden's Clown until the 1870s. After other appearances, including one with his brother Fred in
Gilbert and Sullivan's
Thespis in 1871, choreographed by their father, he went to
Drury Lane in 1883, where he played Clown for the last twelve years of his life. In 1892
Punch said of him: Harry Payne was described by
George Grossmith as "the best clown in my time". Harry Payne opened each
Boxing Day Harlequinade at Drury Lane with a
somersault followed by a cheerful "Here we are again!" Harry Payne was responsible for the creation of one of the biggest
Christmas crackers ever to be made in the
Victorian era. He was appearing as Clown in a Drury Lane pantomime when the cracker was delivered. It was over seven feet in length and contained a change of costume for the whole cast as well as hundreds of small crackers that the cast threw to the children in the audience, to their great excitement. Harry Payne died at the age of 62 and was buried in the family grave at
Highgate Cemetery.
The Times said of him, "Mr. Payne was at once an actor, a singer, and an accomplished humourist. Probably he owed something to the tuition of his father … whose mimetic feats he would seek to emulate as much as the altered conditions of pantomime entertainments would permit."
Fred Payne When his father,
W H Payne, appeared as Baron Pompolino in Drury Lane's
Cinderella in 1865, Fred Payne played his valet, Pedro. The two: Payne senior appeared with both his sons in
Saint George and the Dragon at Covent Garden in 1864. Fred continued to perform with his father into the 1870s; they appeared together in 1874 in
Cinderella at
The Crystal Palace as Pompolino and Pedro. With his brother Harry, Fred appeared regularly at the Theatre Royal, Manchester. In 1877, while engaged in the pantomime at the
Alexandra Palace, he became what the newspaper
The Era called mentally "affected", and he never fully recovered from this affliction. He died at 3 Alexandra Road,
Finsbury Park, London, on 27 February 1880, aged only 39. ==Notes==