Piccadilly Circus: 1913

This is a Rotary Postcard printed in Britain, it shows Piccadilly Circus looking southeast towards the junction with the Haymarket. On the right is the Criterion Theatre and Restaurant and playing at the theatre is a farce entitled, “Oh I Say” starring James Welch, the Brian Rix of his day. It is May/June 1913 and a bus on the right is advertising “Ariadne in Naxos”, the latest three act opera by Richard Strauss and produced by Sir Beerbohm Tree and Sir Thomas Beecham at His Majesty’s Theatre, it ran for about a month from early May whereas the farce at the Criterion ran until early February 1914 from late May, the overlap was only about a week or less at the end of May and the beginning of June. The clue to the exact date may lay with the flying of the Union flags, Tuesday the 3rd June was King George V's birthday. The opera was sung in German by an all star cast from the opera houses of Europe, Eva Von Der Osten from Dresden, Francillo Kauffmann from Vienna, Hermine Rossetti from Munich, Robert Hutt from Frankfurt and Theo Drill-Orridge and Otto Marak from Hamburg, it was probably the last German opera sung in German at a London venue for a very long time. Whilst appearing in the Farce at the Criterion, James Welch also endorsed Hall’s Tonic Wine in a series of newspaper advertisements which claimed it was good for Depression, Debility, Anaemia, Insomnia, Influenza, Neuralgia, Exhaustion, Weakness and Brain Fag. Just along from the Criterion is the German Delicatessen and Restaurant run by Herman Appenrodt, it was one of several in the west end of London and the first world war would see an end to his business. Best viewed with the zoom feature.

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