Inspired by Dave Crump’s excellent new Fred Karno biography I’ve conducted an in-depth study of the Karno sketch Moses and Son. My great-great-aunt Rosa Abrahams (born 1884, the daughter of David Abrahams a member of the Rosa Troupe) had appeared in the production, and I had in mind the approach J. P. Wearing followed for his London Stage series of books; setting out clear cast list and production dates. I was curious if it could be done and help me understand the tour more, and what it was like to be on it.
It was slightly more work than I expected, in tracking two touring productions across over 80 stops and a changing cast of a hundred and more different performers. But, using the British Newspaper Archive and after many distractions it is now done and I am very pleased to share online. You can now view an overview of the production and detailed information on both the original 1905-07 and the 1907-08 revival tours.
Rosa Abrahams (who I will call Rosa Jr. to distinquish her from her aunt) turned 21 by the time of her first appearance in the sketch on the 15th December 1905, and would appear throughout the two initial runs of the sketch until April 1908 as one of the longest continuous performers in the production. The tour would have been intensive, with over 40 people in the company including production staff travelling across the country on a Sunday to perform “twice nightly” from Monday to Saturday. They rarely spent more than one week in a location or theatre, and would have crossed the paths of numerous travelling performers and other Karno sketch companies. The original tour included all parts of the United Kingdom, including what would later become the Republic of Ireland.
Faint memories of a Karno link would remain in the family, but incorrectly suggesting her father David Abrahams had gone to America on a Karno tour. He had actually travelled to the USA many years before and it was his daughter who had toured for Karno, but in the UK.
As you would expect an in-depth project of this nature uncovers some hidden gems. I was very fortunate that the British Newspaper Archive has recently digitised the gloriously titled Boxing World and Mirror of Life. This provided the photo below, and I’m also very grateful to the British Library who were able to provide a better scan of it than is available online. The photo is also accompanied by a wonderful short write up packed with information.
Miss Rosa Abraham, who is at present playing in Fred Karno’s “Moses and Son” made her first appearance at the Vaudeville Theatre in Alice in Wonderland, she is the daughter of David Abrahams, and niece of Mdlle. Rosa, principal dancer of Old Alhambra and Hannah Abrahams. Ballett Mistress, Lyric, and Gaiety.
Boxing World and Mirror of Life, Saturday 15th February 1908 (British Library)
Rosa lived and trained with her aunts, who ran a ballet school on Long Acre. In the Moses and Son billing she is listed amongst the main cast, referenced as a daughter of David Abrahams and said to be of the Gaiety Theatre. I can find no reference to a Gaiety performance, but if her aunt Hannah was involved in the ballet then we can assume she did indeed dance there.
To discover the claimed first performance of any performer of the time is something special, as they would be unlikely to be listed in the official programme. The Rosa Troupe last appeared together in the original Savile Clarke production of Alice in Wonderland in 1886/7. This production continued over the next decade or so, and was performed at the Vaudaville Theatre between 19 December 1900 and 13 April 1901. It starred Ellaline Terriss as Alice, but the production would have been very familiar to Rosa Jr’s aunts. The comprehensive and excellent Lewis Carroll Resources website lists the full cast, but Rosa Abrahams Jr. is not listed. She was presumably within the choir of children and was 15 at the time.
Moses and Son would be the professional highpoint for Rosa Jr. She was credited in no major performances beyond the end of the tour, and using public records her entertainment career would appear to sharply end. By the time her own nieces and nephews were old enough to notice her career, she had been reduced to an uncredited film extra in a series of 1930s British films and Karno was seemingly not mentioned at all. I recently asked my own great uncle who had spoken with her, and he had no recollection of her talking about Karno. No stories or pictures of the production have been passed down.
She did leave a dozen or so photgraphs of herself in a series of films, all unlabelled. We can identify her as a peasant in Things to Come (1936) and the The Private Life of Don Juan (1934), and Leslie Fuller, a popular comedian at the time, is pointing at her to his friend in what I think is the film The Stoker (1937).
She had no children of her own and died on the 12th December 1957 at the age of 73, staying close to her only sister Rachel in Islington, London.
Image: Boxing World & Mirror of Life – Saturday 15th February 1908. British Library.