James Agate
Encyclopedia
James Evershed Agate was a British diarist and critic. In the period between the wars, he was one of Britain's most influential theatre critics. After working in his father's business until his late twenties he found his way into journalism, being on the staff of The Manchester Guardian
(1907–14); drama critic for The Saturday Review
(1921–23), and The Sunday Times
(1923–47), and holding the same post for the BBC
(1925–32).
Agate's diaries and letters, published in a series of nine volumes under the title of Ego, are a record of the British theatre of his era, and also of his non-theatrical interests, including sports, social gossip and his private preoccupations with his health and precarious finances. In addition to drama criticism he wrote about the cinema and English literature for London newspapers, and published three novels, translated a play and had it staged in London, albeit briefly, and regularly brought out collections of his theatre essays and reviews.
, near Manchester, England. His father had a keen interest in, and connections to, music and the theatre. Gustave Garcia
, nephew to the prima donna Maria Malibran
, was Charles's lifelong friend since they were apprenticed together in the cotton warehouse. Agate's mother was educated in Paris and Heidelberg, and was an accomplished pianist. Through Agate's family connections to the active German artistic community in Manchester, he had much exposure to performance in his youth. In October 1912, Sarah Bernhardt
visited the Agate home, an indication of the family's position in the local arts scene. Agate's only sister, May, later studied acting under Bernhardt in Paris.
After education at Giggleswick School
and Manchester Grammar School
, where he was academically outstanding, he did not go to a university, but went into his father's business, where he worked for seventeen years. In his spare time he was a regular theatregoer, and admired and longed to emulate the critical writing of George Bernard Shaw
in The Saturday Review
. In 1906 he wrote a letter about drama to a local Manchester paper. The editor printed Agate's contribution and invited him to write a weekly theatre column. After a year Agate joined the Manchester Guardian
s team of critics under the guidance of C. E. Montague
. Even as a junior critic Agate did not hesitate to give bad notices to the leading figures of the English stage when he thought it justified. Within months of taking up his post, he wrote of Herbert Beerbohm Tree
's performance as Richard II
, "It was extraordinarily uninteresting, and it is amazing how badly a tragic part can fit an actor so fine as, in other directions, Mr. Tree undoubtedly is." Later, Agate was bested by Lilian Braithwaite
, who responded to his assertion that she was "the second most beautiful woman in London" by replying, "I shall long cherish that, coming from our second-best theatre critic."
In his early twenties Agate wrote a play, The After Years, which his biographer, Ivor Brown
describes as "less than successfully realized". Another biographer, James Harding, said of Agate's subsequent attempts at fiction (a second play and three novels) that they are "of small import".
Agate volunteered in May 1915 at the age of thirty-seven for the Army Service Corps
, and was posted to France. He had an arrangement to supply a series of open letters about his wartime experiences to Allan Monkhouse
at The Manchester Guardian. These were published in his first book, L. of C. (Lines of Communication), of which a reviewer wrote, "Captain James E. Agate ranks as one of the first hundred thousand soldiers who have written a book about the war, but … one is sure there will be no other book like this one. … It is our old friend 'J. E. A.' at his irritating best in khaki." Agate's fluency in French and knowledge of horses landed him a job as a hay procurer (described in the first volume of his Ego) in which he was outstandingly successful. His system of accounting for hay purchases in a foreign land in wartime was eventually recognised by the War Office
and made into an official handbook. Captain Agate's name was engraved on the Chapel-en-le-Frith
War Memorial in Derbyshire. After L of C, Agate published a book of essays on the theatre, Buzz, Buzz! (1918). In the same year, while still serving in France, Agate married Sidonie Joséphine Edmée Mourret-Castillon, daughter of a rich landowner. The marriage was short-lived and after it broke up amicably, Agate's relationships were exclusively homosexual.
), and in 1923 he moved to The Sunday Times
, where he remained theatre critic for the rest of his life. From 1925 to 1932 he combined his newspaper work with the post of drama critic for the British Broadcasting Corporation
. His former paper, The Manchester Guardian, later wrote of him, "That Agate was the first dramatic critic of his time may well be doubted by adherents of Ivor Brown or Desmond MacCarthy
, but beyond dispute he was the first theatrical critic. He was native to the theatre, he understood acting, he had in his blood both the French … and English stages."
In addition to his work as a theatre critic, Agate was film critic to The Tatler
and literary critic to The Daily Express and also had leisure interests that occupied much time and money. He was a cricket and boxing enthusiast, the owner of Hackney show horses
, and an avid golfer. All these are reflected in his diaries, published between 1935 and his death in a series of volumes entitled Ego, Ego 2, Ego 3, etc. (When he published Ego 8, his friend and sometime secretary Leo Pavia enquired, "Will the Ninth be choral?") The historian Jacques Barzun
, a fan of Agate and editor of a reissue of the last two volumes of Agate's Ego series, highlighted Agate in 2001, which rekindled the interest of a new generation:
Alistair Cooke
was another admirer of Agate, and devoted one of his "Letters from America" to the "Supreme Diarist." Agate had a series of secretaries, of whom Alan Dent (Jock), who served for fourteen years, was later the most prominent. Dent arrived on Agate's doorstep in September, 1926: "He announced that his name was Alan Dent, that he resided at some absurd place near Ayr, that he had received university education, hated medicine and refused to be a doctor, that he admired my work, intended to be my secretary willy-nilly, and had walked from Scotland for that purpose. I looked at his boots and knew the last statement to be merely ad captandum
and with intent to mollify." (From Ego [1], Page 91.)
Agate's style in the diary entries that constitute the nine volumes of "Ego" is discursive. Anecdotes of the day's news, excerpts from his voluminous correspondence with readers of his reviews and books, frank and often amusing ruminations on his health (he was a hypochondriac and obsessive-compulsive) and poor financial state abound. Many of his diary entries mention his friends Herbert Van Thal
, George Lyttelton
, Dent and Pavia, and Edward Agate, his much-loved brother. He had recurring themes around Malibran
, Sarah Bernhardt
, Réjane
, Rachel, the Dreyfus Affair
, Shakespeare
, and Dickens
. His style is "vigorous and outspoken, and always entertaining, in spite of his refusal to admit greatness in any actor later than Irving
." He has been compared to critics of an earlier generation, Clement Scott
and A. B. Walkley: "He admired the power Scott had enjoyed on the Daily Telegraph during the last third of the nineteenth century, and enjoyed Walkley's elitism and francophilia on The Times during the late Victorian and Edwardian periods. Agate sought to position himself in that tradition, and his criticism consequently is verbose and self-indulgent but hugely entertaining and revealing."
Agate made a short-lived and unsuccessful adaptation of a German play, I Accuse! from the original of Dr. Hans Rehfisch and Wilhelm Herzog
; it opened and closed in London in October 1937. The Times reviewer commented, "Mr. Agate is suspected of having been too faithful to a too earnest German original". His theatrical notices were published in a series of collections including Buzz, Buzz!, Playgoing, First Nights, More First Nights, etc., and are valuable for their history of London theatre between the world wars. His anthology The English Dramatic Critics, 1660–1932 is important. He wrote a biography of the French actress Rachel, a heroine of his. Arnold Bennett
called it an "excited and exciting biography" and "beyond question the best life in English" of the subject.
During World War II Agate's health declined, and he began to suffer from heart trouble. He died suddenly in London, at the age of 69, shortly after completing his ninth Ego volume of diaries.
The Guardian
The Guardian, formerly known as The Manchester Guardian , is a British national daily newspaper in the Berliner format...
(1907–14); drama critic for The Saturday Review
Saturday Review (London)
The Saturday Review of politics, literature, science, and art was a London weekly newspaper established by A. J. B. Beresford Hope in 1855....
(1921–23), and The Sunday Times
The Sunday Times (UK)
The Sunday Times is a Sunday broadsheet newspaper, distributed in the United Kingdom. The Sunday Times is published by Times Newspapers Ltd, a subsidiary of News International, which is in turn owned by News Corporation. Times Newspapers also owns The Times, but the two papers were founded...
(1923–47), and holding the same post for the BBC
BBC
The British Broadcasting Corporation is a British public service broadcaster. Its headquarters is at Broadcasting House in the City of Westminster, London. It is the largest broadcaster in the world, with about 23,000 staff...
(1925–32).
Agate's diaries and letters, published in a series of nine volumes under the title of Ego, are a record of the British theatre of his era, and also of his non-theatrical interests, including sports, social gossip and his private preoccupations with his health and precarious finances. In addition to drama criticism he wrote about the cinema and English literature for London newspapers, and published three novels, translated a play and had it staged in London, albeit briefly, and regularly brought out collections of his theatre essays and reviews.
Early years
Agate, the eldest child of Charles James Agate (1832-1909), a wholesale linen draper, and Eulalie Julia née Young, was born in PendletonPendleton, Greater Manchester
Pendleton is an inner city area of Salford, Greater Manchester, England. It is about from Manchester city centre. The A6 dual carriageway skirts the east of the district....
, near Manchester, England. His father had a keen interest in, and connections to, music and the theatre. Gustave Garcia
Gustave Garcia
Gustave Garcia was an Italian baritone opera singer and singing teacher.-Biography:He was born on February 1, 1837 in Milan, Italy to Manuel Patricio Rodríguez García and soprano Eugénie Mayer...
, nephew to the prima donna Maria Malibran
Maria Malibran
The mezzo-soprano Maria Malibran , was one of the most famous opera singers of the 19th century. Malibran was known for her stormy personality and dramatic intensity, becoming a legendary figure after her death at age 28...
, was Charles's lifelong friend since they were apprenticed together in the cotton warehouse. Agate's mother was educated in Paris and Heidelberg, and was an accomplished pianist. Through Agate's family connections to the active German artistic community in Manchester, he had much exposure to performance in his youth. In October 1912, Sarah Bernhardt
Sarah Bernhardt
Sarah Bernhardt was a French stage and early film actress, and has been referred to as "the most famous actress the world has ever known". Bernhardt made her fame on the stages of France in the 1870s, and was soon in demand in Europe and the Americas...
visited the Agate home, an indication of the family's position in the local arts scene. Agate's only sister, May, later studied acting under Bernhardt in Paris.
After education at Giggleswick School
Giggleswick School
Giggleswick School is an independent co-educational boarding school in Giggleswick, near Settle, North Yorkshire, England.- Early school :...
and Manchester Grammar School
Manchester Grammar School
The Manchester Grammar School is the largest independent day school for boys in the UK . It is based in Manchester, England...
, where he was academically outstanding, he did not go to a university, but went into his father's business, where he worked for seventeen years. In his spare time he was a regular theatregoer, and admired and longed to emulate the critical writing of George Bernard Shaw
George Bernard Shaw
George Bernard Shaw was an Irish playwright and a co-founder of the London School of Economics. Although his first profitable writing was music and literary criticism, in which capacity he wrote many highly articulate pieces of journalism, his main talent was for drama, and he wrote more than 60...
in The Saturday Review
Saturday Review (London)
The Saturday Review of politics, literature, science, and art was a London weekly newspaper established by A. J. B. Beresford Hope in 1855....
. In 1906 he wrote a letter about drama to a local Manchester paper. The editor printed Agate's contribution and invited him to write a weekly theatre column. After a year Agate joined the Manchester Guardian
The Guardian
The Guardian, formerly known as The Manchester Guardian , is a British national daily newspaper in the Berliner format...
s team of critics under the guidance of C. E. Montague
Charles Edward Montague
Charles Edward Montague, , was an English journalist, known also as a writer of novels and essays.He was born and brought up in London, the son of an Irish Roman Catholic priest who had left the church to marry. He was educated at the City of London School and Balliol College, Oxford. In 1890 he...
. Even as a junior critic Agate did not hesitate to give bad notices to the leading figures of the English stage when he thought it justified. Within months of taking up his post, he wrote of Herbert Beerbohm Tree
Herbert Beerbohm Tree
Sir Herbert Beerbohm Tree was an English actor and theatre manager.Tree began performing in the 1870s. By 1887, he was managing the Haymarket Theatre, winning praise for adventurous programming and lavish productions, and starring in many of its productions. In 1899, he helped fund the...
's performance as Richard II
Richard II (play)
King Richard the Second is a history play by William Shakespeare believed to be written in approximately 1595. It is based on the life of King Richard II of England and is the first part of a tetralogy, referred to by some scholars as the Henriad, followed by three plays concerning Richard's...
, "It was extraordinarily uninteresting, and it is amazing how badly a tragic part can fit an actor so fine as, in other directions, Mr. Tree undoubtedly is." Later, Agate was bested by Lilian Braithwaite
Lilian Braithwaite
Dame Lilian Braithwaite DBE , born Florence Lilian Braithwaite, was an English actress.She was the daughter of a clergyman, and born in Ramsgate, Kent. She was educated at Croydon High School, and married actor-manager Gerald Lawrence, first acting with amateur companies...
, who responded to his assertion that she was "the second most beautiful woman in London" by replying, "I shall long cherish that, coming from our second-best theatre critic."
In his early twenties Agate wrote a play, The After Years, which his biographer, Ivor Brown
Ivor Brown
Ivor John Carnegie Brown was a British journalist and man of letters.-Biography:Born in Penang, Malaya, Brown was the younger of two sons of Dr. William Carnegie Brown, a specialist in tropical diseases, and his wife Jean Carnegie. At an early age he was sent to Britain, where he attended Suffolk...
describes as "less than successfully realized". Another biographer, James Harding, said of Agate's subsequent attempts at fiction (a second play and three novels) that they are "of small import".
Agate volunteered in May 1915 at the age of thirty-seven for the Army Service Corps
Royal Army Service Corps
The Royal Army Service Corps was a corps of the British Army. It was responsible for land, coastal and lake transport; air despatch; supply of food, water, fuel, and general domestic stores such as clothing, furniture and stationery ; administration of...
, and was posted to France. He had an arrangement to supply a series of open letters about his wartime experiences to Allan Monkhouse
Allan Monkhouse
Allan Noble Monkhouse was an English playwright, critic, essayist and novelist.He was born in Barnard Castle, County Durham. He worked in the cotton trade, in Manchester, and settled in Disley, Cheshire...
at The Manchester Guardian. These were published in his first book, L. of C. (Lines of Communication), of which a reviewer wrote, "Captain James E. Agate ranks as one of the first hundred thousand soldiers who have written a book about the war, but … one is sure there will be no other book like this one. … It is our old friend 'J. E. A.' at his irritating best in khaki." Agate's fluency in French and knowledge of horses landed him a job as a hay procurer (described in the first volume of his Ego) in which he was outstandingly successful. His system of accounting for hay purchases in a foreign land in wartime was eventually recognised by the War Office
War Office
The War Office was a department of the British Government, responsible for the administration of the British Army between the 17th century and 1964, when its functions were transferred to the Ministry of Defence...
and made into an official handbook. Captain Agate's name was engraved on the Chapel-en-le-Frith
Chapel-en-le-Frith
Chapel-en-le-Frith is a small town in Derbyshire, England, on the edge of the Peak District near the border with Cheshire, from Manchester. Dubbed "The Capital of the Peak District", the settlement was established by the Normans in the 12th century, originally as a hunting lodge within the Forest...
War Memorial in Derbyshire. After L of C, Agate published a book of essays on the theatre, Buzz, Buzz! (1918). In the same year, while still serving in France, Agate married Sidonie Joséphine Edmée Mourret-Castillon, daughter of a rich landowner. The marriage was short-lived and after it broke up amicably, Agate's relationships were exclusively homosexual.
London theatre critic
On returning to civilian life, Agate pursued his career as a theatre critic. In 1919 he published a second book of essays, Alarums and Excursions. In 1921 he secured the post with The Saturday Review once held by Shaw (and then by Max BeerbohmMax Beerbohm
Sir Henry Maximilian "Max" Beerbohm was an English essayist, parodist and caricaturist best known today for his 1911 novel Zuleika Dobson.-Early life:...
), and in 1923 he moved to The Sunday Times
The Sunday Times (UK)
The Sunday Times is a Sunday broadsheet newspaper, distributed in the United Kingdom. The Sunday Times is published by Times Newspapers Ltd, a subsidiary of News International, which is in turn owned by News Corporation. Times Newspapers also owns The Times, but the two papers were founded...
, where he remained theatre critic for the rest of his life. From 1925 to 1932 he combined his newspaper work with the post of drama critic for the British Broadcasting Corporation
BBC
The British Broadcasting Corporation is a British public service broadcaster. Its headquarters is at Broadcasting House in the City of Westminster, London. It is the largest broadcaster in the world, with about 23,000 staff...
. His former paper, The Manchester Guardian, later wrote of him, "That Agate was the first dramatic critic of his time may well be doubted by adherents of Ivor Brown or Desmond MacCarthy
Desmond MacCarthy
Sir Desmond MacCarthy was a British literary critic and journalist.-Early life and education:MacCarthy was born in Plymouth, Devon, and educated at Eton College and Trinity College, Cambridge. At Cambridge he got to know Lytton Strachey, Bertrand Russell and G. E...
, but beyond dispute he was the first theatrical critic. He was native to the theatre, he understood acting, he had in his blood both the French … and English stages."
In addition to his work as a theatre critic, Agate was film critic to The Tatler
Tatler
Tatler has been the name of several British journals and magazines, each of which has viewed itself as the successor of the original literary and society journal founded by Richard Steele in 1709. The current incarnation, founded in 1901, is a glossy magazine published by Condé Nast Publications...
and literary critic to The Daily Express and also had leisure interests that occupied much time and money. He was a cricket and boxing enthusiast, the owner of Hackney show horses
Hackney (horse)
The Hackney Horse is a recognized breed of horse that was developed in Great Britain. In recent decades, the breeding of the Hackney has been directed toward producing horses that are ideal for carriage driving. They are an elegant high stepping breed of carriage horse that is popular for showing...
, and an avid golfer. All these are reflected in his diaries, published between 1935 and his death in a series of volumes entitled Ego, Ego 2, Ego 3, etc. (When he published Ego 8, his friend and sometime secretary Leo Pavia enquired, "Will the Ninth be choral?") The historian Jacques Barzun
Jacques Barzun
Jacques Martin Barzun is a French-born American historian of ideas and culture. He has written on a wide range of topics, but is perhaps best known as a philosopher of education, his Teacher in America being a strong influence on post-WWII training of schoolteachers in the United...
, a fan of Agate and editor of a reissue of the last two volumes of Agate's Ego series, highlighted Agate in 2001, which rekindled the interest of a new generation:
"When in 1932 he [Agate] decided to start a diary, he resolved to depict his life entire, which meant giving a place not solely to his daily thoughts and occupations but also to his talk and correspondence with others, including his brothers and sister, no less singular than himself. The resulting narrative, with fragments of hilarious mock-fiction, ranks with Pepys's diary for vividness of characterization and fullness of historical detail".
Alistair Cooke
Alistair Cooke
Alfred Alistair Cooke KBE was a British/American journalist, television personality and broadcaster. Outside his journalistic output, which included Letter from America and Alistair Cooke's America, he was well known in the United States as the host of PBS Masterpiece Theater from 1971 to 1992...
was another admirer of Agate, and devoted one of his "Letters from America" to the "Supreme Diarist." Agate had a series of secretaries, of whom Alan Dent (Jock), who served for fourteen years, was later the most prominent. Dent arrived on Agate's doorstep in September, 1926: "He announced that his name was Alan Dent, that he resided at some absurd place near Ayr, that he had received university education, hated medicine and refused to be a doctor, that he admired my work, intended to be my secretary willy-nilly, and had walked from Scotland for that purpose. I looked at his boots and knew the last statement to be merely ad captandum
Ad captandum
In rhetoric an argument ad captandum, "for capturing" the gullibility of the naïve among the listeners or readers, is an unsound, specious argument, a kind of seductive casuistry. The longer form of the term is ad captandum vulgus . The ad captandum argument may be painfully vivid in sound bites...
and with intent to mollify." (From Ego [1], Page 91.)
Agate's style in the diary entries that constitute the nine volumes of "Ego" is discursive. Anecdotes of the day's news, excerpts from his voluminous correspondence with readers of his reviews and books, frank and often amusing ruminations on his health (he was a hypochondriac and obsessive-compulsive) and poor financial state abound. Many of his diary entries mention his friends Herbert Van Thal
Herbert Van Thal
Herbert Maurice van Thal , better known as Bertie, was a bookseller, publisher, agent, biographer, and anthologist. His grandfather was a distiller , and was a director of the theatre proprieters, Howard and Wyndham...
, George Lyttelton
George William Lyttelton
The Hon George William Lyttelton was a British teacher and littérateur. Known in his lifetime as an inspiring teacher of classics and English literature at Eton, and an avid sportsman and sports writer, he became known to a wider audience with the posthumous publication of his letters, which...
, Dent and Pavia, and Edward Agate, his much-loved brother. He had recurring themes around Malibran
Maria Malibran
The mezzo-soprano Maria Malibran , was one of the most famous opera singers of the 19th century. Malibran was known for her stormy personality and dramatic intensity, becoming a legendary figure after her death at age 28...
, Sarah Bernhardt
Sarah Bernhardt
Sarah Bernhardt was a French stage and early film actress, and has been referred to as "the most famous actress the world has ever known". Bernhardt made her fame on the stages of France in the 1870s, and was soon in demand in Europe and the Americas...
, Réjane
Gabrielle Réjane
Gabrielle Réjane was the stage name of Gabrielle-Charlotte Reju, , a French actress.Born in Paris, the daughter of an actor, she became a pupil of Régnier at the Conservatoire, and took the second prize for comedy in 1874. Her debut was made the next year, during which she played attractively a...
, Rachel, the Dreyfus Affair
Dreyfus Affair
The Dreyfus affair was a political scandal that divided France in the 1890s and the early 1900s. It involved the conviction for treason in November 1894 of Captain Alfred Dreyfus, a young French artillery officer of Alsatian Jewish descent...
, Shakespeare
William Shakespeare
William Shakespeare was an English poet and playwright, widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's national poet and the "Bard of Avon"...
, and Dickens
Charles Dickens
Charles John Huffam Dickens was an English novelist, generally considered the greatest of the Victorian period. Dickens enjoyed a wider popularity and fame than had any previous author during his lifetime, and he remains popular, having been responsible for some of English literature's most iconic...
. His style is "vigorous and outspoken, and always entertaining, in spite of his refusal to admit greatness in any actor later than Irving
Henry Irving
Sir Henry Irving , born John Henry Brodribb, was an English stage actor in the Victorian era, known as an actor-manager because he took complete responsibility for season after season at the Lyceum Theatre, establishing himself and his company as...
." He has been compared to critics of an earlier generation, Clement Scott
Clement Scott
Clement Scott was an influential English theatre critic for the Daily Telegraph, and a playwright and travel writer, in the final decades of the 19th century...
and A. B. Walkley: "He admired the power Scott had enjoyed on the Daily Telegraph during the last third of the nineteenth century, and enjoyed Walkley's elitism and francophilia on The Times during the late Victorian and Edwardian periods. Agate sought to position himself in that tradition, and his criticism consequently is verbose and self-indulgent but hugely entertaining and revealing."
Agate made a short-lived and unsuccessful adaptation of a German play, I Accuse! from the original of Dr. Hans Rehfisch and Wilhelm Herzog
Wilhelm Herzog
Wilhelm Herzog was a German historian of literature and culture, dramatist, encyclopedist, and pacifist.- Life :...
; it opened and closed in London in October 1937. The Times reviewer commented, "Mr. Agate is suspected of having been too faithful to a too earnest German original". His theatrical notices were published in a series of collections including Buzz, Buzz!, Playgoing, First Nights, More First Nights, etc., and are valuable for their history of London theatre between the world wars. His anthology The English Dramatic Critics, 1660–1932 is important. He wrote a biography of the French actress Rachel, a heroine of his. Arnold Bennett
Arnold Bennett
- Early life :Bennett was born in a modest house in Hanley in the Potteries district of Staffordshire. Hanley is one of a conurbation of six towns which joined together at the beginning of the twentieth century as Stoke-on-Trent. Enoch Bennett, his father, qualified as a solicitor in 1876, and the...
called it an "excited and exciting biography" and "beyond question the best life in English" of the subject.
During World War II Agate's health declined, and he began to suffer from heart trouble. He died suddenly in London, at the age of 69, shortly after completing his ninth Ego volume of diaries.