The Diary of a Nobody

GEORGE GROSSMITH, son of a law reporter and entertainer, was born in 1847. For some years he worked as a journalist, reporting police court proceedings for The Times, and in 1870 began his career as a singer and entertainer. His special connection with Gilbert and Sullivan’s operas, many of the chief parts of which were his ‘creations’, began at the Opéra Comique, and from 1881 onwards he played at the Savoy. Leaving there in 1889, he toured Great Britain and the United States as an entertainer and singer until 1901. His A Society Clown: Reminiscences was published in 1888, followed in 1910 by a further volume of reminiscences, Piano and I: Further Remembrances. He died in 1912.

WEEDON GROSSMITH, brother of George, was born in 1854. He was educated at the Slade and the Royal Academy with a view to following a career as a painter, and exhibited at the Grosvenor Gallery and at the Royal Academy. Joining a theatrical company in 1885, he toured the provinces and America, specializing in the representation of characters of the ‘Mr Pooter’ type. His novel, A Woman with a History, was published in 1896, and the best-known of his many plays, The Night of the Party, in 1901. He eventually took over the management of Terry’s Theatre London, appearing in various parts there and elsewhere until 1917, and died in 1919 in London.

ED GLINERT was born in 1958 and read Classical Hebrew, amongst other subjects, at Manchester University. He has written for Private Eye magazine since 1988, as well as many other publications, including the New Statesman, Radio Times and Independent. He is the co-author of Fodor’s Rock & Roll Traveler U S A and Fodor’s Rock & Roll Traveler Great Britain and Ireland, and author of A Literary Guide to London in Penguin.