Samuel Foote - The Devil On Two Sticks

The Devil On Two Sticks

While riding with Prince Edward, Duke of York and Albany in 1766, he was thrown from his horse and the injury cost him his leg. Even in this state, he continued to act and as possible compensation for his injury was granted a license to legally operate the Haymarket Theatre. He produced a summer season of "legitimate plays" in 1767, engaging Spranger Barry and his wife to perform. He bought the theatre outright and remodelled the interior the same year and continued to operate the theatre until he was forced to give up his patent to George Colman the Elder the following year. He died in 1777 en route to France.

Foote's satires are based on caricatures of characters and situations from his era. His facility and wit in writing these earned him the title "the English Aristophanes." While, often, his subjects found his literary jabs just as humorous as his audiences, they often both feared and admired him.

There is a less pleasant aspect to Foote's dramaturgy. Apparently he was willing to blackmail the subjects of his jibes. In 1776 he approached Elizabeth Chudleigh, the so-called (but bigamist) Duchess of Kingston, and real life Countess of Bristol, with a threat to reveal her secret marriage to the Earl of Bristol in his play A Visit to Calais. The character of "Lady Kitty Crockodile" was an on-target attack on her. Chudleigh (asked for 2,000 pounds!) offered a far smaller amount. Eventually she may have used physical threat to get Foote to leave her alone.

In The Luck of Barry Lyndon Thackeray's protagonist claims Foote as a friend. Foote is also referred to in The Boswell Brothers by Philip Baruth.