Summary

Playbill for the Colosseum in London for 9 September, 1836. It advertises the upcoming attraction of the 'Dissolvent Views' to be performed by Mr Child, as well as a farce with singing and dancing. There is a possibility that the Mr Child referred to is Henry Langdon Childe, as he is known to have been a lantern slide exhibitor at the Colosseum from its opening in 1824. An English slide-painter, Childe, is sometimes credited with inventing the chromatrope slide and claimed to have invented the dissolving view. He performed at many of the main venues in London, including the Theatre Royal and Her Majesty's Theatre but perhaps most famously at the Royal Polytechnic Institute, which opened in 1838 with Childe's 'grand phantasmagoria'.

This playbill is part of the Francis Collection of pre-cinematic apparatus and ephemera, acquired by the Australian and Victorian Governments in 1975. David Francis was the curator of the National Film and Sound Archive of the British Film Institute as well as being a co-founder of the Museum of the Moving Image in London, which was operational between 1988 and 1999.

Description of Content

Dissolving views by Child. A playbill for the Coliseum dated 9 September 1836, advertising Mr. Child's dissolving views.

Physical Description

Single plain sheet of paper with black printing.

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