By theby, do any of you with family connections have links with the Stoke on Trent area? Or indeed, have family members you know to have performed there. As well as Geoghegan managing the thatre in Hanley, his son-in-law Matt Hall was the manager of the Wedgewood Theatre/Hippodrome in Burslem, Stoke-on-Trent from it's opening in 1896 until at least 1912.

This amusing snippet was passed on to me by someone I know through work (I work in local history publishing)

"Not to be forgotten was the old Burslem Theatre, the Hippodrome, situated between the top of Scotia Road and Baddeley Street. Its popular name was 'The Blood Tub', although the 'Blood Tub' was originally the Wedgwood Theatre of 1903 which was demolished to make way for the new Town Hall of 1911. The Hippodrome was a big, and eventually decrepit, one-storey wooden building closed in 1940 and demolished soon after World War II. In its early days it was run by a man named Matt Hall. Most of the plays were of a 'villainous' nature, alternating with boxing and weightlifting competitions. One one occasion a pallid potter was trying to lift an enormous barbell. 'His futile efforts brought forth derisive yells from his workmates in the audience'. This so exasperated him that he dropped one of the barbells on the stage, with a huge bang, and shouted to his tormentors, 'Thee bloddy well come and try!' Matt Hall was so convulsed with laughter that he became seriously ill and was rushed home!"
(A Sociological History of the Borough of Stoke-on-Trent (1977), Ernest Warrillow, p. 680.)