Tony Aston (1682?–1753)

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Anthony Aston (died 1731) was an English actor and dramatist.

Life

He began to be known on the London stage in the early years of the 18th century. He had tried the law and other professions, which he finally abandoned for the theatre. He had some success as a dramatic author, writing Love in a Hurry (performed in Dublin about 1709) and Pastora, or the Coy Shepherdess, an opera in 1712. For many years he toured the English provinces with his wife and son, producing pieces which he himself wrote, or medleys from various plays fitted together with songs and dialogues of his own.[1]

Aston wrote a A Brief Supplement to Colley Cibbey, Esq, somewhat in the manner of Colley Cibber's famous work. The 24-page pamphlet contains interesting comments on Betterton, Mrs. Bracegirdle, Underhill, Doggett, and a few others.[2][3]

Aston was a friend of the Scottish poet and dramatist Allan Ramsay.[4] His company played at Old Magazine-House in the Canongate, Edinburgh, in the winter of 1725 before going on tour. It returned to Edinburgh in 1726, basing itself at Skinner's Hall, in Skinner's Close, off the High Street. Aston was subsequently locked out of the building by the city's magistrates and left the city in 1728.[5]

His son Walter Aston began as a child actor appearing in his father's plays before eventually joining the Covent Garden Theatre company during the 1730s.

References

  1. ↑ One or more of the preceding sentences incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Aston, Anthony". Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 2 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. p. 793.
  2. ↑ Cook 1885.
  3. ↑ Nicholson, Watson (1920). Anthony Aston, stroller and adventurer. South Haven, Michigan: Published by the author.
  4. ↑ Brown, Ian, "Public and Private Performance: 1650 - 1800", in Brown, Ian (ed.) (2011), The Edinburgh Companion to Scottish Drama, Edinburgh University Press, pp. 29 & 30, ISBN 9780748641086
  5. ↑ Tierney-Hynes, Rebecca, "Stages, Performers, Audiences in the Long Eighteenth Century", in Stevenson, Randall, & Walker, Greg (eds.), The Oxford Handbook of Scottish Theatre, Oxford University Press, pp. 96 and 97, ISBN 9780192857385,