William Leman Rede

Who was William Leman Rede?

William Leman Rede was one of the many prolific and successful playwrights who composed farces, melodramas, burlettas, and travesties, primarily for theatres such as the Olympic, Strand, and Adelphi, in the early nineteenth century. He proudly proclaimed himself a follower of Thomas Frognall Dibdin, W. T. Moncrieff, James Robinson Planché, Douglas William Jerrold, and John Baldwin Buckstone-writers who established the "minor drama." This term referred to plays that were produced at venues other than Covent Garden, Drury Lane, and the Haymarket, the "patent theatres" that had a legal monopoly on the presentation of serious, non-musical productions. The minor dramas did so well, however, that the patent theatres soon augmented their own bills with the same type of fare.