Miles Peter Andrews
Miles Peter Andrews was an English playwright born in London in 1742, who significantly contributed to 18th-century drama. He took over the family gunpowder business after the death of his older brother while also serving as an officer in the Prince of Wales's volunteers and being elected to Parliament for five terms. Andrews' plays often reflected his patriotic sentiments and social standing, drawing inspiration from his connections in the theater world, including notable figures like Samuel Foote and David Garrick. He produced a range of works, including the farce "The Conjuror" and the musical "The Election," with the latter achieving notable success. Throughout the 1770s and 1780s, he continued to write comic operas and plays such as "Belphegor" and "Summer Amusement," showcasing themes of pastoral life and British patriotism. His later works, including the pantomime "The Enchanted Castle" and the Gothic romantic comedy "Mysteries of the Castle," experienced varying levels of success and revival. While recognized as a minor figure in the theatrical landscape of his time, Andrews' works provide a valuable glimpse into the cultural and social dynamics of 18th-century Britain.
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Subject Terms
Miles Peter Andrews
Playwright
- Born: October 5, 1742
- Birthplace: London, England
- Died: July 18, 1814
- Place of death: London, England
Biography
Miles Peter Andrews was born in London, England, in 1742, the son of a successful dealer in dried goods and chemicals who loved theater. He was educated in Utrecht, the Netherlands, but returned to England and assumed the head of the family’s gunpowder business in Kent when his older brother died. An officer in the Prince of Wales’s volunteers and an elected member of Parliament for five successive terms, Andrews was socially prominent, patriotic, and strongly in favor of fighting the French, and his plays reflect his social standing and political and military views.
Through his father, he met several prominent theater people, including Samuel Foote and David Garrick, and in 1774, he produced his first play, a farce called The Conjuror, followed the same year by a patriotic musical, The Election, which was more successful than the first. He wrote and produced popular comic operas through the 1770’s and 1780’s, including Belphegor: Or, The Wishes, celebrating the joys of pastoral living; Summer Amusement: Or, An Adventure at Margate, a frequently revived play for fifteen years of which only the music remains; and Fire and Water, which features stock eighteenth century characters in Portsmouth awaiting attack by the French. Dissipation, a somewhat clichéd play Andrews said he wrote to “draw a lively picture of the manners of high life, characterized by an easy indifference to the vicissitudes of fortune,” enjoyed a good run, though it was seldom revived. After subsequent plays found only lukewarm reception, Andrew produced The Enchanted Castle, a pantomime which played forty-six performances in the 1786-1787 season. In this play, Andrews used the stock characters of Harlequin, Columbine, Virgin, and Necromancer, but also drew from sources as diverse as Shakespeare, Milton, and the American song “Yankee Doodle.”
Andrews’s last play, the 1795 Gothic romantic comedy Mysteries of the Castle, was among his most successful, enjoying numerous productions and revivals between 1795 and 1800. The plot, centering on a virtuous young woman who married an evil count, is high on melodrama and broad comedy.
Andrews also wrote poetry and was referred to in one magazine account of his day as a “famous writer of epilogues.” However, he is primarily remembered as a minor figure in eighteenth century drama, and he is typical of the majority of playwrights of the period who enjoyed short-lived and limited popularity with a middlebrow audience. One critic of the period, George Colman, likened Andrews’s plays to “his powder mills, particularly hazardous affairs, and in great danger of going off.” In Lord Byron’s 1809 poem satirizing writers, “English Bards and Scottish Reviewers,” Byron reminded readers that Andrews was a better poet, in his mind, than dramatist, with the lines, “Miles Andrews still his strength in couplets try/ And live in prologues, though his dramas die.” But his plays—full-length comedies, musicals, farces, pantomimes, and comic operas—were popular enough in their day and are interesting for their depiction of British patriotism and of military, social, and religious life of the period.