Life
1750-1788; b. Cork; actor-playwright; plays incl. The Invasion
(1778); The Fair American (1782); anon, The Drama (1755),
poem; also farces and musical pieces, incl. The Liverpool Prize
(1779), and The Siege of Gibraltar (1780); He Would be a Soldier
(London 1780), com.; d. Lon., bur. Lambeth. RR ODNB PI DIW.
[ top ]
Commentary
Peter Kavanagh, Irish Theatre (1946), Frederick Pilon 1750-1788;
13 pieces, mostly farces; The Invasion or A Trip to Brighthelmstone
(CG 4 Nov 1778) 1788; The Liverpool Prize (CG 22 Feb 1779) 1779,
repeated 17 times; Illumination or The Glazier’s Conspiracy,
prelude (CG 12 April 1779) 1799, 8 nights, concerning acquittal of Admiral
Keppel; Thedevice or The Deaf Doctor (CG 27 Sept 1779) Larpent
MS, revised as The Deaf Lover (CG 2 Fe 1780); The Siege of Gibraltar,
op. farce (CG 25 Apr 1780 and 5 nights) 1780, mus. William Shield; The
Humours of an Election (CG 19 Oct 1780, and 14 nights), formerly acted
as The Close of the Poll, or The Humours of an Election; Thelyphthora
or More Wives than One, farce (CG 8 Mar 1781, 2 nights), ridiculing
Dr Martin Madan’s Thelphthora, an apology for polygamy; The
Fair American, com. op. (DL 18 May 1782, and 7 nights) 1785, plag.
from Hull’s alteration of Sir Samuel Tuke’s Adventures of
Five Hours, with mus. by T. Carter; Aerostation or the Templar’s
Stratagem (CG 29 Oct 1784) 1784, a satire on balloons; Barataria
or Sancho Turn’d Governor (CG 29 Mar 1785) 1793, became a stock
piece, based on Durfey’s plays on Don Quixote; All’s Well
that Ends Well (Hay 26 July 1785), unprinted alteration of Shakespeare; He Would be a Soldier, com. (CG 18 Nov 1786; 23 nights in the season)
1786; unfinished com. The Ward in Chancery, possibly finished
as The Toy or Hampton Court Frolics, by John O’Keeffe, though
this is denied by the latter in Recollections.
[ top ]
References
Dictionary of National Biography, actor and dramatist, first appeared
Edinburgh, and drifted to London to write clever ephemeral plays after
1778. He Would be a Soldier achieved considerable success in Covent
Garden (premier 18 Nov. 1786). Earlier successes include The Invasion,
or a Trip to Brighthelmstone (1778). NOTE PI, d. London, April 1779.
See Richard Ryan, Biographia Hibernica: Irish Worthies (1821),
Vol. II, p.464.
[ top ]
Notes
Brief reference to The Siege of Gibraltar (1780) in Joseph Th.
Leerssen, Mere Irish & Fior-Ghael: Studies in the Idea of Irish
Nationality, Its Development and Literary Expression Prior To The Nineteenth
Century (Amsterdam & Philadelphia: John Benjamins Pub. Co. 1986).
[ top ]