Mobbed by the masses, lionised by the aristocracy, courted by royalty and lusted after by patrons of both sexes, the child actor William Henry West Betty was one of the most famous people in Georgian Britain.
At the age of thirteen, he played leading roles, including Romeo, Macbeth and Richard III, in theatres across the country. Prime Minister William Pitt adjourned the House of Commons so that its members could attend his debut as Hamlet at Covent Garden. Then, as rivals turned on him and scandal engulfed him, he suffered a fall as merciless as his rise had been meteoric.
The Young Pretender takes place during Betty's attempted comeback at the age of twenty-one. As he seeks to relaunch his career, he is forced to confront the painful truths behind his boyhood triumphs. Michael Arditti's revelatory new novel puts this long forgotten figure back in the limelight. In addition to its rich and poignant portrait of Betty himself, it offers an engrossing insight into both the theatre and society of the age. The nature of celebrity, the power of publicity and the cult of youth are laid bare in a story that is more pertinent now than ever.
Michael Arditti’s pedigree as a noted theatre critic presents as a transferable skill almost as the theatre is a dominant force in this immersive novel of child prodigy, Master Betty. What struck me very quickly was the sustained and authentic Georgian vernacular. The skilful use of language transported me back in time to an age where people ‘spoke proper’. I feel it made the narrative all the more potent.
I was familiar with some of the theatre players in the novel, Mrs. Siddons and David Garrick, for example, but I confess I had not heard of Master Betty. But as I read I found myself more and more intrigued. I find that, for me, the mark of good historical fiction is when it makes me scuttle off to find out more. I did here; I over worked Google and Wikipedia! Indeed I feel motivated to visit Highgate Cemetery to see William Betty’s grave.
One one level this is a fictional story of a notable theatrical figure with palpable historical detail and research. But I thought it was more that. As I read of Mr. Betty and his memories, his desire to revisit the past and understand his fame and standing as child it made me think of a recent TV programme I watched about the boy who played Tadzio in Visconti’s adaptation of Thomas Mann’s Death in Venice, Bjorn Andresen and his life following that meteoric rise to fame. I saw a pattern of exploitation and the inevitable plummeting that can follow precocious success. That rendered The Young Pretender so much more poignant. Told from Betty’s perspective in the first person, the reader walks along side this young man as he tries to make a comeback on the stage hoping, perhaps to recreate the heady success of his tender years. As a character Betty presents initially almost as an idealist, an optimist, he doesn’t seem to want to think ill of those he trusted and who may have exploited that trust. He presses his reluctant mother to offer up her perceptions of the past and certain truths are revealed through her and other persons from his former days. I warmed to him, especially when he comes to the ultimate realisation at the end of the book saying ‘I was not an actor but a sideshow.’
The book is also a marvellous account of theatre in Georgian England and also offers a potent social history perspective. For such a slender volume it contains a great deal.
My thanks to Corinna Zifko at MacLeHose Press for a copy of The Young Pretender published by Arcadia Books.
MICHAEL ARDITTI is the author of twelve highly acclaimed novels and a collection of short stories. His novels have been short- and long-listed for several literary prizes and Easter won the inaugural Waterstones Mardi Gras award. He was the theatre critic of the Sunday Express and has been a prolific book reviewer. Arcadia will publish his novel, The Choice, in spring 2023.
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