ABSTRACT
In the spring of 1875, when he was working for a firm of building contractors, the 22-year-old William Pole (1852-1934) saw and heard (in Italian) Tommaso Salvini as Othello at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane. As his brief diary entry for 11 April records, he was already kicking against the pricks of his daily routine: ‘I seem to get no nearer to the change I long for and this makes me sad. I am still under the bondage of Hell [the City]. I saw Salvini in Othello the other day, a great treat’ (Speaight 1954: 26).
