Joseph Arnold Cave (c. 1823 – November 1912) was an English music hall performer, actor and theatre manager.
He is credited as the first British banjo player, and as the first to present a minstrel show on the concert (rather than music hall) stage.
[1] Cave described his first banjo, a copy of one used by Joel Sweeney, as "rather rudely constructed, consisting of nothing more than a hoop about four inches wide, with a piece of vellum fastened on with brass-headed nails and a light staff of wood running through the tambourine-like body forming the fingerboard.
[3] In 1866, he had a quarrel with Charles Dickens, who had seen and given a hostile review to a performance at the Marylebone Theatre, managed by Cave at the time.
Cave attempted to improve the character of the theatre, writing in his playbills that "any person whistling or making any other disturbance will be expelled by the police".