John Liston

After several dismal failures in tragic parts, some of them in support of Mrs Siddons, he discovered accidentally that his forte was comedy, especially in the personation of old men and country boys, in which he displayed a fund of drollery and broad humour.

An introduction to Charles Kemble led to his appearance at the Haymarket on 10 June 1805 as Sheepface in The Village Lawyer, and his association with this theatre continued with few interruptions until 1830.

In the January 1825 of the London Magazine there appeared a Memoir of John Liston written by his close friend Charles Lamb.

Liston himself replied to this Memoir in the following edition of the London Magazine suggesting that the same writer pen a short life of Byron.

Several pictures of Liston in character are in the Garrick Club, London, and as Paul Pry in the South Kensington Museum and the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland archives.