W. H. Berry

After learning his craft in pierrot and concert entertainments, he was spotted by the actor-manager George Grossmith Jr., and appeared in a series of musical comedies in comic character roles.

[1] At the age of 14 he was apprenticed to the theatre booking-agency Keith, Prowse and Co., through which he had access to free seats for West End plays and musical shows.

In 1898, Barrett gave up the Globe, and left England to tour Australia, leaving Berry unemployed.

[1] Berry appeared with Lily Elsie in The Merry Widow, in 1907; his burlesque dance with Gabrielle Ray was one of the hits of the show.

[2] After this, Berry was seen in a string of shows including Havana (1908), A Waltz Dream (1908), The Dollar Princess (1909), The Count of Luxembourg (1911), Gipsy Love (1912), High Jinks (1916), and his greatest success, The Boy (1917), in which he played Mr. Meebles, the respectable magistrate who finds himself at the centre of farcical uproar.