Novel cheekily gathers together the best bits from our entertainment history

Coming from a respected Wellington family of thespians, entertainers and musicians, it was only a matter of time before our beloved and masterful storyteller turned her attention to the heady world of show-biz.
Jenny Pattrick, who put Denniston back on the map with her best-selling historical novel and was in the news again recently with the launch of the new ‘Denniston Rose Literature Trail’, spins another great tale imagining the colonial life of entertainer Lily Alouette, an impetuous, effervescent and always restless leading lady who immediately charms all who cross her path ― both fellow characters and readers alike.

Skylark, is a romp of a read which clearly Jenny Pattrick has enjoyed creating for us. It’s a most unconventional of love stories ― set amid real figures from nineteenth-century theatre and, she says, “cheekily gathering together all the best bits of real theatrical events from history.” 

Jenny Pattrick’s novel paints a vivid, entertaining and absorbing picture of the exciting, itinerant life of colonial actors and circus performers, of gold miners, of horse breeders and of our early settlers.

Acting is definitely in Pattrick’s blood and her sense of drama and love of the stage is palpable throughout the novel as it cracks its giddy pace. 

“My parents,” says Pattrick, “were, all their lives, involved in theatre in Wellington and I grew up watching rehearsals, going to plays and then acting and directing myself. Many of our family and friends are involved in the performing arts so I guess it was natural for me to be interested in writing a book about entertainment.

In terms of what’s based on fact and what’s not, Pattrick explains: “In Skylark, I’ve inserted my own family of characters, especially Lily Alouette, into the real entertainment history of New Zealand, which is amazingly rich. Circuses, theatrical companies, singers and even a company of juvenile operatic performers toured New Zealand from the earliest days of European settlement.

“Apart from my fictional family, all the characters are real performers of the time – Foley’s Victoria Circus, the formidable Mrs W H Foley, the Buckingham Family Entertainers, The Inimitable Charles Thatcher and Annie Vitelli, the Pollard Lilliputian Company and of course the villain: Captain Bully Hayes. They appear in places and at times that are accurate.

“In those early days a night at the theatre usually consisted of a triple bill – a melodrama, then a musical interlude and finally a farce, the same group of multi-talented entertainers performing in all three. The narrative of Skylark follows this pattern, with three characters telling a story: Lily Alouette and Mattie writing their own stories and Samuel Lacey telling his father Jack’s.”

In a nice move Random House has re-jacketed their best-selling author's earlier titles and I must say they look terrific.

Note - publication date for Skylark is 1 June 2012.