sketcher, caricaturist, actor, composer, pianist and singer, whose real name was Charles Gray, toured Australia in 1868 as both accompanist and accompanying vocalist to the singer Anna Bishop. He later joined William Saurin Lyster’s Opera Company as 'chorus master, sometime prompter, expert in elaborate make-up, and occasional performer of subsidiary parts in English opera and leads in French opéra bouffe’, Harold Love states. Having previously toured with Bishop in the East, Lascelles brought with him to Australia his sketchbooks of scenes in India, China and Japan. He was an avid sketcher and caricaturist, often drawing the members of the company on playing-card-size paper.
A set of caricatures of the Lyster and Cagli opera troupe was praised in the Sydney Mail of 11 March 1871, the likenesses being considered 'admirable, with sufficient of caricature to make them amusing without being vulgar’. These drawings were photographed then hand-coloured by Lascelles and sold well in both Melbourne and Sydney. They include most of the company: Signors Neri, Dondi, Contini and Devoti, Signora Barratti, Miss Chambers and several members of the chorus. One of the most striking was considered to be that of the artist himself, 'who…without sacrificing the bearing of a gentleman, gave to his personnel a slight peculiarity by the way in which he wore his hat’. Lyster’s own copy of the series survives in a private collection (recorded as slides, English Department, Monash University). Kelly notes that his sketches of theatrical life were not only humorous but also 'sometimes scandalous’.
As an actor, Lascelles’s stage presence was usually reviewed more favourably than his performance, in particular his 'beautiful make-up – à la Watteau ' as Prince Paul in The Grand Duchess of Gerolstein . In 1873 he was in Sydney attempting to establish 'a musical and dramatic academy’ where the pupils would give public performances from time to time, for which purpose he was renovating rooms opposite the City Bank. All was to be in the most elegant and refined style 'that will induce the upper classes to patronise and take part in them’. In April Dr Charles Badham’s Ode , set to music by Lascelles, was performed at the opening of the Sydney Intercolonial Exhibition.
After leaving Australia Lascelles continued his peripatetic theatrical career. He again joined Anna Bishop as her accompanist for a season at Cape Town in 1875, and he was regisseur of an opera company touring the English provinces in 1878. In 1879 he was back at Cape Town where, as well as other duties, he painted scenery for the Verner Dramatic Company. This career reputedly had a less picturesque end. In 1892 his contemporary F.C. Brewer described Lascelles as having worked as a pianist in a London music hall 'and [being] sometimes occupied in drawing designs for the perfumery bottles and packets of the celebrated Rimmel, in the Strand’. Lascelles died while travelling on the Continent in August 1883.
