Scene-painter and actor, was reputedly associated with the eminent English scene-painter William Roxby Beverley before migrating to Victoria in the 1850s and working at Melbourne’s Cremorne Gardens with W.J. Wilson and other scene-painters. On 16 August 1858 the Age noted that Tannett (misspelt as Tennent) and William Pitt had painted 'a very beautiful act drop with a representation of Shakespeare’s birth-place’ for Melbourne’s redecorated Theatre Royal.
At the beginning of 1859 Ben Tannett was in Sydney, painting 'new and beautiful scenery’ for the burlesque at the Royal Victoria Theatre in February, Planché's Once upon a Time There Were Two Kings , 'acknowledged to be the greatest production that has ever been witnessed in the Colony’. Like most theatrical scenery Tannett’s work has not survived, but some idea of his range may be gleaned from the titles of the nine scenes in which he was involved, the final (and major) scene having been painted in Melbourne by Pitt. The first was set in the port of Rantipolis, the capital city of the island of Rumantica, the fourth showed 'the verdant valley & cottage of Sublimus’, the eighth the council chamber of King Perriwigulus, while the ninth act was located in the place of public execution in front of the palace.
Scene painting proceeded at a frenetic pace. A few weeks later Tannett had completed new scenery at the Royal Victoria for the tragedy Camille , and in the same month (March 1859) he painted the scenery for The Daughter of the Danube , a new two-act ballet with Andrew Torning in the role of Baron de Willibald, and for The Will and the Way; or, the Vision of Death , a romance published in the London Journal dramatised by William M. Brown of Ballarat, Victoria. In April Tannett’s 'picturesque realisations’ for a pantomime at the Royal Victoria were considered by the critic of Bell’s Life in Sydney to be 'some of the most beautiful we have ever witnessed here’, especially the Alcove of Eternal Delight, 'a perfect palace of gold’. J.W. Guy painted the harlequinade scenery for the same production.
Back at Melbourne in 1860, Tannett worked as both scene-painter and occasional actor at the Princess Theatre. He lived at 105 Lonsdale Street. Although recorded as playing Sir Edward in Joseph Jefferson’s production of Our American Cousin and mentioned as an actor as well as scene-painter at his death, scene-painting, like that for an admired mechanical wonder of a realistic Niagara Falls in motion in 1862, remained his major activity. Reviewing the production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream at the Princess in August 1862, with scenery by Tannett and Frank Varley, the Illustrated Melbourne Post noted: 'The scenery is some of the best that Mr Tannett has painted, and so satisfied were the audience with his efforts that the artist had to make his appearance at the footlights at the conclusion of the fourth act’.
Tannett and John Hennings provided the scenery for the 1862 Christmas pantomime at the Haymarket Theatre, including a view of the nave of the 1862 London International Exhibition Building for the transformation scene. This was especially popular since it incorporated the star attraction Victoria had sent to London, a gigantic pyramid covered with real gold leaf representing all the gold mined in the colony. This 'golden pyramid’ and a tableau of Britannia included in the same scene were considered 'most admirably drawn and painted’ and 'elicited prolonged applause’. Such clever local references, however, became identified with Hennings rather than Tannett whose scenery for Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar at the Theatre Royal on 10 September 1864 was his final work. Four days later he was found dead, presumably at his home, 3 Swan Street, Richmond.
- Writers:
- Staff Writer
- Date written:
- 1992
- Last updated:
- 2011
