Whenever unusual physical exertion is required of a player, a perilous fall, or a desperate leap, a trained gymnast is usually engaged as double to accomplish this portion of the performance.  When in the stage versions of “Kenilworth,” Sir Richard Varney, in lieu of Amy Robsart, is seen to descend through the treacherous trap and incur a fall of many feet, we may be sure that it is not the genuine Varney, but his double who undergoes this severe fate.  The name of the double is not recorded in the playbill, however, and he wins little fame, let him acquit himself as skilfully as he may.  Occasionally, however, doubles of this kind are found to emerge from obscurity and establish a reputation of their own.  In 1820, a pantomime, dealing with the fairly tale of “Jack and the Beanstalk,” was produced at Drury Lane.  The part of the hero was allotted to little Miss Povey, who declined, however, to undertake Jack’s feat of climbing the famous beanstalk, a formidable structure reaching from the stage to the roof of the theatre.  It became necessary to secure a substitute who should present some resemblance to the small and slight figure of the young actress, and yet be sufficiently strong and courageous to undertake the task she demurred to.  The matter was one of some difficulty, and for some time no competent double was forthcoming.  One morning, however, Winston, the stage-manager, descried a little active boy, acting as waterman’s assistant, at the hackney-coach stand in Bedford Street, Covent Garden.  He was carried to the theatre and his abilities put to the test at a rehearsal of the pantomime.  His performance was pronounced satisfactory.  He nightly appeared during the run of “Jack and the Beanstalk” as the climbing double of Miss Povey.  Subsequently, he became one of the pupils of the clown.  The boy said he believed his name was Sullivan.  Years afterwards he was known to fame as Monsieur Silvain, ballet-master, and principal dancer of the Academic Royale, Paris, an artist of distinction, and a most respectable member of society.

Mrs. Mowatt, the American actress, has recorded in her Memoirs a curious instance of a double being employed in connection with a dummy to secure a theatrical illusion of a special kind.  The play produced at the Olympic Theatre some twenty years ago, was an English version of the “Ariane” of Thomas Corneille.  In the original, Ariadne, upon the discovery of the perfidy of Theseus, falls upon a sword and expires.  This catastrophe was altered in the adaptation, and a startling effect produced by the leaping of the heroine from a rock, and her plunging into the sea, while the ship of Theseus is seen departing in the distance.  It was found necessary that three Ariadnes, similarly costumed, and identical in appearance, should lend their aid to accomplish this thrilling termination.  Mrs. Mowatt, as Ariadne the first, paced the shore, and received the agonising intelligence of the desertion of Theseus.  A ballet-girl, as Ariadne the second, climbed the rocks of the Island of Naxos, reaching the highest peak to catch the last glimpse of the vanishing vessel.  The third Ariadne was a most lifelike lay figure, which, on a given signal, was hurled from the cliff, and seen to fall into the abyss below.