George Selth Coppin (1819–1906) was born into a respectable Norfolk family, but far away in Steyning, Sussex, because his father, according to the Australian Dictionary of Biography, disgraced himself in “abandoning his medical studies at 19 to join a group of strolling players, and marrying one of its members who was twice his age.” George grew up as a child actor, accustomed to greasepaint and never knowing where he’d be performing or sleeping next. Almost inevitably, he eventually fetched up in Australia.

It’s a story so colourful and fanciful that it has to be true, mostly, because no one could make it up. He was mounting shows in Melbourne and Sydney and tours of the country when JC Williamson was still in short pants. Over the decades, he was almost bankrupt several times but nevertheless popular with his players, whom he treated better than most. He was married three times (he buried two wives) and provided for 10 children including stepchildren over a career spanning more than four decades. Yet, what caught the imagination of Simon Plant were his two years in America with a British thespian couple, Charles and Ellen Kean. These two held themselves in high...