H. P. Stephens

Henry Pottinger Stephens, also known as Henry Beauchamp (1851 – 11 February 1903), was an English dramatist and journalist.

After beginning his career writing for newspapers, Stephens began writing Victorian burlesques in the 1870s in collaboration with F. C. Burnand and the composer Edward Solomon. Stephens and Solomon wrote several comic operas together that briefly rivalled the Savoy Operas in popular esteem, including Billee Taylor (1880) and Claude Duval (1881). He also collaborated with Meyer Lutz at the Gaiety Theatre on burlesques including Little Jack Sheppard (1885). He worked again with Solomon on one of the first pieces considered a musical comedy, The Red Hussar (1889). He also wrote novels, plays and pantomimes, and acted in some of these.

"Pot" Stephens was born in Barrow-on-Soar, Leicestershire. He started his career as a journalist, working for The Daily Telegraph and Tit-Bits, among others, and was the first editor of Topical Times. He began writing for the stage, and in 1873 his "comedietta" Rosebud's Rose was presented by an amateur company in Bournemouth. He wrote his first burlesque, Back from India, in 1879 under the aegis of German Reed's management at St. George's Hall. The piece, with music by Cotsford Dick, was judged a "decided success" by The Era. Stephens soon wrote lyrics for F. C. Burnand's burlesque of Rob Roy, Robbing Roy, at the Gaiety Theatre and collaborated with Burnand on a couple of other burlesques, Balloonacy, a New and Original Musical Extravaganza, with music by Edward Solomon, and The Corsican Brothers and Co, Limited.

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