ARLISS ARCHIVES

Today on April 10th we remember the 158th Anniversary of the Birth of George Arliss. In 1868, April 10 fell on Good Friday and George was born into an historic publishing firm found by his grandfather John Arliss in the 1820s. Mr. A noted in his memoirs that the neighborhood where his family lived and worked was called Bloomsbury and he thought it was one of the nicest places in all of London.

For this year’s remembrance we decided perform some some hi-tech “magic” with AI aka Artificial Intelligence. We cast Mr. A in his most famous role as Benjamin Disraeli, the Prime Minister of England during the 1870s. “Dizzy’s” most famous achievement occurred when he purchased, on behalf of his country of course, the controlling shares in the Suez Canal Company.

However, Mr. Disraeli expressed his views on numerous issues that were important not only back then, but even today. One “evergreen” subject – or problem – is the ever-rising cost of running the Government, whether of Great Britain or of the United States. We have edited this speech doen to

In a speech that Disraeli delivered on April 3, 1872 in Manchester, he compared the cost of Government operations in England compared to the United States. Even today, it is rare to hear a Prime Minister criticize internal operations of the U.S. Government. That said, we are pleased to present George Arliss in a “new” performance as Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli discussing the comparative costs of Government between England and the United States.