The Story of the Gnome Fly Part 2 - Introducing Signor Hervio Nano; Harvey Leach (1801-1847)

In late 1837, after almost eight years working exclusively on the continent, the American born performer Harvey Leach returned to England with a new identity, as the Neapolitan Signor Hervio Nano, and a sensational new act, the Gnome Fly. A notice of the previous night’s performance at the Adelphi in The Times of February 1st 1838 gives some idea of Leach’s extraordinary act: A very curious performance was exhibited at this theatre last night. The plot of this, to use the phraseology of the 'Philologos’ of the theatre, Bizarre Flights of Fancy, is scarcely worth detailing. It consists in the loves of the rightful heir to the kingdom of Tartary and the heiress of the estates of the Great Mogul. The plot and the Incidents of the drama are all very good in their way; but they are all ancillary to the performance, and it may be justly said the most astonishing performance of a very astonishing personage, called Signor Hervio Nano, who enacts a baboon and a fly. To what order of animals or…