1890s Return to London and West End debut In the later months of 1889 Little Tich secured an engagement at the London Pavilion in Piccadilly Circus. This time, he found his English critics to be complimentary about his talent, but as their praise was largely about his success in America, he considered them hypocritical. News of his much-improved performances travelled throughout the country and he was visited by Thomas W. Charles, manager of Manchester's Prince's Theatre. Charles offered Little Tich a leading role in his forthcoming pantomime Babes in the Wood. The 1889–90 production was a huge success for the comedian and his performance reportedly earned him "the heartiest applause of the evening". By the early months of 1890, Augustus Harris, the influential manager of the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane, had travelled to Manchester to look for new talent for his theatre's forthcoming 1890–91 pantomime. Impressed with what he saw, he offered the comedian a theatrical residency at Drury Lane but he was forced to withdraw it as Little Tich was contracted to Charles for a further year; Harris instead signed Little Tich for a two-year contract starting the following season. The deal required Little Tich to star in two pantomimes for a wage of £36 a week. Following on from his success in Babes in the Wood which culminated in April 1890, the theatre manager Rollo Balmain cast him as Quasimodo in a production of The Hunchback of Notre-Dame at the Theatre Royal, Plymouth. The show featured a burlesque centrepiece which required Little Tich to dress as a ballerina and gave him the opportunity to perform two of his earliest songs, "Smiles" and "I Could Do, Could Do, Could Do with a Bit", both written for him by Walter Tilbury. In 1890 Little Tich continued to impress his London music hall audiences and appeared on the front covers of both the Entr'acte and the Music Hall magazines, with the latter being widely available in the majority of London music hall auditoriums. Towards the end of the year, Little Tich appeared at the opening of the Tivoli Music Hall, before returning to Manchester at Christmas to fulfil the second of his two pantomime engagements for Thomas Charles in Little Bo-peep, in which he played Toddlekins. The following year he reprised his role of Quasimodo and toured the provinces in The Hunchback of Notre-Dame with Balmain's company. Life at Drury Lane