 In 1879, one of his "saucy" songs caused Evans's to lose its license for a year.In the legitimate theatre, he starred as Dr. Syntax in the Drury Lane Theatre pantomime "Mother Goose" (1880); as Mrs. Crusoe in "Robinson Crusoe" (1881 and 1886); in "Sindbad the Sailor" (1882; a show he repeated in 1906); in H. B. Farnie's "Nell Gwynne" (1884); in Farnie's "The Grand Mogul" (1884 with Florence St. John, Fred Leslie and Frank Wyatt); Joe Tarradiddle in the English adaptation of Offenbach's "La Vie parisienne"; Stanley the explorer in the 1891 Gaiety Theatre burlesque of "Joan of Arc" by Adrian Ross and J. L. Shine, popularising the song "I went to find Emin"; in the early Edwardian musical comedy "In Town" (1892); Captain Arthur Coddington in the Gaiety burlesque of "Don Juan" (1893, by Meyer Lutz, A. C. Torr and Ross); "Claude Du Val" (1894), the title character in "Gentleman Joe" (1895); "Black-Eyed See-Usan"; and "Dandy Dan the Lifeguardsman" (1898), among others.Roberts had success in the 1890s with the hit song "Daddy Wouldn't Buy Me a Bow Wow".