Thomas Frost's The Old Showmen and the Old London Fairs tells us what little we know of Gyngell's appearances at fairs around London during the period from c.1798-1830. Frost suggests that Gyngell's booth was a "theatrical" one – that is, one at which shows of various sorts were put on, rather than items sold. Gyngell seems to have combined exhibitions of conjuring with "the fantoccini", which was the contemporary term for a particular sort of puppet show, imported from Italy, which often told fairly elaborate stories for an audience of adults as well as children. This sort of exhibition derived ultimately from the masked tradition of the Commedia dell’Arte and diverged from it around 1700.

Gyngell got his start when he was bequeathed an earlier show run by the famous John Flockton (d.1794), who – while a notably poor conjuror – was generally regarded as the greatest British showman of the later 18th century. Flockton's name, according to Frost, "can never be struck off Bartholomew roll".

We can get a better idea of what Gyngell was up to at the fair by taking a look at Flockton's Bartholomew show of 1789, which, according to a contemporary playbill, comprised a

Most Grand and Unparallelled Exhibition. Consisting, first, in the display of the Original and Universally admired Italian Fantoccini, exhibited in the same Skilful and Wonderful Manner, as well as Striking Imitations of Living Performers, as represented and exhibited before the Royal Family, and the most illustrious Characters in this Kingdom. Mr. Flockton will display his inimitable Dexterity of Hand, Different from all pretenders to the said Art. To which will be perform’d an ingenious and Spirited Opera called The Padlock. Principal vocal performers, Signor Giovanni Orsi and Signora Vidina. The whole to conclude with his grand and inimitable Musical Clock, at first view, a curious organ, exhibited three times before their Majesties.

So this earlier show, at an earlier fair, combined puppetry, conjuring, and pocket-sized "opera" with displays of mechanical marvels – the "Musical Clock" referred to was said to contain no fewer than 500, or 900, figures, each depicting a different trade at work.

Gyngell took over the show whole, and ran it as Flockton had done at first, but dropped the mechanical clock fairly early on. The puppets were kept on for longer, and we can get some idea of the performance from other sources; it probably combined British Punch & Judy with Italian-style tales, the latter typically featuring, among other characters, a trick puppet clown known as Scaramouche, which was equipped with a grotesquely extending neck that was used to intrigue and amuse children. The degree to which Scaramouche's neck could stretch was hugely exaggerated for comic effect – William Hone’s popular Every-Day Book (1825) describes a performance in which Scaramouche appeared as ‘a clown without a head, who danced till his head came from between his shoulders to the wonder of the children, and, almost to their alarm, was elevated on a neck the full length of his body, which it thrust out ever and anon… presenting greater contortions than the human figure could possibly represent.’ Similarly, a 1799 bill advertising a New York puppet show announced that ‘a Curious Italian Scaramouch will dance a Fandango [yes, I'm wondering too...], and put himself into twenty different shapes…’

Gyngell, Frost tells us, adopted the "Grand medley" name from another puppet-master, named Jobson, an innovator who had been prosecuted in 1797 for daring to make his puppets speak – this was held to be an infraction of the laws relating to theatrical licences. The term simply denoted a sort of variety show, though one in which the showman himself would typically adapt to put on different sorts of performance, rather than one requiring an extensive cast. In a Gyngell show, he himself might exhibit his conjuring tricks, and perform on "the musical glasses" (the old idea of filling a set of glasses to various depths, and conjuring sounds from them by wetting the rims and rubbing them with the fingers – which must have been hard to pull off effectively in a noisy fair environment...), while his wife sang between these exhibitions as part of the entertainment.

Saunders, at the next-door booth, was essentially a circus man, but in a cramped locations such as Bartholomew Fair would put on theatricals, though hardly of the sort one would see at an established theatre – pantomime and melodrama, all of the sort that would not bore a standing audience that would quickly drift off to rival attractions if not kept entertained, was his sort of line. Shows of this sort tended towards such delights as Macbeth in 15 minutes, with a strong focus on the witches and the murders.

Sources

Thomas Frost, The Old Showmen and the Old London Fairs (1875)

John McCormick with Clodagh McCormick and John Phillips, The Victorian Marionette Theatre (2004)

Stephen Knapper, ‘Scaramouche: the mask and the millennium,’ in David Robb (ed.), Clowns, Fools and Picaros in Theatre, Fiction and Film (2007)  

Sybil Rosenfeld, The Theatre of the London Fairs in the 18th Century (1960)