 During Slaughter's early career, his stage name was "N. Carter Slaughter" and he primarily played the conventional leading man or character roles.After the war, he ran the Theatre Royal, Chatham before taking over the Elephant and Castle Theatre in London for a memorable few years from 1924 onwards that have since passed into British theatrical legend.His company revived Victorian "blood-and-thunder" melodramas such as "Maria Marten", "Sweeney Todd", "Jack Sheppard", and "The Silver King" to enthusiastic audiences—not just locals but also sophisticated theatregoers from the West End who might have initially come for a cheap laugh but ended up enthralled by the power of the fare on offer.