Event Comment: [Miss Arne, who is identified by MS annotation on Kemble playbill, had previously appeared as a chorus singer; see 27 Oct. 1794. In mainpiece the playbill assigns Mrs Peachum to Mrs Hopkins, Suky Tawdry to Mrs Maddocks, Mrs Coaxer to Miss Stageldoir, but "Mrs Hopkins being ill, Mrs Maddocks play'd Mrs Peachum; Mrs Hedges Suky Tawdry for Mrs Maddocks; Miss Stageldoir Ill, Mrs Jones play'd Mrs Coaxer. [In afterpiece] Jones Ill, Lyons Snuffle; Evans 4th Mob for Lyons [both these characters omitted from playbill]" (Powell).] Powell: Mayor of Garratt rehearsed at 12; New Ballet at 12. Receipts: #174 10s. (121.14; 51.2; 1.14)

Event Comment: Mainpiece: For this Night only. By permission of the Proprietor of the Theatre Royal, Hay Market. [In mainpiece the playbill assigns Julia to Mrs Jordan, and as afterpiece announces The Wedding Day, but "Mrs Jordan being suddenly taken ill, the Pubick are respectfully informed that Mrs Powell will, with their permission, attempt the Character of Julia in the Surrender of Calais; to which will be added The Adopted Child [with cast listed as above]" (printed slip attached to Kemble playbill).] Receipts: #238 7s. (166.0.6; 66.19.0; 5.7.6)

Event Comment: "The represention announced for last night at this Theatre was Twelfth Night; but as Mrs Jordan found herself too ill to perform, new bills were issued, and the substitute was to be The Siege of Belgrade. About the middle of the day, however, Mrs Jordan found herself well enough to perform, and the other bills were circulated, importing that the play was to be Twelfth Night. But, in the afternoon, Mrs Jordan found herself too ill to perform, and a message was sent again to the theatre, signifying the melancholy disappointment. It was then too late to make any other change, and Twelfth Night was represented, Mrs Goodall reading the part of Viola. There was considerable difficulty in collecting the performers, after these repeated changes. Barrymore could not be found, and Caulfield dressed for Orsino; but when he was ready to appear Barrymore arrived, and took the part. It was then discovered that Phillimore was absent, and Caulfield was doomed to dress once more, for Phillimore's character; but soon after Phillimore came to the house. Mrs Kemble being indisposed, Miss Mellon undertook her part of Maria ...The Audience (a large one) indeed grumbled a little at this kind of dramatic hocus pocus, but on the whole, were not churlish in their testimonies of satisfaction" (True Briton, 13 Jan.). Receipts: #222 19s. (160.4.0; 58.11.6; 4.3.6)

Event Comment: Benefit for Master Welsh. [2nd piece in place of The Sultan, advertised on playbill of 10 May. Medley is identified in MS list in Kemble playbills of new performers for this season.] "A riot took place this evening, occasioned by the performance of Skirmish by a new actor. This person, wanting every quality requisite for the stage, performed so very much to the dissatisfaction of the audience, that the piece was mutilated in such a manner that for some time it was insisted on that the whole should be repeated more perfectly and by another actor. This being impossible, some mischief was threatened, but after a short time the disturbance ceased" (European Magazine, June 1796, p. 396). Morning Herald, 30 Apr.: Tickets to be had of Master Welsh, No. 9, St. Margaret-street, Westminster. Receipts: #292 4s. (84.11.6; 47.15.6; 12.14.0; tickets: 146.19.6; odd money: 0.3.6). (charge: free)

Event Comment: Benefit for Burton, Miss Heard, Miss Tidswell, & Mrs Bramwell. [2nd piece: With alterations by John Philip Kemble.] 3rd piece: Not acted these 6 years. "Of [Wroughton's] comedy something favourably must be said. His personations are usually natural, easy, and spirited; he is perhaps too locomotive: he cannot bear to stand still...To this peculiar bustle of his motion may be attributed much of his success in Sir John Restless [in All in the Wrong]...For the same reason, no man can play Ford with half the effect Wroughton does" (Monthly Mirror, Mar. 1796, p. 304). Morning Herald, 30 May: Tickets to be had of Miss Heard, No. 43, Haymarket [others not listed]. Receipts: #337 6s. 6d. (30.13.0; 40.16.6; 3.4.6; tickets: 260.10.0; odd money: 2.2.6) (charge: #202 11s.)

Event Comment: Benefit for Shade, Cameron, Woollams, Wood, Wilson, Dangerfield, Irish, Edwards, Griffiths, Nix, Wooldridge, Panchaud & Cole [box-keepers]. [This was Dodd's last appearance on the stage.] "Dodd was one of the most perfect actors that I have ever seen. He was the fopling of the drama rather than the age. I mean by this, that his own times rarely shewed us anything so highly charged with the vanity of personal exhibition. He was, to be sure, the prince of pink heels, and the soul of empty eminence. As he tottered rather than walked down the stage, in all the protuberance of endless muslin and lace in his cravats and frills, he reminded you of the jutting motion of the pigeon. He took his snuff, or his bergamot, with a delight so beyond all grosser enjoyments that he left you no doubt whatever of the superior happiness of a coxcomb" (Boaden, Kemble, I, 55). Receipts: #580 17s. 6d. (25.17.0; 37.3.6; 11.0.0; tickets: 503.4.0; odd money: 3.13.0) (charge: #211 17s. 6d.)

Event Comment: [Faulkner is identified in MS list in Kemble playbills of new performers for this season.] Receipts: #185 19s. (117.6; 63.17; 4.16)

Event Comment: [Miss Stephens is identified in MS list in Kemble playbill s of new performers for this season. Afterpiece in place of The Liar, advertised on playbill of 28 Nov.] Receipts: #102 17s. 7d. (27.8.1; 74.15.6; 0.14.0)

Event Comment: Benefit for C. Kemble. [Liston is identified in MS list, in hay playbills now at Harvard, of new performers for the 1799 season.] A Spurious Copy of Sighs having been advertized as performing at this Theatre, the Public is respectfully in formed that the True Copy is this day published by M. Stace, Princes-street, Leicester-square

Event Comment: [Tomkins, who had 1st appeared at this theatre on 1 May 1799, is identified by MS annotation on Kemble playbill.] Receipts: #178 17s. (117.9; 60.1; 1.7)

Event Comment: The opening of the season was originally announced for 21 Dec. 1799, but on that day the Morning Chronicle carried the following notice: "The Nobility and Gentry, Subscribers to the Opera, and the Public, are most respectfully informed that the opening of this Theatre is unavoidably postponed to Saturday next, the 28th instant, on account of the indisposition of one of the principal Performers." But on the 28th the opening was again postponed to 4 Jan. On 6 Jan. a notice appeared in the Morning Herald, as follows: "King's Theatre, Saturday Evening, January 4, 1800. The Directors beg leave respectfully to inform the Nobility and Gentry (Subscribers) and the Public in general that the Theatre was advertised to be opened This Evening, with the concurrence and approbation of the Trustees, and it was not until this afternoon that they heard of an unforeseen difficulty having arisen with respect to issuing the License. It was then too late to advertise by means of the Public Newspapers the necessary postponement of the opening; but every effort was made on the part of the Direction to apprise the Subscribers, by sending to their respective houses, and by distributing a hand-bill in all the principal streets; notwithstanding which, they lament to find that many Ladies and Gentlemen were disappointed. The Directors humbly hope that on this statement of the fact they shall stand acquitted of all disrespect to the Subscribers and the Public, who shall have the earliest notice of the conclusion of all the arrangements for the immediate opening of the Theatre and performance of Operas for the season." See 11 Jan. A copy of the hand-bill referred to above, making mention of the "unforeseen circumstances," is attached to the Kemble playbill of dl, 4 Jan.

Event Comment: [The playbill assigns Albina Mandeville to Mrs Jordan, but "The Public are most respectfully informed that Mrs Jordan, being unable to have the honour of appearing before them this Evening, to prevent a Change of the Play Miss DeCamp has undertaken to perform Albina...and humbly hopes to experience the usual indulgence" (printed slip attached to Kemble playbill).] Receipts: #166 6s. (99.1; 63.3; 4.2)

Event Comment: Benefit for Mrs Crouch. [Miss Jacobs, who had previously appeared at this theatre as a chorus singer, is identified in MS list in Kemble playbills of new performers for this season. Afterpiece in place of The Pannel, advertised on playbill of 5 June.] Morning Chronicle, 22 May: Tickets to be had of Mrs Crouch, No. 9, New Lisle-street, Leicester-square. Receipts: #520 16s. 6d. (233.11.0; 60.19.6; 0.4.0; tickets: 226.2.0) (charge: #213 0s. 4d.)

Event Comment: Account-Book: Tickets delivered by Aberdein, Bennett, Calkin, Cameron, Dale Jun., Dashwood, Douglas, Ditcher, Dudley, Fishett, Francois, Fuller, Gooding, Humphries, Hough, Harman, Lings, Monday, Marks, Macdougall, Rogers, Scott, Smith, Tice, Tildsley, Tirrell, Wyatt, Waterer, Williams, Willey will be admitted. [Miss Usher is identified in MS list in Kemble playbills of new performers for this season.] Receipts: #56 1s. (31.1.6; 24.4.6; 0.15.0; tickets: none listed)

Event Comment: The edition of 1660, which has a Prologue and an Epilogue but no actors' names, was entered in the Stationers' Register, Aug. 1660, and apparently followed closely upon the return of Charles II. Edition of 1660: Acted Many Times with Great Applause, At the Private House in Dorset-Court

Event Comment: See Herbert, Dramatic Records, p. 116. The King's Company. According to John Dennis, in the Dedication to The Comical Gallant (1702), when this play was revived in the times of Charles II, Wintershall acted Slender

Event Comment: Pepys, Diary: So back to the Cockpitt [Whitehall], and there, by the favour of one Mr Bowman, he [Creed] and I got in, and there saw the King, and Duke of York and his Duchess (which is a plain woman, and like her mother, my Lady Chancellor). And so saw The Humersome Lieutenant acted before the King, but not very well done. But my pleasure was great to see the manner of it, and so many great beauties, but above all Mrs Palmer, with whom the King do discover a great deal of familiarity. Sometime before the Coronation of Charles II, on 23 April 1661, there may have been acted The Merry Conceited Humours of Bottom the Weaver. An edition of 1661 refers to its being "often publikely acted by some of his Majesties Comedians" and the Dedication suggests that it would make a good entertainment at the mirthful time of the Coronation. The edition lists no actors' names, no prologue, no epilogue

Event Comment: On Sunday Charles, Duke of Cambridge, the son of the Duke of York, died. On 7 May 1661, Francis Newport wrote to Sir Richard Leveson: The Duke of Cambridge dyed on Sunday in the afternoon and was buryed yesternight without any solemnity, noe mourning in the Court for him (HMC, Sutherland MSS, 5th Report, Appendix, 1876, p. 151). If the theatres were closed because of this death, the closure was for not more than ten days

Event Comment: According to the diary of the Reverend John Ward, ed. Charles Severn (London, 1839), Ward saw The Alchymist at this time. The Folger MS V.a. 292, of Ward's journal, gives it as performed between 1 and 25 Sept. 1662. See Shakespeare Quarterly, XI (1961), 336. See also Dec. 1660

Event Comment: [The edition of 1662 suggests that this was a ballet, the text offering description or synopses of the entries. Edition of 1662: Being part of that Magnificent Entertainment by the Noble Prince, DelaGrange, Lord Lieutenant of Lincolns Inn. Presented to the High and Mighty Charles II, Monarch of Great Britain, France and Ireland. On Friday 3 of January 1662. Evelyn, Diary: After Prayers I went to Lond: invited to the solemn foolerie of the Prince de la Grange at Lincolne Inn: where came also the King, Duke, &c.: beginning with a grand Masquev and a formal Pleading before the mock-princes (Grandes), Nobles & Knights of the Sunn: He had his L. Chancelor, Chamberlaine, Treasurer, & other royal officers gloriously clad & attended, which ended in a magnificent Banquet: one Mr John? Lort, being the young spark, who maintained the Pageantrie. Pepys, Diary: While I was there, comes by the King's life-guard, he being gone to Lincoln's Inn this afternoon to see the Revells there; there being, according to an old custom, a prince and all his nobles and other matters of sport and charge. John Ward (notebooks, 6 Jan.): I saw a Leopard and the same day as strange a sight which was the mock prince of Lincolnes' Inne his Nobels his Knights of the Garter and his other officers (Shakespeare Quarterly, XI [1960], 494)

Event Comment: Henry Muddiman, 29 Nov. 1666: The Players have upon great proffers of disposing a large share to charitable uses prevailed to have liberty to act at Both Houses, which they begin this day (CSPD, Charles II, clxxcii, 6, in Hotson, Commonwealth and Restoration Stage, p. 250). A manuscript prologue for the opening of the theatre in Bridges Street is in J. Payne Collier's MS Restoration Stage History, Part I, p. 106, in the Houghton Library, Harvard. The Diary of John Milward, Esq., ed. Caroline Robbins (Cambridge, 1938), p. 49: This day at my coming to the House [of Commons] it moved that plays might be tolerated and acted in the common theatres, and whether any members of the House of Commons should be admitted to go to acts of the playhouses, but it was not resolved

Event Comment: The King's Company. Pepys, Diary: To the King's playhouse, where two acts were almost done when I come in; and there I sat with my cloak about my face, and saw the remainder of The Mayd's Tragedy; a good play, and well acted, especially by the younger Marshall, who is become a pretty good actor, and is the first play I have seen in either of the houses since before the great plague, they having acted now about fourteen days publickly. But I was in Mighty pain lest I should be seen by any body to be at a play. Elegy on that Worthy and Famous Actor, Mr Charles Hart, who departed this Life Thursday August the 18th., 1683: @Such Pow'r He had o'r the Spectators gain'd,@As forc'd a Real passion from a Feign'd.@For when they saw Amintor bleed, straight all@The House, for every Drop, a Tear let fall;@And when Arbaces wept by sympathy,@A glowing Tide of Wo gush'd from each Eye.@ [Reprinted in Thorn-Drury, A Little Ark, pp. 47ff; Sprague, Beaumont and Fletcher, p.38.