Event Comment: Mainpiece: A Comedy [by William Kenrick] never performed before. [The play failed to succeed. Kenrick accounts for the failure in his Preface to the 1773 edition by reference to the Macklin affair (See 23 Oct., 30 Oct. and 18 Nov.) He quotes from the Public Advertiser (22 Nov.): "On Saturday last a new comedy called the Duellist was performed, for the first time, at Covent Garden Theatre. Previous to the curtain being drawn up, the following written handbill was dispersed about the house. 'Mr Macklin has been pursued by a malicious party to such a pitch of rancour, that at last they have succeeded so far in their cursed designs, as to get him discharged this theatre, and thereby have deprived him of the means of a livelihood; therefore if the public have any spirit, they will not suffer the new play to begin till Mr Colman promises that Mr Macklin shall be engaged again.' This handbill found its way into the green-room, and had a very visible effect on the performers, as was plainly evident from their confusion. The piece was received with great marks of approbation, and given out again for Monday, which was attended with some hissing, but that was greatly overpowered by the general applause of the audience. The overture to Thomas and Sally being attended to with silence, the greatest part of the author's friends quitted the theatre; which being taken advantage of by a party in the gallery, a riot ensued, and the entertainment was not suffered to go on till another play was given out for Monday." Kenrick agrees with this account, then analyses several other objections which he dismisses, to wit, in the play (a) too lengthy a satire on lawyers, (b) an indelicate passage in Latin (omitted from the printed version); in the audience, a conspiracy of Garrick and Bickerstaffe against him; and lack of a claque of his own friends to carry through their suport of him. Macklin's name appears on the playroll this night, but only for a accumulated 4 days of pay #8 16s. (Account Book).] Receipts: #221 3s. 6d. (Account Book)

Event Comment: Both pieces By Command of their Majesties. Present Their Majesties. Gave Yeomen of Guards #2 2s. (Account Book). [Winston MS 10 suggests (from Burney Actor's MS) that Wignell died this day. If so his name is carried in the Bill for the Sylphs until 26 Jan., and he appears regularly upon the payroll through Sat 29 Jan. On this latter occasion he is marked for only half his customary salary, and does not appear thereafter. He would seem to have died in the middle of the week of 22-29 Jan. 1774.] Receipts: #243 1s. (Account Book)

Event Comment: Mainpiece: A New Comic Opera [by R. B. Sheridan] never perform'd. The Music partly New and partly selected from the most eminent composers. With a New Overture, Scenes, Dresses, and Other Decorations. Books of the songs in the Opera to be had at the Theatre. [This note repeated on subsequent bills.] Afterpiece: Not acted these 10 years. [See 19 May 1767.] [Reviewed in the Westminster Magazine for Nov. which commented on the witty dialogue and effectiveness of the music. It was "puffed" gently in the Public Advertiser 22 Nov.: "Receiv'd with every mark of approbation that could be given. It will be repeated tomorrow evening with the Farce of the Apprentice."

Event Comment: [Concerning the character Epicoene the Public Advertiser, 24 Jan.: 'The performance of this character by an actor rather than an actress, according to the original intention of the author was received with particular marks of Approbation, and the comedy will be repeated (for the fifth time) on Saturday."] Receipts: #134 6s. (Treasurer's Book)

Event Comment: Benefit for T. Ansell, Pilford, Wooley, Marks, Symonds, Furkins, Tickets deliver'd by Flight, Roberts, Claridge, Doe, Wells, Francis, Brandon, Budd, Miller, Constable will be taken this night

Event Comment: Benefit for T. Ansell, Pilfold, Woolley & Marks. Tickets delivered by Furkins, Roberts, Clarridge, Doe, Wells, Francis, Walker, Brandon, Shuter and Abbot will be received. Tickets delivered for The Busy Body will be taken. Receipts: #243 13s. 6d. (137.12.6; 0.13.0; tickets: 105.8.0)

Event Comment: Benefit for T. Ansell, Pilfold, Woolley, Marks & Furkins. Tickets delivered by Clarridge, Doe, Wells, Roberts, Francis, Walker, Whittington, Abbot, Haliburton, Ledger Jun. will be admitted

Event Comment: "As soon as the Play was over at Covent Garden Theatre yesterday evening, Reinhold walked forward and told the audience that 'It would be esteemed a particular mark of their Kindness and Favour if they would accept Miss Cranfield's performance of Colombine, Miss Brown having been taken extremely ill"' (Morning Chronicle, 11 Jan.). Receipts: #195 2s. (193.6; 1.16)

Event Comment: Benefit for T. Ansell, Pilford, Marks & Furkins. Tickets delivered by Clarridge, Doe, Wells, Roberts, Walker, Whittington, Abbot, Sarjant, R. Ledger and Seymour will be admitted this Evening. Receipts: #248 9s. 6d. (22.9.0; 1.3.6; tickets: 224.17.0)

Event Comment: A Serious Opera [1st time; SER 3, author unknown; a pasticcio]. The Music by several celebrated Composers, and conducted [i.e. arranged] by Bianchi. Public Advertiser, 4 Dec.: Roncaglia was welcomed with merited and very flattering Applause, yet he seemed hurt at sharing with Ansani those marks of public Favour. We exhort them both to remember that Persons of their superior Talents ought to lay aside every petty Prejudice and personal Animosity. "[Ansani] had a finely toned, full, and commanding voice, was a spirited actor, and in the first opera, called Ricimero, sustained the most prominent and important part. But he was unfortunately of a most peevish, quarrelsome temper; Roncaglia was saucy and conceited, and neither could brook the superiority claimed by the other. Their mutual jealousy, and the importance assumed by the tenor soon produced an irreconcilable breach, Ansani threw up his engagement, and the season went on heavily to its close for want of him"(Mount-Edgcumbe, p. 29)

Event Comment: Benefit for T. Ansell, Pilfold, Marks & Furkins. Tickets delivered by Clarridge, Doe, Wells, Roberts, Walker, Whittington, Abbott, R. Ledger, Sarjent, Seymour [Account-Book adds Wewitzer] will be taken. Receipts: #271 (22.5.6; 1.7.6; tickets: 247.7)

Event Comment: Mainpiece [1st time; CO 3, by Richard Tickell, some of the songs attributed to Richard Brinsley Sheridan; synopsis of plot in Public Advertiser, 18 Dec. Songs (no pub., 1781) omits several [i.e. all the non-singing] characters. MS not in Larpent; not published]: With entirely new Music and a new Overture [by Thomas Linley Sen.]. To conclude with a View of St. Mark's Place, and a grand Representation of the Carnival. With new Scenes, Dresses, and Decorations, designed by De Loutherbourg, and executed under his Direction. Books of the Songs to be had at the Theatre. Public Advertiser, 19 Dec. 1781: This Day are published the Songs in The Carnival of Venice (6d.). Account-Book, 11 Jan. 1782: Received from Miss Giles for 1,550 Books of the Songs in the Carnival #31. Receipts: #225 18s. 6d. (216/4/0; 9/14/6; 0/0/0)

Event Comment: Benefit for T. Ansell, Pilfold, Marks & Furkins. Tickets delivered by Claridge, Doe, Wells, Roberts, Walker, Cox, Abbot, R. Ledger, Sargent, Seymour for She Stoops to Conquer [announced on playbill of 27 May] will be admitted this Evening. [Afterpiece in place of Retaliation, announced on playbill of 27 May. This was Miss Catley's last appearance on the stage (erroneously stated in DNB, Grove, &c. as taking place in 1784).] Receipts: #245 3s. (26/0/6; 2/10/6; tickets: 216/12/0)

Event Comment: Benefit for T. Ansell, Pilford, Marks & Furkins. Tickets delivered by Clarridge, Doe, Roberts, Walker, Cox, Sarjent, Seymour, Sloper, Abbot, Akrey [Account-Book adds Rolles] will be admitted this Evening. Tickets sold at the Doors will not be admitted. [This was Yates's last appearance on the stage in London; he subsequently acted in Edinburgh in March, 1785. Afterpiece in place of The Country Mad-Cap, announced on playbill of 30 May.] Receipts: #255 3s. 6d. (20/5/0; 0/15/6; tickets: 234/3/0)

Event Comment: Benefit for Marks, T. Ansell, Pilford & Furkins. Tickets delivered by Claridge, Doe, Roberts, Walker, Cox, Sarjent, Seymour, Rye, Abbott, Akery, Rolles, Hall will be admitted this Evening. Receipts: #224 10s. 6d. (15/18/0; 0/6/6; tickets: 228/6/0)

Event Comment: [As mainpiece the playbill announces DECEPTION, but "The Author .. . gave evident marks of good sense ... by withdrawing his Piece yesterday noon, in the room of which The Provok'd Husband was substituted" (Public Advertiser, 30 Oct.).] Orders and Free List #34 5s. Receipts: #54 10s. 6d. (41/9/0; 12/17/6; 0/4/0)

Event Comment: A Serious Opera, altered [by Carlo Francesco Badini] from Metastasio; the Music by Anfossi [a pasticcio, with additions by Sacchini, Piccinni, Gazzaniga, Schuster, Mortellari]. [This was Mme Mara's 1st appearance on the English operatic stage. She had 1st sung in London, in concerts at the Pantheon, in 1784.] "It is with the utmost astonishment we remarked that she unites the talents of an excellent actress with the merit of the most enchanting singer that ever perhaps came forth on any stage" (Morning Herald, 15 Feb.). "Mme Mara delivered the recitatives with a force of expression that produced the strongest interest of character, and the woes of Dido as powerfully engaged the sympathy, as the rich and varied melody of the airs, the admiration of the audience" (Morning Chronicle, 16 Feb.). "The [second] opera was Didone, a pasticcio, for which Mara had made a very judicious selection of songs, introducing four of very different characters, by Sacchini, Piccinni, and other composers, all of which were so much and so equally admired, that two were encored every night, each of them receiving that mark of approbation in its turn. Mara's talents as a singer (for she was no actress and had a bad person for the stage) were of the very first order. Her voice, clear, sweet, distinct, was sufficiently powerful, though rather thin, and its agility and flexibility rendered her a most excellent bravura singer, in which style she was unrivalled" (Mount-Edgcumbe, 59)

Event Comment: "The simple melody of 'Cease your funning' need alone be adverted to in proof of the pathos of Mrs Billington's manner; and when it was encored, the repetition had every mark of variety" (Morning Herald, 22 Feb.). Receipts: #218 7s. (217/0; 1/7)

Event Comment: Tickets delivered by John Ansell, Darley, Pilfold, Marks, Longley, Eaves, Ratchford, Edwards, Mrs Arne will be admitted (Account-Book). Receipts: #321 41. (19/7; 0/17; tickets: 301/0)

Event Comment: Tickets delivered by Marks, Brandon, Edwards, Hall, Rolles, Turtle, Walker, Doe will be admitted (Account-Book). Receipts: #265 5s. 6d. (60.8.6; 3.4.0; tickets: 201.13.0)

Event Comment: The Manager of the Opera, in conjunction with Noverre, the Ballet Master, esteem it their duty to request all persons who are not immediately interested in the performance of the new ballet of L'Amour et Psiche, to keep clear from the stage during the time of its representation, lest any accident should arise from the moving of the Machinery, from the flambeaux to be used therein, and from the opening of the Trap Doors, circumstances which must necessarily take place on the Practices and Representation of that ballet, and which they therefore think it incumbent on themselves to forewarn and caution the Public. "Noverre was unanimously called for on the stage to receive the applause and acclamations due to his merit...This, though common in France, was a new mark of approbation in England" (Burney,II, 901). Receipts: #146 1s. 6d. [non-subscription]

Event Comment: Account-Book: Tickets delivered by Anselmo, Mrs Brandon, Byrn, Evatt, Hall [box-keeper], Ledger, Marks, Ratchford, Rye will be admitted. Receipts: #295 18s. (39.8.6; 4.7.6; tickets: 252.2.0)

Event Comment: 1st piece: 1st Time [at this theatre; see dl, 7 Nov.]. "Mr Hayley's Marcella, which was anticipated on Saturday evening at Drury Lane, and was received with considerable marks of disapprobation...was brought forward [at Covent Garden] under the auspices of the Author" (Public Advertiser, 11 Nov.). "[The performers all acted well at Covent Garden; and Kemble was the only one at Drury Lane who even knew his part" (Prompter, 11 Nov.). Receipts: #201 17s. (197.13.6; 4.3.6)

Event Comment: [The playbill retains Mrs Jordan as Matilda and Mrs Crouch as Laurette, but Mrs Jordan "sent word she was too ill to perform this Evening. The audience called for Crouch to act Matilda" (Kemble Mem.). "She instantly complied...and was received with the most marked respect" (Morning Chronicle, 28 Nov.). The audience refused to believe that Mrs Jordan's illness was genuine, and for several days she was treated harshly by letters to and paragraphs in the newspapers. For her letter explaining her "real inability from illness to sustain her part in the entertainment" see Oulton, 1796, II, 103-6; see also 10 Dec. "Richard Coeur de Lion was advertised as the afterpiece; but on account of the sudden illness of Mrs Jordan, High Life below Stairs was proposed to be substituted; the house, however, seeming to disapprove of this change, Mrs Crouch kindly undertook the part of Matilda; Miss Hagley took hers of Laurette" (Public Advertiser, 28 Nov.).] Receipts: #285 10s. (220.3; 64.10; 0.17)

Event Comment: Mainpiece: Not acted these 10 years [acted 17 Dec. 1783]. ["The humour of this play is obsolete, for though admirably performed, it received marks of disapprobation at the conclusion" (Thespian Magazine, Dec. 1792, p. 149).] Receipts: #318 8s. 6d. (221.10.6; 92.9.0; 4.9.0)