Event Comment: Mainpiece [1st time; C 5, by Thomas Holcroft, based on Le Glorieux, by Philippe Nericault, dit Destouches. In 1793 reduced by the author to an afterpiece of 3 acts. Prologue and Epilogue by the author (Knapp, 101, 307). This play was originally attributed to James Marshall (Public Advertiser, 5 Feb.); on 8 Feb. he wrote a letter to the editor of the Oracle, stating that "The School for Arrogance is not mine, but Mr Holcroft's...By appearing for a time as the ostensible author I hope I have contributed to heal what was most unaccomodating between Mr Harris and Mr Holcroft." And see Genest, VII, 24, 27.] Oracle, 19 Feb. 1791: This Day is published The School for Arrogance (1s. 6d.). "If Mrs Wells could be prevailed upon to speak out, so that the audience might hear, it would be of some advantage to the new play. At present, the performer who happens to be on the stage with her has it all in confidence" (Gazetteer, 9 Feb.). Receipts: #186 11s. (181.8; 5.3)

Event Comment: This was a semi-private rehearsal, with Davide as Pirro. "Yesterday evening an act of Pyrrhus was rehearsed on the stage of this theatre' (London Chronicle, 24 Feb.). "The Theatre is not yet ready entirely for the Public" (Oracle, 24 Feb.) [see 26 Mar.]. On 22 Feb. the newspapers carried a statement from the theatre that "the rehearsal announced for Wednesday Evening is...deferred for a few days." But this deferment was set aside. The Lord Chamberlain having refused a license for the performance of opera at this theatre, Pirro was not publicly performed

Event Comment: Benefit for Bannister Jun. Part of the Pit will be laid into the Boxes. To prevent Confusion Ladies are desired to send their Servants by half past Four. Afterpiece: Not acted these 3 years. Public Advertiser, 2 Apr.: Tickets to be had of Bannister Jun., No. 2, Frith-street, Soho. Receipts: #339 3s. 6d. (145.15.0; 13.1.0; 1.12.6; tickets: 178.15.0) (charge: #132 10s. 2d.)

Event Comment: Benefit for Wrighten, prompter. [In mainpiece the playbill retains Kemble as Orlando, but "I had fallen from the Ladder in my Book-room, and bruised my Leg. Mr Barrymore acted Orlando for me" (Kemble Mem.).] Oracle, 29 Apr.: Tickets to be had of Wrighten, next the Stage-Door. Receipts: #328 18s. (63.0.0; 17.3.6; 2.9.6; tickets: 246.5.0) (charge: #116 16s. 10d.)

Event Comment: Benefit for Whitfield. Afterpiece [1st time; F 2] Translated from the French [La Nuit aux Aventures; on, Les Deux Morts Vivants, by Antoine Jean Bourlin, dit Dumaniant] by Mrs Inchbald, the Author of I'll Tell You What, Such Things Are, A Simple Story, &c. [Larpent MS 900; not published. In 1797 altered by J. C. Cross as An Escape into Prison. "In January 1788 Mrs Inchbald was translating an unnamed French play, acted three years later as The Hue and Cry" (James Boaden, Memoirs of Mrs Inchbald, 1833, I, 255-56). "Mrs Inchbald is now adapting La Nuit aux Aventures, by Dumaniant" (World, 26 Jan. 1788). In the text of Dumaniant's play the dramatis personae is the same as that in the Larpent MS. Author of Prologue unknown.] Morning Chronicle, 30 Apr.: Tickets to be had of Whitfield, No. 19, Great Piazza, Covent-Garden. Receipts: #263 13s. (68.19.0; 31.7.6; 3.13.6; tickets: 159.13.0) (charge: #116 4s. 4d.)

Event Comment: Benefit for a Fund for the Relief of those whose Infirmities oblige them to retire from the Stage. The whole Pit will be laid into the Boxes. Those Ladies and Gentlemen who have seats in the Pit are earnestly requested to be early at the Theatre, and Servants are desired to attend at half past Four o'Clock to keep Places. "The fine tragic powers of [Mrs Siddons] and Kemble were but wasted on the turgid trumpery of the play...But Kemble in this scene [end of Act III] was so impassioned and transcendent that it killed all the rest of the piece. The scorn of Mrs Siddons at his dissimulation--her haughty bearing and marking emphasis, with the piercing powers of her eye, are all treasured where they should be" (Oracle, 16 May). Receipts: #117 14s. (107.11.0; 9.12.6; 0.10.6; tickets: none listed, but Oracle, 17 May, reports that tickets were purchased for as much as one guinea and a half) (charge: free)

Event Comment: Benefit for Wood, Percey, Cameron, Wilson, George, Woollams. Kemble Mem.: Benefit for the Boxkeepers. A New Edition of the [mainpiece] to be had at the Theatre. "Went to play. Mrs Jordan in 'Rosalind.' I am still of opinion, there is more in her person and natural manners than in her acting. Her merit lies out of her part. The words set down by the author she does not repeat with great propriety of tone, emphasis, or gesture, than others. But she has of these, certain peculiarities, which indicate dispositions, such as take strong hold of the affections, at least of the male part of her audience; and therefore, when the part is of a sort to admit a large portion of these, she produces a great effect. The true acting of the part may, in many instances, not require what she throws into it, but it may admit it; and if the expression so thrown in is of the sort described, the effect of the whole will be improved, though the part is thereby neither better nor worse acted" (Windham Diary, 28 May 1791, 227). Receipts: #363 4s. 6d. (33.5.0; 9.5.6; 2.13.0; tickets: 318.1.0) (charge: #117 1s. 7d.)

Event Comment: Benefit for Harley. Mainpiece: As altered from Beaumont and Fletcher by the Duke of Buckingham and D. Garrick, Esq. Not acted these 7 years. Morning Chronicle, 20 May: Tickets to be had of Harley, No. 22, Great Queen-street, Lincoln's-inn-fields. Receipts: #242 1s. 6d. (84.10.6; 7.5.0; tickets: 150.6.0)

Event Comment: Mainpiece: Not acted these 2 years

Event Comment: Mainpiece: Not acted these 2 years

Event Comment: Benefit for Wilson. [2nd piece: 1st acted at the hay, 10 Aug. 1784, as A Peep into Elysium.] Oracle, 6 Aug.: Tickets to be had of Wilson, Park-lane, Church-lane, Chelsea

Event Comment: 3rd piece [1st time; F 2, by Charles Stuart, "from the Spanish"; on 2 Sept. reduced to 1 act. Prologue by the author (see text)]. "The Piece, we understand, was originally founded on some topics that have of late engrossed the conversation of much of the fashionable world...The Lord Chamberlain thought [it] too delicate a nature to appear with the allusions and title it then bore, She would be a Duchess. The consequence was that the offensive bits were expunged and the piece re-christened...It would be unfair to make any observations...in the mutilated stage it was presented" (Public Advertiser, 15 Aug.). "Some part of the plot was supposed to allude to the late occurrences in the family of General John? Gunning, who was indulged with the privilege of erasing [from the MS] that which he disliked, and who reduced it to its present feeble and unconnected form" (Gazetteer, 15 Aug.). [The reference in the original title is to the simultaneous flirtation of Miss Elizabeth Gunning, the General's daughter, with the eldest sons of the Dukes of Marlborough and Argyll (see dnb, under Susannah Gunning). She would be a Duchess: in Larpent MS 915.

Event Comment: Afterpiece: Reduced to One Act [see 13 Aug.]

Event Comment: Mainpiece: Not acted these 2 years. Receipts: #224 18s. (208.13.6; 16.4.6)

Event Comment: "The performance of last night boasted some additional impression, by the fine imagination of [Kemble's] starting at the trumpet from the prayer of penitence, and springing up the Hero and the King...[In Act V] the scene with Katharine was as sportive and as easy as possible...Comus followed, vice the Critic, obliged to be postponed from [the] indisposition of Parsons (MS annotation on Kemble playbill)]. Some disapprobation attended the drawing up the curtain. Palmer explained, and then, without 'wiping his lips since he spoke last' began "The Star that bids the Shepherd fold" (Oracle, 1 Nov.). Receipts: #223 5s. 6d. (180.8.6; 41.3.0; 1.14.0)

Event Comment: [As afterpiece the playbill announces Richard Coeur de Lion, but "On acct. of Mrs Jordan's Indisposition [it] was put off and The Humourist substituted in its stead" (MS annotation on Kemble playbill). Kemble Mem. lists The Humourist, and notes "Mrs Jordan sent word she cd not act in Coeur de Lion, and forced me to change the Farce."] Receipts: #198 9s. (155.6; 36.19; 6.4)

Event Comment: 3rd piece: Not acted these 2 years. Receipts: #186 5s. 6d. (180.10.0; 5.15.6)

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: 2nd piece: Not acted these 3 years. Receipts: #275 15s. 6d. (226.14.6; 48.13.0; 0.8.0)

Event Comment: Mainpiece: Not acted these 2 years. Receipts: #130 2s. 6d. (102.10.6; 25.6.0; 2.1.0; tickets not come in: 0.5.0)

Event Comment: By Permission of the Lord Chamberlain. Under the Patronage of several Persons of Distinction. Beneath the immediate Direction of a Venerable Veteran of the Stage. Afterpiece [1st time; C 2, author unknown. Not in Larpent MS; not published]: Reduced into Two Acts, from The Provok'd Wife

Event Comment: Mainpiece: In 5 Acts, altered from the Dramatic Romance by David Garrick, Esq. With a new Overture and new additional Musick by Storace [on 2 Jan. 1792 and thereafter, added: Shaw] and other Eminent Masters. Entirely new Scenery by Greenwood, and new Dresses, Decorations and Machinery. To conclude with a Grand Procession of the Hundred Knights of Chivalry, and the Representation of an Ancient Tournament. [These were included in all subsequent performances.] Books of the Songs to be had at the Theatre. Morning Post, 3 Jan. 1792, prints a full description of the Procession of over 100 persons: 1st, Anglo-Saxon Knights and banners; then ancient British knights, Norman knights, Indians, Turks, Scythians, Romans, a dwarf, a giant; at end, "soldiers drawing a superb picture of St. George, knights in chain mail, a cupid leading a knight covered with a silver net, Hymen, piping fauns, bands of cupids drawing an altar--flame burning, cupids hovering over it, and others feeding doves below, a troop of Arcadian shepherds drawing the car of Cymon and Sylvia, characters of the drama, and chorus." "At the conclusion of the procession, a tournament took place of both horse and foot, between several combatants in armour, who fought with lances, swords and battle-axes: three of Hughes' horses [from the Royal Circus] were introduced, and managed with much dexterity; the Prince of Wales' Highlander made one of the procession, and entered the lists as a champion, fighting with an enormous club; against him a small female warrior was opposed, by whom he was subdued. It was by far the grandest spectacle ever seen upon the stage. Many of the characters were taken from Sir Philip Sydney's Arcadia, in which the scene of the piece was laid; and the dresses of the knights, armour, &c. from the drawings and descriptions of the best antiquarians" (Oulton, 1796, II, 215). [This was Edmund Kean's 1st appearance on the stage; he was about four years old. He personated a cupid lying in Cymon and Sylvia's car (Kelly, Reminiscences, II, 21-22).] Account-Book, 13 Jan. 1792: Paid Hughes for his Horses #16 19s. 10d.; 23 Jan.: Paid Gough for his Greyhounds in Cymon #5 19s. 6d. Receipts: #420 6s. (385.0; 35.5; 0.1)

Event Comment: [In lieu of 1st two pieces the playbill announces Macbeth, but "Holman was disabled by illness; Macbeth was allotted to Harley...who was also indisposed." The Farmer and The Merry Mourners [i.e. Modern Antiques] were acted, but "Quick, in hurrying to the theatre, fell, and materially bruised his knee. Waldron played Quick's character. Mrs Watts...took the part which belongs to Mrs Harlowe" (London Chronicle, 7 Jan.).] Receipts: #132 19s. (132.4; 0.15)