Event Comment: Benefit for
Shuter and Miss Haughton. Tickets at stage door. [For criticism of Shuter
and Miss Haughton, see
Genest, IV, p. 363, from
The Present State of the Stage in Great Britain and Ireland, 1753. Nineteen of the Fifty-five pages of this pamphlet defend the stage on classicial authority
and moral grounds from attacks by the religious bigots,
and present an ideal picture of a manager, laying under some contribution, it would seem, the character of a manager presented ten years earlier (1743) in
Queries to be Answered. The author especially likes the moral of
Tate's alteration of
Lear. The remaining pages give a paragraph or two of criticism to the leading actors
and actresses in some of their most affecting parts (sixteen pages to
Drury Lane Performers, all of whom appear in the author's eye to be either "Excellent" or "Very Good.") The remaining space is devoted to the performers at
Covent Garden and at the
Theatre Royal in Dublin. All those spoken of fare well in the h
ands of this bound-to-be pleased critic. Shuter is here commended for ability to play an Old Man convincingly though he was but 22 years old,
and to play at all considering his lack of education. He possesses a great fund of drollery,
and bids fair to be as great in low comedy as it is possible for man to conceive.'
Miss Haughton described as an actress of promise. Seems never to have got the better of a lisp,
and a
Newcastle manner of pronouncing the letter 'r.'] Receipts: #290 (
Cross)