Event Comment: Full Prices.
There will not be room behind
the Scenes for more than
the persons acting in
the coronation, [O
thers] cannot possibly be admitted.
The coronation of
their Majesties was followed by a stage representation of it at both houses...
Garrick knew that
Rich would spare no expense in
the presentation of his show; he knew too that he had a taste in
the ordering, dressing, and setting out
these pompous processions, superior to his own; he
therefore was contented with
the old dresses which had been occasionally used from 1721-1761. This show he repeated for near forty nights successively, sometimes at
the end of a play, and at o
ther times after a farce.
The exhibition was
the meanest, and
the most unworthy of a
theatre, I ever saw.
The stage was...opened into
Drury Lane; and a new and unexpected sight surprised
the audience, of a real bonfire, and
the populace huzzaing and drinking porter to
the health of
Queen Anne Bullen.
The Stage in
the meantime, amidst
the parading of
Dukes, duchesses, archbishops, peeresses, heralds &c. was covered with a thick fog from
the smoke of
the fire, which served to hide
the tawdry dresses of
the processionalists. During this idle piece of mockery,
the actors, being exposed to
the suffocations of smoke, and
the raw air from
the open street, were seized with colds, rheumatisms, and swelled faces. At length
the indignation of
the audience delivered
the comedians from this wretched badge of nightly slavery, which gained nothing to
the managers but disgrace and empty benches. Tired with
the repeated insult of a show which had nothing to support it but gilt copper and old rags,
they fairly drove
the exhibitors of it from
the stage by hooting and hissing, to
the great joy of
the whole
theatre....Rich...fully satisfied [
the publick's] warmest imaginations (
Davies,
Life of Garrick, I, 365 ff.)