Event Comment: Benefit for Hopkins, prompter, and Mrs Hopkins. Mainpiece: Not acted these 2 years. Afterpiece: A Dramatic Entertainment (in two parts) of Singing, Dancing and Dialogue in Honour of Shakespeare. In which a Pageant. The Music by Dibdin. Public Advertiser, 10 Apr.: Tickets to be had of Hopkins, No. 7, Little Russel-street, Covent Garden. Receipts: #280 7s. (169.5; 21.0; 1.2; tickets: 89.0) (charge: #64 4s.)

Event Comment: The natural grandeur and commanding air of [Mrs Yate's] deportment contradicts the whole idea of the part...We cannot help thinking that [the two characters] would be much better play'd throughout, if they were exchanged; the haughty Alicia would sit much more characteristically on Mrs Yates, and Mrs Crawford would give a degree of plaintive softness to Jane Shore which seems to have been intended by the author (Gazetteer, 3 Nov.)

Event Comment: By Authority of the Lord Chamberlain. Benefit for Stewart and M'Donald. Mainpiece: With new Dresses and Decorations. Afterpiece: With several new additions and two new characters. [Authors of Prologues unknown.] The Doors to be opened at 5:00. To begin at 6:00. No Person whatever to be admitted behind the Scenes, nor any Money returned after the Curtain is drawn up. Books of the Farce to be had at the Theatre

Event Comment: [Mrs Lloyd is identified in playbill of 18 Aug. She has "the name of Lloyd, but [is] better known by the name of Mrs C@@we (who played several parts at the military theatre of Boston in America about two years ago)" (Morning Post, 16 July).

Event Comment: Benefit for Lamash, Holcroft & Norris. 2nd piece: Taken from Foote's Devil Upon Two Sticks. 3rd piece: To conclude with a grand representation of a Regattav. Tickets delivered by Shade and Mrs Pulley will be taken. Receipts: #190 4s. 6d. (27.9.0; 18.6.6; 1.18.0; tickets: 142.11.0) (charge: #92 4s. 4d.)

Event Comment: Benefit for the Subscription opened in favour of the West India Sufferers [from two hurricanes that had devastated the West Indies on 3 and 10 Oct. 1780]

Event Comment: bTo finish with: Medee et Jason. As 26 June. Only one act of the said Opera can be performed between the two Grand Ballets, owing to their being very long. By Particular desire of several of the Nobility; being positively the last Time of performing this Season [see 30 June]

Event Comment: The Devil upon Two Sticks [announced on playbill of 27 July] is obliged to be deferred on account of Edwin's Illness

Event Comment: Benefit for the Author [of mainpiece, who is named in the Account-Book, but not on the playbill. The playbill retains Henderson, but on the Kemble playbill his name is deleted and a MS annotation substitutes Wroughton's.]. Account-Book, 19 Nov.: Paid Holcroft in full for his [two] Benefit Nights for Duplicity #100. Receipts: none listed (charge: #105)

Event Comment: 1st piece [1st time; prel i,by Leonard Macnally. MS:Larpent 601; not published; synopsis of plot in Public Advertiser, 24 Sept.]. Places for the Boxes to be taken of Brandon (only) at the Stage-door. Boxes 5s. Pit 3s. 1st Gallery 2s. Upper Gallery 1s. The Doors will open at 5:30. To begin at 6:30 [see 4 Nov.]. The Only Entrance to the Upper Gallery is in the Passage which leads from the Piazza to Hart-street, and the Two Shilling Gallery communicates with the Passage in Bow-street, as well as with that from the Piazza. The Passages to the Pit and Boxes remain as before. Receipts: #314 18s. (313/18; 1/0)

Event Comment: "I have been for two days in town, and seen Mrs Siddons . . . She is a good figure, handsome enough, though neither nose nor chin according to the Greek standard, beyond which both advance a good deal. Her hair is either red, or she has no objection to its being thought so, and had used red powder. Her voice is clear and good; but I thought she did not vary its modulations enough, nor ever approach enough to the familiar--but this may come when more habituated to the awe of the audience of the capital. Her action is proper, but with little variety; when without motion, her arms are not genteel ... I treated my eyes, not only with Mrs Siddons but a harlequin farce. But there again my ancient prejudices operated: how unlike the pantomimes of Rich, which were full of wit, and coherent, and carried on a story! What I now saw was Robinson Crusoe: how Aristotle and Bossu, had they ever written on pantomimes, would swear! It was a heap of contradictions and violations of the costume. Friday is turned into Harlequin, and falls down at an old man's feet that I took for Pantaloon, but they told me it was Friday's father. I said, 'Then it must be Thursday'" (Walpole [3 Nov. 1782], XII, 356-57, 359). Receipts: #241 6s. (222/4/0; 18/15/6; 0/6/6)

Event Comment: [In mainpiece the playbill retains Aickin as Dionysius, but on the Kemble playbill his name is deleted. Of the name substituted in MS all but the 1st two letters have been cut by the binder. For Mahon as Dionysius see 12 Feb. 1778.] Receipts: #212 5s. (208/16; 3/9)

Event Comment: [In mainpiece the playbill retains Sga Sestini, but "Previous to the Opera, Mattocks apologized for the sudden illness of Sestini; Mrs Martyr would, on a Notice of two Hours, attempt to read the Part" (.Public Advertiser, 9 Nov.). On 9 Nov. Sga Sestini gave birth to a son Qbid., 11 Nov.).] Receipts: #185 18s. 6d. (184/15/6; 1/3/0)

Event Comment: Afterpiece [1st time; P 2, by John O'Keeffe. MS: Larpent 608; not published. CG playbill of 16 Nov. 1795 has a detailed synopsis of the action]: Intermixed with Songs and Dialogue. With new Music, Scenes, Dresses, Machinery, and Decorations. The new Music composed by Shield. The new Scenes designed by Richards, and executed by Richards, Hodgins, and assistants. To conclude with a Representation of the Lord Mayor's Show on the Water. Books of the Songs to be had at the Theatre. Nothing under Full Price will be taken. "As to the Pantomime it wanted nothing on the first Night but Abbreviations . . . [which should be] omission of the Doctors, the two Women of the Town, and the whole of Edwin's Character" (Public Advertiser, 27 Nov.). Gentleman's Magazine, Jan. 1783, pp. 29-31, contains a detailed synopsis of the procession, and adds, "The personages of this procession were all dressed in the characters of the time in which they lived, and before each of them a label, a scroll, or a pageant was carried, bearing their name, or some allusion of the poets to their occupation. The figures in transparency were all painted as large as the life, and had a most grand and beautiful effect . . . The idea of the paintings was furnished by Mr Richards and Mr Smirk [sic], and all of them executed by the latter in a style of so much taste and excellence that it is a matter of some wonder to us, where an artist of Mr Smirk's abilities has been so long concealed . . . The glee introduced with so much applause is the composition of the late Dr Rogers (who lived in 1600); the other airs in the pantomime and procession arc by Handel, Lord Kelly, Abel, Stamitz and Shield, and have very great merit. The expense of preparing this splendid spectacle must have been very great, and the cost of continuing its representation cannot be inconsiderable, since more than 200 supernumeraries are employed to walk in the procession." Receipts: #215 3s. (206/3; 9/0)

Event Comment: By Permission of the Lord Chamberlain. Benefit for Gardner. Afterpiece: From The Devil upon Two Sticks, written by the late Samuel Foote, Esq. [Mrs Mills is identified in Morning Chronicle, 1 Jan. 1783. For remarks on this night's performance, including references to Dunstan by Charles Lamb, see Theatre Notebook, VIII, 5.] Gardner having unavoidably been obliged to postpone his night from the 26th to the 30th, he thinks it his duty to inform his friends that tickets delivered for the 26th will be taken