Event Comment: [The playbill announces phe 1st night of What a Blunder!, but "In consequence of a severe accident C. Kemble met with yesterday evening by a fall in the last scene of Obi, the new opera of What a Blunder! cannot be acted. This evening will be presented The London Hermit" (MS annotation on hay playbill now at Harvard). "In making his leap from the precipice, the needful precautions to break his fall were not employed With sufficient promptitude. The consequence was that Kemble received several violent contusions, and sprained his back in a dangerous manner...The New Opera, in which that actor was to have performed a principal part, was necessarily postponed, and the above Entertainments substituted in its place. A proper apology was made to the audience, as well on account of the unavoidable disappointment, as the incorrectness which might naturally be expected to occur, from the suddenness of the change, and the absence of some of the regular performers" (Dramatic Censor, III, 83).

Event Comment: Benefit for the Author [of mainpiece, who is named in Kemble Mem., but not on the playbill]. Receipts: #265 15s. (250.7; 14.10; 0.18; tickets: none listed) (charge: #122 10s.)

Event Comment: Afterpiece: Not acted these 5 years [not acted since 4 May 1782. Miss Raymond is identified by MS annotation on Kemble playbill; Diary, 6 Apr., states she had acted two or three nights at Bath]. Receipts: #244 11s. (227.10; 16.6; 0.15)

Event Comment: Benefit for the Author [of mainpiece, who is named in Kemble Mem., but not on the playbill]. Receipts: #210 9s. 6d. (189.6.0; 20.2.0; 1.1.6; tickets: None listed) (charge: #122 10s.)

Event Comment: The King's Company. For this cast, see John Harold Wilson, Notes and Queries, 21 Feb. 1948, pp. 71-72. Pepys, Diary: My wide and Deb. to the King's House, to see The Virgin Martyr, the first time it hath been acted a great while: and it is mighty pleasant; not that the play is worth much, but it is finely acted by Becke Marshal. But that which did please me beyond any thing 1n the whole world was the wind-musique when the angel comes down, which is so sweet that it ravished me, and indeed, in a word, did wrap up my soul so that it made me really sick, just as I have formerly been when in love with my wife

Event Comment: Benefit John and Ch. Rich. At the Desire of several Persons of Quality. Receipts: #60 10s. 6d

Event Comment: Never Perform'd. Founded on Beaumont and Fletcher. Music by Thomas Linley. A Comic Opera the Music entirely new. [By Thomas Hull altered from The Royal Merchant; or the Beggar's Bush (Biographia Dramatica). See 19 Dec. 1767 for further note on Music.] Paid Mr Horne for 4 Tambourines #1 10s. (Account Book). Went into the Pit to see the opera founded on Beaumont and Fletcher, performed for the first time....The music may be good, but the piece is trifling and childish, barren of incident and character except that of Clause played by Bensley and the frightened peasant. The performers are in the Flemish dresses of the times, and do the piece much justice. At the beginning of the 2nd act some fellows in the 2s. Gallery began a disturbance, but were turn'd out and carried before Sir John Fielding, where they confessed that they were hired to disturb this performance by a publican, but refused to say whom....Stood in the well (Neville MS Diary). Receipts: #225 1s. (Account Book)

Event Comment: Benefit for Hull, Mrs Litchfield & Waddy. 1st piece [1st time; C 5, by Thomas Hull. Larpent MS 1215; not published]: Altered from [The Bashful Lover, by] Massinger. [In it the playbill assigns Hortensio to Pope, but he was ill, and in his "stead Johnston read the part of Hortensio" (European Magazine, June 1798, p. 396). Prologue by John Taylor Poems (I, 60).] Morning Herald, 29 May: Tickets to be had of Hull, Duke's Court, Dean's-yard, Westminster; of Mrs Litchfield, James-street, Covent-Garden; of Waddy, No. 214, opposite Southampton-street, High Holborn. Receipts: #261 2s. 6d. (53.9.6; 4.16.6; tickets: 202.16.6; of which Hull took #72 7s.; Mrs Litchfield #60 17s., Waddy #69 12s. 6d.)

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: Benefit for Johnstone. Morning Herald, 22 Aug.: Tickets to be had of Johnstone, No. 19, Piazza, Covent-Garden

Event Comment: THE REVENGE [advertised on playbill of 26 Oct.] is unavoidably deferred, on account of Kemble's indisposition