Event Comment: [In mainpiece the playbill assigns Richard to Holman, but "Holman being indisposed, Murray assumed the arduous part of Richard this evening. (Monthly Mirror, Oct. 1797, p. 238).] Afterpiece: Not acted these 2 years. Account-Book: Paid Music #9 1s. 8d.; Properties #12 8s.; Kettle Drum 5s.; Chorus Singers #1 10s.; Wardrobe #6 10s. 3d.; Supernumeraries #3 11s.; Sloper [master carpenter] for Scenemen #40 13s. 4d.; Phillips and Creswell #4 4s.; Lupino #2 14s. 6d.; Hollogan #2. Receipts: #286 17s. (282.15; 4.2)

Event Comment: Under the Patronage of H. R. H. the Prince of Wales, H. R. H. the Duke of York, and H. R. H. the Duke of Clarence. Benefit for a Fund for the Relief of the Wounded Seamen, and also for the Widows and Orphans of the Brave Men who fell in the late Glorious Action, under Admiral Lord Viscount Duncan [see 16 Oct.]. The Tickets for the Boxes are issued under the Direction of a Committee consisting of the following Noblemen and Gentlemen, who have obligingly undertaken to attend to the arrangement of the Evening: The Duke of Leeds, The Duke of Bedford, The Earl of Guildford, The Earl of Thanet, The Right Honorable the Lord Mayor [Brook Watson], Mr Alderman Combe, M. P., Mr Alderman Skinner, John Julius Angerstein, Esq. Tickets and Places for the Boxes not disposed of by the Committee to be had of Fosbrook at the Box Office, Little Russell-Street, and at the Bar of Lloyds Coffee House. Ladies and Gentlemen having Privilege of the Theatre are requested by the Stewards to waive the use of it for this Evening. [Address by Richard Cumberland (European Magazine, Nov. 1797, p. 339). True Briton. 23 Nov. 1797, prints a letter from the Chairman of Committee of Subscribers to the performers of the theatre, thanking them for not "accepting the usual emolument on the night of performance."] Receipts: #631 8s. (357.17.6; 57.4.6; 1.11.0; money extra left at the doors: 2.14.6; tickets: 212.0.6) (charge: #161 0s. 6d.)

Event Comment: Mainpiece [1st time; C 5, by Edward Morris. Prologue by Charles Morris; Epilogue by George Colman, ynger (see text)]: With new Dresses and Decorations. Morning Chronicle, 14 Mar. 1799: This Day is published The Secret (2s.). Receipts: #371 18s. 6d. (319.17.0; 49.14.6; 2.7.0)

Event Comment: Afterpiece [1st time; M. ENT 2, by William Linley. Larpent MS 1246; not published]: With new Scenes, Dresses, and Decorations. The Overture and Musick entirely new, composed by William? Linley. Books of the Songs to be had in the Theatre. [Notice on playbill of 20 Nov.: The Author of The Pavilion, submitting with deference to the decision of the Public, has withdrawn it for the present to make such alterations as he hopes may render it an Entertainment better entitled to their approbation. (On 21 Jan. 1800, altered, it was acted as The Ring.)] "Miss DeCamp need never wish to have a better foil to her exquisite style of acting, than the puny efforts of Kelly and Mrs Crouch. They may be singers, but never should attempt to perform" (Dramatic Censor, I, 9). Receipts: #291 4s. 6d. (157.3.0; 131.8.6; 2.13.0)

Event Comment: "The bombardment of the fortv, at the conclusion of the Opera, went off better than on the preceding night. Of course, the thunder of guns and mortars, with the suffocating smoke, stench and vapour which pervaded every part of the house rouzed the audience from a state of lethargy and torpor...and the curtain dropped with less opposition and reprobation than on the preceding night" (Dramatic Censor, I, 350). Receipts: #342 11s. (267.17.6; 74.4.6; 0.9.0)

Event Comment: In Herbert, Dramatic Records, p. 82, is a list of the plays acted by the Red Bull actors: The Humorous Lieutenant. Beggars Bushe. Tamer Tamed. The Traytor. Loves Cruelty. Wit without Money. Maydes Tragedy. Philaster. Rollo Duke of Normandy. Claricilla. Elder Brother. The Silent Woman. The Weddinge. Henry the Fourthe. Merry Wives of Windsor. Kinge and no Kinge. Othello. Damboys [Bussy D'Ambois]. The Unfortunate Lovers. The Widow. This list (see Hotson, Commonwealth and Restoration Stage, p. 203) apparently concerns plays revived by this company, some before 10 Sept. 1660, some afterward. (See also the list of plays at the opening of the season and also 6 and 23 June 1660.

Event Comment: The King's Company. Pepys, Diary: Tom and I and my wife to the Theatre, and there saw The Silent Woman. The first time that ever I did see it, and it is an excellent play. Among other things here, Kinaston, the boy, had the good turn to appear in three shapes: first, as a poor woman in ordinary clothes, to please Morose; then in fine clothes, as a gallant, and in them was clearly the prettiest woman in the whole house, and lastly, as a man; and then likewise did appear the handsomest man in the house

Event Comment: See Herbert (Dramatic Records, p. 117) for The Mayd in the Mill acted in May and A Wife for a Monthe and The Bondman acted by the King's Company at an unspecified time following May

Event Comment: At Oxford in the morning A Mad World My Masters was played; in the afternoon, The Merry Milkmaids of Islington. According to Richard Walden (Io Ruminans, 1662) Anne Gibbs played Harebrain's Wife in the former, A Lady in the latter

Event Comment: Pepys, Diary: Then my wife and I to Drury Lane to the French comedy, which was so ill done, and the scenes and company and everything else so nasty and out of order and poor, that I was sick all the while in my mind to be there. See also Boswell (Restoration Court Stage, p. 280). W. J. Lawrence (Early French Players in England, The Elizabethan Playhouse and Other Studies (1912), pp. 139-40) argues that the play was Chapoton's Le Mariage d'Orphee et d'Eurydice. See also The Description of the Great Machines of the Descent of Orpheus into Hell. Presented by the French Comedians at the cockpit in Drury Lane. The Argument Taken out of the Tenth and Eleventh Books of Ovid's Metamorphosis (1661). Rugg's Diurnal the French players (BM Add. Mss. 10116, f243v)

Event Comment: Pepys, Diary: My wife and I to the fair, and I showed her the Italians dancing the ropes, and the women that do strange tumbling tricks

Event Comment: The King's Company. Pepys, Diary: My wife and I...to the Theatre, where we seated ourselves close by the King, and Duke of York, and Madame Palmer, which was great content; and, indeed, I can never enough admire her beauty. And here was Bartholomew Fayre, with the puppet-show, acted to-day, which had not been these forty years (it being so satyricall against Puritanism, they durst not till now, which is strange they should already dare to do it, and the King to countenance it), but I do never a whit like it the better for the puppets, but rather the worse

Event Comment: The Duke's Company. Pepys, Diary: Walking through Lincoln's Inn Fields observed at the Opera a new play, Twelfth Night, was acted there, and the King there; so I, against my own mind and resolution, could not forbear to go in, which did make the play seem a burthen to me, and I took no pleasure at all in it; and so after it was done went home with my mind troubled for my going thither, after my swearing to my wife that I would never go to a play without her

Event Comment: The King's Company. Pepys, Diary: Abroad with my wife by coach to the Theatre to shew her King and no King, it being very well done

Event Comment: The King's Company. An edition, undated but possibly issued about this time, refers to its being acted at Vere Street. The edition has no cast, no prologue, no epilouge. Pepys, Diary: Sir W. Pen and his daughter and I and my wife to the Theatre, and there saw Father's own Son, a very good play, and the first time I ever saw it

Event Comment: The King's Company. Pepys, Diary: My wife and I to the Theatre...where the King came to-day, and there was The Traytor most admirably acted; and a most excellent play it is

Event Comment: Pepys, Diary: My wife and I to the Opera, and there saw again Love and Honour, a play so good that it has been acted but three times and I have seen them all, and all in this week; which is too much, and more than I will do again a good while

Event Comment: The King's Company. Pepys, Diary: Sir W. Pen, my wife and I to the Theatre, and there saw The Country Captain, the first time it hath been acted this twenty-five years, a play of my Lord Newcastle's, but so silly a play as in all my life I never saw, and the first that ever I was weary of in my life. Herbert (Dramatic Records, p. 118) lists Love's Mistress for this date for Vere St., but the item is out of the normal order of the entries. To move it to 26 Oct. 1662 would place it on a Sunday. The play had been given previously (2 March 1661, 11 March 1661, 25 March 1661) by both the Duke's Company and King's Company. Possibly Herbert entered it on the wrong day. On Herbert's list, following Love's Mistress, are two plays, The Contented Collinell [Brenoralt] and Love at First Sight, each listed without a date. The former, under the title Brenoralt, had been acted at Vere St. on 23 July 1661; the second was soon to be acted there on 29 Nov. 1661

Event Comment: The Duke's Company. Pepys, Diary: I...called my wife at my brother's where I left her, and to the Opera, where we saw The Bondman, which of old we both did so doat on, and do still; though to both our thinking not so well acted here (having too great expectations), as formerly at Salisbury-court. But for Betterton he is called by us both the best actor in the world