Event Comment: The Duke's Company. See also 15 and 23 Dec. 1662. Pepys, Diary: There being the famous new play acted the first time to-day, which is called The Adventures of Five Hours, at the Duke's house, being, they say, made or translated by Colonel Tuke, I did long to see it; and so made my wife to get her ready, though we were forced to send for a smith, to break open her trunk...and though early, were forced to sit almost out of sight, at the end of one of the lower forms, so full was the house. And the play, in one word, is the best, for the variety and the most excellent continuance of the plot to the very end, that ever I saw, or think ever shall, and all possible, not only to be done in the time, but in most other respects very admittable, and without one word of ribaldry; and the house, by its frequent plaudits, did show their sufficient approbation. Evelyn, Diary: I went to see Sir S: Tuke (my kinsmans) Comedy acted at the Dukes Theater, which so universaly tooke as it was acted for some weekes every day, & was belived would be worth the Comedians 4 or 5000 pounds: Indeede the plot was incomparable but the language stiffe & formall. Downes (pp 22-23): Wrote by the Earl of Bristol, and Sir Samuel Tuke: This Play being Cloath'd so Excellently Fine in proper Habits, and Acted so justly well....It took Successively 13 Days together, no other Play Intervening. Lady Anglesey to her husband, 10 Jan. 1663: Lord Bristol has made a play which is much commended (CSPD 1663-64, p. 8)

Event Comment: The Duke's Company. Downes (p. 29): It took well, but Inferior to Love in a Tub. Pepys, Diary: I to the Duke of York's playhouse; where a new play of Etherige's called She Would if she Could; and though I was there by two o'clock, there was 1000 people put back that could not have room in the pit: and I at last, because my wife was there, made shift to get into the 18d. box, and there saw; but, Lord! how full was the house, and how silly the play, there being nothing in the world good in it, and few people pleased in it. The King was there; but I sat mightily behind, and could see but little, and hear not all. The play being done...here was the Duke of Buckingham to-day openly sat in the pit; and there I found him with my Lord Buckhurst, and Sidly, and Etherige, the poet; the last of whom I did hear mightily find fault with the actors, that they were out of humour, and had not their parts perfect, and that Harris did do nothing, nor could so much as sing a ketch in it; and so was mightily concerned: while all the rest did, through the whole pit, blame the play as a silly, dull thing, though there was something very roguish and witty; but the design of the play, and end, mighty insipid. Thomas Shadwell, Preface to The Humorists (1671): The last (viz.) imperfect Action, had like to have destroy'd She Would if she could, which I think (and I have the Authority of some of the best Judges in England for't) is the best Comedy that has been written since the Restauration of the Stage: And even that, for the imperfect representation of it at first, received such prejudice, that, had it not ben for the favour of the Court, in all probability it had never got up again; and it suffers for it, in a great measure, to this very day

Event Comment: Downes, Roscius Anglicanus, p. 31: Note, About the Year 1670, Mrs Aldridge, after Mrs Lee, after Lady Slingsby, also Mrs Leigh Wife of Mr Antony Leigh, Mr Crosby, Mrs Johnson, were entertain'd in the Duke's House