Event Comment: Benefit for Mrs Mattocks. Public Advertiser, 6 Apr.: Tickets to be had of Mrs Mattocks at her house in Charlotte-street, Rathbone Place. Receipts: #241 8s. 6d. (175/13/6; tickets: 65/15/0) (charge: #105)

Event Comment: Benefit for Aickin. Public Advertiser, 10 Apr.: Tickets to be had of Aickin at his house. No. 5, York-street, Covent Garden. Receipts: #255 0s. 6d. (161/16/6; tickets: 93/4/0) (charge: #105)

Event Comment: Benefit for Mattocks. Gazetteer, 16 Apr.: Tickets to be had of Mattocks at his house, Charlotte-street, Rathbone-place. Receipts: #134 4s. (109/12; tickets: 24/12) (charge: #105)

Event Comment: Benefit for Reinhold. Public Advertiser, 23 Apr.: Tickets to be had of Reinhold at his house, No. 90, Charlotte-street, Rathbone Place. Tickets delivered for The Castle of Andalusia will be admitted. Receipts: #309 (173/0; tickets: 430 in boxes, 140 in pit, 75 in gallery, totalling #136/0) (charge: #105)

Event Comment: Benefit for Mrs Kennedy. Public Advertiser, 26 Apr.: Tickets to be had of Mrs Kennedy at her house in Great Queen-street. [The Jubilee anticipated the official Handel Commemoration held at Westminster Abbey on 26 May.] Receipts: #320 9s. 6d. (213/4/6; tickets: 107/5/0) (charge: #105)

Event Comment: Benefit for Barthelemon. Tickets to be had of Barthelemon at his house at Vauxhall

Event Comment: Benefit for Whitfield. 2nd piece: Written by George Colman, Esq. Not acted these 10 years [acted 20 Dec. 1777]. After which, a Grand Procession of the principal Characters of Shakespeare, as exhibited at the Jubilee at Stratford upon Avon [in Sept. 1769]. Public Advertiser, 5 May: Tickets to be had of Whitfield at his house, Leicester Court, Castle Street, Leicester Fields. Receipts: #114 4s. (45/18; tickets: 68/6) (charge: #105)

Event Comment: Benefit for Harris, ballet master and principal dancer. Public Advertiser, 15 May: Tickets to be had of Harris at his house, No. 43, Wells-street, Cavendish-Square. Receipts: #179 4s. 6d. (42/14/6; tickets: 136/10/0) (charge: #105)

Event Comment: Benefit for Henderson. Part of the Pit will be laid into the Boxes. Mainpiece [1st time; T 5, by Richard Cumberland. Text, which assigns no parts, 1st published in his Posthumous Dramatic Works, Vol. II (1813), under the title of Alcanor]. Public Advertiser, 5 Mar.: Tickets to be had of Henderson at his house in Buckingham-street, York-buildings

Event Comment: Benefit for Lewis. Public Advertiser, 18 Mar.: Tickets to be had of Lewis at his house in Broad Court, Bow-street, Covent Garden

Event Comment: Benefit for Mrs Kennedy. Public Advertiser, 16 Mar.: Tickets to be had of Mrs Kennedy at her house in Great Queen-street, Lincoln's-inn-fields

Event Comment: Benefit for Hull. Public Advertiser, 12 Apr.: Tickets to be had of Hull at his house in Duke's Court, near Dean's Yard, Westminster

Event Comment: Benefit for Fosbrook, box-book and house-keeper. Receipts: #298 6s. (48/12; 11/13; 0/10; tickets: 237/11) (charge: #108 18s. 5d.)

Event Comment: Benefit for Mrs Abington. Pit and Boxes will be laid together. Ladies and Gentlemen are most earnestly requested to come early, to prevent Inconvenience in getting to their Places, and to send their Servants to keep them by Four o'clock. "At the close of the entertainment Mrs Abington came forward, and delivered a short poetical address to her fashionable auditory [written by Maurice Morgann (Monthly Mirror, Nov. 1797, p. 263)], apposite to her feelings on the present occasion" (Morning Herald, 11 Feb.). "The character [of Scrub] throughout was well conceived, and executed with a sprightliness and degree of humour that kept the house in a continual roar of laughter" (Public Advertiser, 11 Feb.) "Mrs Abington's voice was in its usual tone; her manners and deportment were inattentive and torpid, rather than active and interesting" (Morning Post, 11 Feb.). "With all her endeavours to give new points to the character, she entirely failed. Her appearance en culottes, so preposterously padded, exceeded nature. Her gestures to look comical could not get the least hold of the audience, though they had seen her before in men's clothes, when playing Portia in The Merchant of Venice, where her figure, dressed as a lawyer in his gown, gave effect to her excellent delivery on mercy, and the audience had been always delighted. But this leu de benefice, comparatively speaking, was disgusting and absurd as she dressed the character ... However, I have heard it originated in a bet she had previously made" (Henry Angelo, Reminiscenes, 11, 281-82). Receipts: #406 13s. 6d. (249/9/6; 1/9/0; tickets: 155/15/0) (charge: free)

Event Comment: Benefit for Mrs Henderson. Pit and Boxes will be laid together. Ladies and Gentlemen are most earnestly requested to come early, to prevent Inconvenience in getting to their Places, and to send their Servants to keep them by Four o'clock. [Prologue by Arthur Murphy {Works, 1786, VII, 369).] Morning Herald, 14 Feb.: Tickets to be had at the house of the late Mr Henderson [see 8 Nov. 1785], Buckingham-street, York Buildings. "The poetical address delivered by Mrs Siddons before the play was written by Murphy, and was so very dull that we will charitably suppose his feelings obstructed the operation of his fancy" (General Advertiser, 27 Feb.). Receipts: #141 9s. 6d. (140/15/0; 0/14/6; tickets: none listed) (charge: free)

Event Comment: "A most ridiculous circumstance happened in the last act [of mainpiece]--nothing less than a total silence on the Stage, where all the Dramatis Personae stood in a rank, waiting for the next speech, which however was not heard, for, after a considerable time, the curtain was let down . . . Lewis came forward and acquainted the House that the part sent to Aickin was incomplete, and that he (who was to finish the Play) had never been furnished with the last speech. As we understood rehearsals were necessary to getting up Plays, we cannot reconcile this blunder to our apprehension" (General Advertiser, 6 Mar.). Receipts: #157 16s. (152/10; 5/6)

Event Comment: Benefit for Mrs Kennedy. Morning Herald, 12 Apr.: Tickets to be had of Mrs Kennedy at her house, No. 36, Great Queen-street, Lincoln's Inn Fields. Receipts: #257 2s. (113/19; 4/6; tickets: 138/17) (charge: #105)

Event Comment: Benefit for Farren. Mainpiece: Not acted these 2 years. Public Advertiser, 14 Apr.: Tickets to be had of Farren at his house, Great Queen-street, Lincoln's Inn Fields. Receipts: #303 14s. 6d. (75/19/0; 7/1/6; tickets: 220/14/0) (charge: #105)

Event Comment: Benefit for Pope. Mainpiece: Not acted these 3 years [acted 22 Jan. 1784. Epilogue by John Wolcot (European Magazine, May 1786, p. 369)]. Afterpiece: With Additional Songs, &c., as 28 Apr. Morning Herald, 18 Apr.: Tickets to be had of Pope at his house, Half-Moon Street, Piccadilly. "There is a mellow richness in [Pope's] voice superior to any other performer on the stage" (Candid Strictures, p. 47). Receipts: #255 16s. 6d. (156/13/0; 2/14/6; tickets: 96/9/0) (charge: #105)

Event Comment: Benefit for Fosbrook, Box-Book and House-Keeper. Mainpiece: Not acted these 8 years. Receipts: #320 14s. (30/14; 9/4; 1/15; tickets: 279/1) (charge: #106 17s. 3d.)

Event Comment: "Friday night, about 20 minutes before eight o'clock, on the conclusion of the third act, a very serious alarm took place at Drury Lane Theatre. A fire broke out at an oil-shop, the corner of Little Brydges-street. The flames appearing through the windows at the back of the upper gallery, the alarm of fire spread through many parts of the house. [The audience was dismissed, those in the boxes] passing over the stage into Russel-street...Some of the box and pit company continued for a time on the stage with the performers, some of whom were dressed in character, others half dressed, and the appearance [was] truly motley" (Public Advertiser, 5 Feb.). Receipts: #133 12s. (129.10; "An Alarm of Fire prevented the 2nd Acct."; 3.12; tickets not come in: 0.10)

Event Comment: Paid House and Window Tax one half Yr. #56 13s. 8d. Receipts: #113 16s. 6d. (62.9.0; 48.2.6; 3.5.0)

Event Comment: Benefit for Mrs Pope. Mainpiece: In Act I Banquetv. [In Act IV] the Procession from the Abbeyv, at the Coronation of Anne Bullen . To conclude with the Ceremonial of a Royal Christeningv. Public Advertiser, 9 Mar.: Tickets to be had of Mrs Pope at her house in Half-moon-street, Piccadilly. Receipts: #289 8s. (202.6; 2.1; tickets: 85.1)

Event Comment: The oratorio conductors do not receive the applause Stanley used to receive "owing to their being concealed by the boys, who are placed on high benches between the audience and the conductor, whose respects, though duly paid, have been scarely visible to the greater part of the house" (Public Advertiser, 28 Mar.)

Event Comment: Benefit for Bensley. Part of the Pit will be laid into the Boxes. To prevent Confusion, Ladies are desired to send their Servants at half past Four o'Clock. The Romp [announced on playbill of 16 Apr.] cannot be performed on Account of the Indisposition of Mrs Jordan. Public Advertiser, 31 Mar.: Tickets to be had of Bensley at his house, No. 21, Charlotte-street, Bedford-square. Receipts: #285 12s. (126.18.0; 13.17.6; 2.16.6; ticket2: 140.0.0;) (charge: #107 8s.)