Event Comment: Mainpiece [1st time: CO 3, by John Burgoyne, based on Silvain, by Jean Francois Marmontel]: With entirely new Music [by William Jackson], Scenes, Dresses, and Decorations. The Scenery designed by DeLoutherbourg, and executed under his direction. Public Advertiser, 3 Apr. 1781: This Day is published The Lord of the Manor (price not listed). Receipts: #226 19s. (216.15; 9.16; 0.8)

Event Comment: Afterpiece: Never performed here. Written by [John] O'Keeffe; As it was performed at the Theatre Royal in the Haymarket [beginning with 4 Sept.], with the greatest Applause. The Overture and new Music composed by Dr Arnold. Books of the Songs to be had at the Theatre. Receipts: #205 7s. 6d.(203/6/6; 2/1/0)

Event Comment: Afterpiece: Written by the Author of The Son-in-Law [John O'Keeffe]. The Overture and New Musick composed by Dr Arnold. "The same person who, in the play, performed the school-fellow of the Nabob with a great deal of nature, and original humour, here acted the part of the school-master; his name is Edwin, and he is, without doubt, one of the best actors of all that I have seen ... [He], in all his comic characters, still preserves something so inexpressibly good tempered in his countenance, that notwithstanding all his burlesques, and even grotesque buffoonery, you cannot but be pleased with him . . . Nothing could equal the tone and countenance of self-satisfaction, with which he answered one who asked him whether he was a scholar? 'Why, I was a master of scholars.' A Mrs Webb represented a cheesmonger, and played the part of a woman of the lower class, so naturally, as I have no where else ever seen equalled. Her huge, fat, and lusty carcase, and the whole of her external appearance seemed quite to be cut out for it" (Carl Philipp Moritz, Travels in England in 1782, London, 1924, pp. 73-74)

Event Comment: [Prologue by George Colman, the elder (Colman, Prose, 10,239).] Afterpiece: Written by the Author of The Son-in-Law [John O'Keeffe]. Places for the Boxes to be taken of Rice at the Theatre. [No playbill this season lists the various prices of admission; they were probably, as usual: Boxes 5s. Pit 3s. 1st Gallery 2s. 2nd Gallery 1s.] The Doors to be opened at 6:00. To begin at 7:00 [same throughout season]. On 24 May Colman inserted the following in Public Advertiser: The Theatre Royal in the Haymarket will open next Saturday. In order to avoid unnecessary' Repetitions during the Season, the Public are desired, once for all, to take Notice that every Performance at this Theatre will be exhibited to most brilliant, crouded and OVERFLOWING audiences; and received with loud and universal Bursts of most UNBOUNDED and UNCOMMON Applause

Event Comment: Mainpiece [1st time; CO 3]: Written by [John] O'Keeffe. The Music by Shield. With a new French Medley Overture, new Dresses, &c. The Words of the Songs to be had at the Theatre. [Mrs T. Kennedy was from the Newcastle theatre.]

Event Comment: 1st piece: Written by the Author of The Agreeable Surprise, Son-in-Law.&c. [John O'Keeffe]. The Overture and New Airs composed by Dr Arnold. 2nd piece: Books of the Songs to be had at the Theatre

Event Comment: Mainpiece: With Alterations by the Author [John O'Keeffe]. Receipts: #156 6s. (153/9; 2/17)

Event Comment: Mainpiece: With new Songs by the Author [John O'Keeffe], and composed by Shield. Receipts: #182 9s. (179.18.6; 2.10.6)

Event Comment: 2nd piece [1st time; F 1, by John Rose; in Town and Country Magazine, Aug. 1788, p. 374, said to be translated from a French farce]. "Edwin was too ill to sing, but went through the part [in Peeping Tom; see 16 Aug.]" (Public Advertiser, 4 Aug.)

Event Comment: [In mainpiece the playbill retains Miss Farren, "but on account of the sudden indisposition of Miss Farren her part in the play was read by Mrs Ward, who gave it with great effect, and having studied Miss Farren's manner, was a very tolerable substitute" (Diary, 2 May).] Afterpiece [1st time; C 3, by John Philip Kemble]: Taken from [The Country Lasses; or] The Custom of the Manor [by Charles Johnson]. Diary, 6 May 1789: This Day is published The Farm House (1s.). And see 6 May. Receipts: #165 3s. (125.12.0; 34.18.6; 4.12.6)

Event Comment: Afterpiece [1st time: F 2, by John O'Keeffe]. Receipts: #248 3s. 6d. (247.16.0; 0.7.6)

Event Comment: Benefit for Quick. 1st piece [1st time; PREL I, altered anonymously from the anonymous Bickerstaff's Unburied Dead]. 3rd piece [1st time; INT 1, by John Cartwright Cross]. Oracle, 11 Mar.: Tickets to be had of Quick, No. 98, High Holborn. Receipts: #424 (207.2; 5.8; tickets: 211.10)

Event Comment: Mainpiece [altered by John Philip Kemble]. Receipts: #427 19s. (360.8.6; 66.5.6; 1.5.0)

Event Comment: Benefit for Munden. 2nd Piece [1st time in London; MF 2, by Thomas John Dibdin, 1st acted at Manchester, 15 Mar. 1793. Text (Huddersfield: J. Brook [1795] gives cast for Manchester]: The Music (with a new Waltz Overture, and an accompaniment for the Tamborine & Triangle) composed by Reeve. 3rd piece [1st time; M. INT 1]. Morning Chronicle, 4 Apr.: Tickets to be had of Munden, No. 16, Clement's-inn. Receipts: #630 12s. 6d. (237.13.0; 2.10.0; tickets: 390.9.6)

Event Comment: The Lord Mayor's Show. London Intelligencer, 31 Oct.: London, Octob. 29. This day the Right Honourable the Lord Mayor of the City of London (Sir John Lawrence) was sworn into the said Office...After which...he return'd into the City, where the Solemnity of the day was perform'd with great Magnificence and in exceldent Order. Evelyn, Diary: Was the most magnificent triumph by Water & Land of the Ld: Major

Event Comment: The Duke's Company. This play is on the L. C. lists at Harvard. See VanLennep, "Plays on the English Stage", p. 14. A song in this play, Thus all our Lives, with music by John Banister, is in Choice Songs and Ayres, 1673. Downes (Roscius Anglicanus, p. 31): [Concerning several plays] All which Expir'd the third Day, save the Royal Shepherdess, which liv'd Six. Pepys, Diary: To the Duke of York's house, and there before one, but the house infinite full, where, by and by, the King and Court come, it being a new play, or an old one new vamped, by Shadwell, called The Royal Shepherdesse!; but the silliest for words and design, and evepything, that ever I saw in my whole life, there being nothing in the world pleasing in it, but a good martial dance of pikemen, where Harris and another do handle their pikes in a dance to admiration; but never less satisfied with a play in my life

Event Comment: The United Company. The date of the first performance is not known, but it followed The Gordian Knot Unty'd, which is mentioned in the Prologue. Edward III was advertised in the London Gazette, No. 2629, 19-22 Jan. 1690@1, and entered in the Term Catalogues, February 1690@1. The authorship is uncertain. The title page bears no author's name, but the Dedication is signed by Will. Mountfort. In addition, on 10 Oct. 1691 Mountfort received a grant of #10 when Edward III was played before the Queen (L. C. 5@150, p. 306, in Nicoll, Restoration Drama, p. 357). On tne other hand, the Gentleman's Journal, October 1692, stated that it was written by the author of Henry the Second, which has been attributed to John Bancroft. See Nicoll, Restoration Drama, pp. 388-89, for a summation of the evidence on this problem. Alfred Harbage, Elizabethan-Restoration Palimpsest, Modern Language Review, XXXV (1940), 319, thinks that this is a revision of Robert Davenport's The Politic Queen

Event Comment: [Mainpiece in place of The Separate Maintenance, announced on playbill of 3 Sept.] Afterpiece [1st time: MF 2]: Written by the Author of The Son-in-Law [John O'Keeffe]. The Overture and New Musick composed by Dr Arnold. The new Scenes painted by Rooker. Books of the Songs to be had at the Theatre. [Larpent MS 568; text 1st published (authorized), Cumberland's British Theatre, XXXI.

Event Comment: Benefit for Wild, prompter. 1st piece: Not acted these 20 years; altered from Dryden (by Joseph George Holman (Not. Dram.)]. 2nd piece [Ist time; M.INT 1, probably by John Cartwright Cross. MS: Larpent 1028; not published]. 3rd piece: In which an Engagement between an English and a French Man of War, a Shipwreck, and a Grand Military Procession as it pass'd, when the French Colours taken by the British Army were conveyed from St. James's to St. Paul's Cathedral [on 17 May 1794]. The above Procession is represented by Moving Figures, in which the Horse and Foot Guards, the Band of Music, the French Colours, &c. are seen to pass in the exact order they appeared on that memorable occasion. Morning Herald, 17 May: Tickets to be had of Wild, No. 46, Drury-lane. Receipts: #293 2s. 6d. (112/17/6; 14/2/0; tickets: 166/3/0)

Event Comment: Mainpiece: By Particular Desire. King of Denmark. Richard-Mr Garrick (Cross Diary). For the King of Denmark.--Richard by Mr Garrick, for the first time these six years-Beyond discription fine, -his voice clear to the last (Hopkins Diary). No money taken at stage door. None returned after curtain is up. The doors (by particular desire) will be opened at half an Hour after Five. To Begin at Seven. Neville MS Diary: Hearing about 7 o'clock that Garrick did Richard III, one of his very capital characters which he has not done these 7 or 8 years, resolved (if I could get in to see him) to bear the abhorred sight of that woman-like painted puppy, the King of Denmark. After one unsuccessful attempt got into the Pit with the greatest difficulty after the third act. Garrick is inimitably great in Richard & very different from the other Richards I have seen; his expression of the dying agony of that wretch is beyond description. Some actors speak with as strong & loud voice in that scene as if they had received no wound & were not dying. One Lloyd, who waits on Garrick sometimes, observed that he himself says he never acted better in his life, modestly observing that something must be allowed to the improvement of his judgment. During the dance (for there was no farce) I was within a yard of the Danish tyrant

Event Comment: Containing the Distresses and death of King Henry the Sixth; the Artful acquisition of the Crownv by King Richard; the Murder of Young King Edward V and his Brother in the Tower. The Landing of the Earl of Richmond, and the death of King Richard in the memorable battle of Bosworth Field, being the last that was fought between the Houses of York and Lancaster. [This notice accompanies subsequent performances of Richard III, but will not be recorded here further.

Event Comment: "...Richard III, which I saw performed at Drury-lane theatre at the beginning of the present season...The dresses of the characters which here make their appearance are in the usual half-and-half mode, made up from portraits of Charles I's reign, and from unrestrained fancy. Richard's habit, indeed, shews a faint hint, at the costume of his day; but how modernized! A fancy cap and feather,with a milliner's white-ribband rose, sewed thereon. A deep ruff, of that make not known until the reign of James I From the neck depends a ribband With the George: this decoration never seen in paintings till about the fashions of the abovementioned monarch's court. On his legs and feet, white silk stockings, white shoes, and red roses. These latter ornaments unknown before Elizabeth or James I's modes of dress prevailed; at any rate, they should have been white ones to have accorded with the party-badge in his cap." Writer signing himself "An Artist and an Antiquary" in Gentleman's Magazine, Apr. 1800, p. 319. Receipts: #225 16s. 6d. (178.3.6; 47.12.0; 0.1.0)

Event Comment: Mainpiece Containing the Distresses and Death of King Henry the Sixth; the Artful Acquisition of the Crown by King Richard; The Cruel Murder of Prince Edward and his Brother in the Tower; the Landing of the Earl of Richmond, and the death of King Richard in the Memorable battle of Bosworth Fieldv; being the last that was fought between the Houses of York and Lancaster. Receipts: #160 19s

Event Comment: [K+King Richard III.] Containing the Distresses and Death of King Henry VIv, the artful acqusition of the crown by Richardv; the cruel murder of the young King Edward Vv and his brother in the Tower; the Landing of the Earl of Richmondv, and the Death of Richard in the Memorable Battle of Bosworth Fieldv; being the last that was fought between the Houses of Yorkv and Lancasterv; with many other historical passages

Event Comment: Mainpiece: The Tragedy of King Richard the Second is to be had this Day at the Theatre. Afterpiece: With all the Scenes, Machines, Flyings, and other Decorations. Receipts: #86 9s