Event Comment: Doors to open at half past
Four. Play to begin at half past Six. Send servants to hold places by
Four o'clock. [
Mrs Vincent's deficit of 1st instant received #20 3s. 6d.] Paid scavenger's rate for
St Martin's due Lady Day #5 1s. Paid printer's bill #9 6s. (Treasurer's Book). Receipts: #262 7s. 6d. (Treasurer's Book). Went to
Drury Lane, but could not get in. Stayed from half past 4, sometime at one Pit door, sometime at the other, till past 6, and got in at the right hand side just as the play began, and was dreadfully squeezed, but rewarded by seeing
Garrick play
Hamlet. The expression in his features, his eyes particularly, surpasses anything I ever saw. He is a little man, but handsome and full of that fire which marks the stronger, and of the softness natural to the tender passions. It is impossible to see his greatest excellencies from ye Gallery.
Baddeley and
Dodd are pretty well in
Polonius and
Ostrick.
Mrs Baddeley and
Yates do
Ophelia and ye
Grave Digger very well.
Mrs Pritchard is great, as usual in
ye Queen.
Gravedigger's man-Castle.
Horatio-$Mr Packer. Several parts of ye play, as it is in $Shakespeare, are omitted rather improperly...The
Prince Brunswick, his wife and Louisa were present (
Neville MS Diary)
Performances
Afterpiece Title: The Musical Lady