ABSTRACT

After 1737 Drury Lane Theatre slid into crisis. Charles Fleetwood, the gout-stricken Staffordshire landowner who was the proprietor, increasingly used it to finance his gambling, and he even inveigled actors to leave rehearsals and accompany him to illegal boxing matches. Despite an excellent company, including by 1742 Charles Macklin, Denis Delane, Hannah Pritchard, Kitty Clive, Peg Woffington and a young David Garrick, the debts continued to mount, and when Fleetwood tried to raise admission prices, the public reacted furiously. After four weeks of paying the higher prices, they interrupted the performance by calling for Fleetwood. When he refused to appear on stage, they began tearing up the benches, flinging missiles and threatening to mount the stage and destroy the scenery, as if they owned the theatre. The riots reached such a pitch that soldiers with fixed bayonets were brought in.