'One entire nation of actors and actresses' - Reconsidering the Relationship of Public and Private Theatricals

‘The rage for dramatic entertainments in private families has increased astonishingly’ announced the St James’ Chronicle in 1776, ‘scarce a man of rank but either has or pretends to have his petit theatre, in the decoration of which the utmost taste and expense are lavished‘. Although somewhat of an exaggeration, the craze for private theatricals was certainly a dominant feature of late eighteenth and early nineteenth-century culture. Sir William Wynn’s theatre at Wynnstay, Lord Derby’s at Blenheim, the Earl of Sandwich’s at Hinchinbroke House, and Lord Barrymore’s at Wargrave were just a few of the ‘theatres of our people of rank’ which appeared regularly in the papers. Beyond such ‘bon ton theatricals’ however there were also a number of urban private theatres - including William Fector’s at Dover, and the theatres in Well’s Street, London, and in Fishamble Street, Dublin - which were run by subscription. Unlike the gentry’s private theatres, where the audience was mostly made up of invited guests and where theatrical performances were often part of wider festivities which might include masques, balls, ‘pic-nic’ suppers, and games of cards, the urban theatres offered an evening’s entertainment more analogous to their public counterparts, were open to a broader spectrum of local society, and often operated their own theatrical seasons. Private theatricals, it becomes clear, were not only proliferating across the country at the turn of the century, but were also diverse in their nature.