THE OLDEST THEATRE IN BRITAIN

Evening Post, Volume CXVII, Issue 76, 31 March 1934, Page 17

THE OLDEST THEATRE IN BRITAIN

'Britain's , oldest theatie- is the Theatre Royal at Bristol, which has stood for 167 yeais. It stands in,wh(al was -once the most elegant- part of Bristol, -near Queen' Square-,-" says an. Englißh- paper. The citizens"- iised "to line tho streets to watch -tlvc- sedan chairs bearing hooped and rpowdered ladies .up to the doois, and gentlemen peifumed with. lqse-wateiy jw.hiJe the servants ran' about" swinging their lanterns' to lighten the -daik_ winter nights. Kow tho neighbourhood has become tho homo of comnieice,' and tho theatre- and its cobbled thor<suglif are lie tucked away amid warehouses. lJ33avid, Gairrick, who wiote- <the pro-lognc-Jfor the first performance, ;which was of:"Th'o Conscious Loveis;" in 1766, pronounced the theatre- to be "the most complete of its size- in Europe." Tho law of that timo aoijounced actois as jogues and vagab'ondgj. btit the management eircumventetT i£ "by calling the- performance a "concert of music and a specimen of rhetoric, "i.e., a play and a. farce. The audiences' were liot always orderly. In a scuffle, in 1769," a' man fell fiOin tho

galleiy into the pit, and was cairied out and bled by surgeons, but h© died. Neaily all the gieat people of tho stage (have trodden these .. ancient boards—Mis." Siddons, the Kenibles, Quick, Macreacly, Garrick,' Edmund Kean, Jenny Lind, Lady Bancroft, tho Teny sistcis, and Damo Madgo Kendal. Tho ghost o£ tho first manager, Mr, Powell, ha& been seen pacing the stage,, waving its arjns and noiselessly mouth-' ing Garrick's prologuo. It would not bo difficult at any time to- imagine that i the draught from the wings that stirs tho hangings is alivo with tho bieath Of ghosts.

When the theatre was opened the subscribers wore each presented with a silver ticket which admitted the bearer to any performance, and there arc peoplo in Bristol'to this day who have them and use thorn, for theic is no term to their validity. 'Moro modern times havo not been, wjthout their interesting incidents. The wedding breakfast of Maurice Barrymore, father of the famous Barrymoro brothers, v^as held upon the stage. ' i