Frances "Fanny" Abington was an English actress who was also known for her sense of fashion. Writer and politician Horace Walpole described her as one of the finest actors of their time, and Richard Brinsley Sheridan was said to have written the part of Lady Teazle in The School for Scandal for her to perform.
Richard Brinsley Butler Sheridan was an Irish satirist, politician, playwright, poet and long-term owner of the London Theatre Royal, Drury Lane. He is known for his plays such as The Rivals, The School for Scandal, The Duenna and A Trip to Scarborough. He was also a Whig MP for 32 years in the British House of Commons for Stafford (1780–1806), Westminster (1806–1807), and Ilchester (1807–1812). He is buried at Poets' Corner in Westminster Abbey. His plays remain a central part of the canon and are regularly performed worldwide.
This article contains information about the literary events and publications of 1816.
Sarah Siddons was a Welsh actress, the best-known tragedienne of the 18th century. Contemporaneous critic William Hazlitt dubbed Siddons as "tragedy personified".
The School for Scandal is a comedy of manners written by Richard Brinsley Sheridan. It was first performed in London at Drury Lane Theatre on 8 May 1777.
William Charles Macready was an English actor.
John Philip Kemble was a British actor. He was born into a theatrical family as the eldest son of Roger Kemble, actor-manager of a touring troupe. His elder sister Sarah Siddons achieved fame with him on the stage of the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane. His other siblings, Charles Kemble, Stephen Kemble, Ann Hatton, and Elizabeth Whitlock, also enjoyed success on the stage.
John Tobin was a British playwright, who was for most of his life unsuccessful, but in the year of his death made a hit with The Honey Moon. Other plays were The Curfew and The School for Authors.
The Theatre Royal, Drury Lane, commonly known as Drury Lane, is a West End theatre and Grade I listed building in Covent Garden, London, England. The building faces Catherine Street and backs onto Drury Lane. The building is the most recent in a line of four theatres which were built at the same location, the earliest of which dated back to 1663, making it the oldest theatre site in London still in use. According to the author Peter Thomson, for its first two centuries, Drury Lane could "reasonably have claimed to be London's leading theatre". For most of that time, it was one of a handful of patent theatres, granted monopoly rights to the production of "legitimate" drama in London.
John Palmer was an actor on the English stage in the eighteenth century. There was also another John Palmer (1728–1768) who was known as Gentleman Palmer. Richard Brinsley Sheridan nicknamed him Plausible Jack.
The sleepwalking scene is a critically celebrated scene from William Shakespeare's tragedy Macbeth (1606). The first scene in the tragedy's 5th act, the sleepwalking scene is written principally in prose, and follows the guilt-wracked, sleepwalking Lady Macbeth as she recollects horrific images and impressions from her past. The scene is Lady Macbeth's last on-stage appearance, though her death is reported later in the act. Well known phrases from the scene include "Out, damned spot!" and "All the perfumes of Arabia will not sweeten this little hand." The British tragedienne Sarah Siddons (1755–1831) was distinguished for her performance and interpretation of the scene.
John Bannister, , English actor and theatre manager. The principal source for his life are his own Memoirs, and as a leading performer his career is well documented.
Gaming in public was not acceptable for aristocratic women as it was for aristocratic men in 18th century England, who played at social clubs such as the Tory-affiliated White's or the Whig-affiliated Brooks's. Thus, women gambled in private houses at social gatherings that often provided other, more socially acceptable forms of entertainment, such as musical concerts or amateur theatricals. A group of aristocratic women came to be well known for the faro tables they hosted late into the night. Mrs. Albinia Hobart, Lady Archer, Mrs. Sturt, Mrs. Concannon, and Lady Elizabeth Luttrell were common figures in the popular press throughout the 1790s.
Elizabeth Rebecca Edwin was an Anglo-Irish stage actress active in Ireland and England during the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries.
Robert Keeley was an English actor-manager, comedian and female impersonator of the nineteenth century. In 1823 he originated the role of 'Fritz' in Presumption; or, the Fate of Frankenstein, the first known stage adaptation of Mary Shelley's novel Frankenstein.
George Bartley (1782?–1858) was an English stage comedian. He was successful in playing comic old men and bluff uncles, and Falstaff became his favourite character. He had roles in many Shakespearean Comedies throughout his career spanning over half a century.
Thomas King (1730–1805) was an English actor, known also as a theatre manager and dramatist.
Maria Rebecca Davison (1780?–1858) was a British stage actress. She was billed as Miss Duncan in the early years of her career before her marriage. She appeared as a leading performer at the London patent theatres Covent Garden, the Haymarket Theatre and particularly at Drury Lane.
Isabella Mattocks was a British actress and singer.
The Provoked Husband is a 1728 comedy play by the British writer and actor Colley Cibber, based on a fragment of play written by John Vanbrugh. It is also known by the longer title The Provok'd Husband: or, a Journey to London.
