This play-house was originally intended for use during the summer, and in consequence of there being a more important theatre then in existence (on the site of His Majesty’s), it was known as “The Little Theatre in the Haymarket.” Built at the not extravagant cost of £1,500, by one John Potter, it was opened on December 29th, 1721, by a French Company, who styled themselves “The Duke of Montagu’s French Comedians.” Their initial piece does not seem to have been a success; and later “The Female Fop” (which Sandford says he wrote in a few weeks, when but fifteen years of age), died a natural death after only a few nights’ performance, although it served its purpose in helping to inaugurate the new venture.
Some years later—to be precise, in 1735—the play-house was taken by a company bearing the strange title of “The Great Mogul’s Company,” and here Fielding’s “Pasquin” and “Historical Register” were given. These plays never pretended to be anything but satires, and it is interesting to know that their performance occasioned the passing of “The Licensing Act,” which first gave the Lord Chamberlain that power of veto over plays, the exercise of which has been the cause of so much heart-burning ever since; and which, at the time, was the cause of many amusing attempts at evasion, particularly by Theophilus Cibber, one of the earlier managers, and Foote, whose invitation to the public “to drink a dish of chocolate with him” could hardly have misled even the most unsophisticated of country cousins.
For three years from 1744, Macklin managed the theatre, and was then succeeded by Foote, who continued to run the house, off and on, for no less than thirty successful years. With his “Devil on Two Sticks” he is said to have cleared between three and four thousand pounds, of which, by the bye, little or nothing was left at the end of the year. Foote, indeed, had a remarkable aptitude for squandering money, and the motto which he had placed in his carriage: “Iterum, iterum, iterumque,” had a new significance given it by his perpetually renewed attempts to replace the money that had taken unto itself wings!
In 1766, a patent was passed for the establishment of a new theatre here, for Foote; and in the following year it was made a “Royal Theatre.” Just ten years later Foote sold his interest in the house to the elder Colman, on the apparently splendid terms of an annuity of £1,600, and permission to play as often and when he liked to the extent of a further £400 a year. But although one can understand Dr. Johnson’s wonder as to what Colman was going to make out of it, the arrangement turned out well for him, as Foote died within a year, and played only three times.
Colman was succeeded in his management by his son, whose first season commenced in 1790, and who, fifteen years later, sold half his share to Messrs. Morris and Winston. Later, the well-known Thomas Dibdin took over the concern, and it was during his management that, on August 15th, 1805, occurred a great riot here, organised by members of the sartorial trade, who took exception to the performance of a piece entitled “The Tailors, a Tragedy for Warm Weather,” as reflecting on their calling. To such a height, indeed, did matters come that special constables and a company of the Life Guards were requisitioned to assist the regular Bow Street officers.
Some years later—to be precise, in 1820—the present play-house, whose historian is the well-known actor-manager, Mr. Cyril Maude—was erected, from the designs of Nash, at a cost of £18,000; the earlier theatre remained open until the larger house was finished, when it closed, on October 14th, 1820, with a performance of “King Lear.”
I may remind the reader that such great exponents of the Thespian art, as Mrs. Abington, Miss Farren, Edwin, Elliston, Bannister, Henderson, and “Gentleman Lewis” have all acted at the original house; while the great names of Macready, Webster, and Buckstone, besides Sothern, the Bancrofts, Mr. Tree, and Mr. Cyril Maude in our own days, are among those closely associated with the present theatre.
It was of the Haymarket Theatre that the story is told that that inveterate punster H. J. Byron was once asked (I believe by Lady—then Mrs.—Bancroft) to give a motto to be placed over the pay-office, when he immediately suggested “So much for Booking ’em” as an appropriate heading!
SUFFOLK STREET.
Suffolk Street, running partly behind the play-house, is one of the older streets in this neighbourhood, having been formed in 1664, on the site once occupied by the town house of the Earls of Suffolk. Although the present street is relatively modern, its lines follow those of the older one. At its Pall Mall eastern corner stands the United University Club in its stately rebuilt magnificence, but the street is connected more intimately with Art than Letters, being the home of the Society of British Artists. Once it echoed to the tread of Swift, when he came to visit Vanessa, who for a time lodged here with her mother. Adam Smith was a former resident, as was Moll Davis, for whom the King furnished a house here, before her apotheosis in St. James’s Square hard by, as Pepys tells us; and when the Italian Corticelli had his town house here, frequented, in the days of George I., for raffles and assignations, the little thoroughfare must have presented a gay and gallant sight, with which its present-day solemn respectability cannot have much in common.