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By 1700, the townspeople must have been desperate for some ‘light entertainment’ but in 1728,<br />

an economic depression hit Plymouth, with shops emptying at an alarming rate. The town couldn’t<br />

afford to maintain paupers, let alone any travelling actors. The authorities were determined to<br />

discourage all tendencies to vice and immorality and any ‘actors of interludes’ were sentenced to<br />

prison with hard labour at ‘the pleasure of the Corporation’.<br />

The First Theatre<br />

Wars against the French brought prosperity back to Plymouth and the first theatre was built in two<br />

rooms in Hoegate Street (then Broad Hoe Lane) at the back of the Plymouth Gin distillery. A ‘lurid<br />

allegorical scene’ was performed at exactly 6.30pm every night (except Sundays I presume) and it<br />

was just the sort of disreputable heatre the authorities had feared. Of course, every show was a<br />

sell-out.<br />

This first theatre had no licence. All stage plays were banned by local statute, so the manager<br />

advertised the performances as concerts. But the people knew exactly what they were getting.<br />

In 1749, the Brandy Company performed The Beaux’ Strategem, a lewd comedy about two<br />

handsome but impoverished young men who seduce heiresses and steal their money. The Brandy<br />

Company were so called because the majority of the members drank themselves to death.<br />

Theatre had finally arrived in Plymouth!<br />

The Beaux Stratagem, performed<br />

in Plymouth in 1749<br />

Frankfort Gate<br />

By 1758, the theatre had outgrown its premises on Hoegate Street<br />

and they moved into three partly finished houses opposite<br />

Frankfort Gate. Fortunately they opened in good weather in June<br />

as the houses still had no roof. Within three weeks, the company<br />

had taken £1800 in ticket sales – an extraordinary sum for the time<br />

– and soon the new coach service from London was bringing in<br />

some renowned performers.<br />

The theatre changed hands, the new owner Miss Capdeville<br />

enchanting the crowds with her dances, often performed in men’s<br />

clothes - very risqué in the 18 th century. One popular play was The<br />

Revels of the Royal Volunteers of Plymouth, a satire on the<br />

manners of those ladies who accompanied the soldiers to their<br />

tents, with music offered by the Regimental band. Base pleasures<br />

indeed. ‘Grace’ and ‘Virtue’ took to the stage, but they were the<br />

names of characters, not the characteristics of the play.<br />

Mr Bernard and Mr Barrett became joint owners of this Plymouth Theatre and Mr Bernard was<br />

renowned for introducing a fresh ‘wife’ into polite local society at the start of every season.<br />

Of the actresses, Mrs Bradshaw was the most popular, but she met a tragic end. She’d adopted<br />

a daughter and scandalous rumours spread that the girl was in fact her illegitimate child. While<br />

performing in Plymouth, she discovered the gossip and broke down during a dance. The<br />

audience hissed her and Mrs Bradshaw was seized with fits on stage then carried home to die<br />

insane.<br />

The actress Mrs Sumbell, was not so affected by propriety. When George III visited Plymouth in<br />

1789, she sat astride a gun on the deck of her boat belting out “God Save the King” to the<br />

cheers of spectators.

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