ABSTRACT
In 1810 the London theatre was brought to a standstill by rioting members of the Covent Garden audience, who demanded that the management return the prices of admission to what they had been before the catastrophic fire of 1808. Among the radicals tried and acquitted of treason in 1794 was the actor and playwright Thomas Holcroft, a singular force in the creation of a new kind of theatre. The Aquatic theatre was taken over in 1803 by a syndicate including the scene painter, Robert Andrews, Charles Dibdin Jr and others, and a new regime was instituted, with Dibdin leading the company in prayers before each performance. Perhaps the only theatre proper in the late eighteenth century which challenged the status quo was the Royalty. Meanwhile, in 1791 Charles Dibdin opened another small theatre, the Sans Souci, in the Polygraphic Society Rooms on the Strand.
