ABSTRACT
From The Daily Journal Nos 5881 (29 December 1736), 5919 (11 February 1737) and 5938 (5 March 1737). These theatrical criticisms were signed ‘The Occasional Prompter’. The ‘Shakespeare Club’ referred to in the first piece existed between 1736 and 1738 in order to promote the appreciation of Shakespeare (see E.L.Avery, Shakespeare Quarterly VII (1956), pp. 153-8). The adaptation discussed in the third piece is The Universal Passion, by James Miller, performed at Drury Lane on 28 February 1737. It is a conflation of Much Ado with Molière’s La Princesse d’Elide.
