ABSTRACT
Toy theatres were hugely popular kits, sold outside theatres or at stationers’ or similar shops, or even at concession stands inside a theatre foyer, for fifty years from the early nineteenth century. They consisted of vivid pictures of popular plays printed on paperboard sheets, to be cutout, assembled and ‘performed’ at home. A set included a stage, proscenium arch, scenery and costumed characters in dramatic poses, as well as sometimes an abbreviated script to be used in performance. In the second half of the nineteenth century, as dramatic fashions changed and the grand acting associated with Edmund Kean and his contemporaries was seen less and less often, toy theatres fell out of favour. The last producer was probably John Redington of Hoxton, whose daughter married Benjamin Pollock in 1876. Pollock took over the business which he ran until his death in 1937.
