ABSTRACT
Samuel Pepys gives the impression that Restoration theatre audiences were almost exclusively made up of courtiers, gallants and wits, with a few delightful and pretty women present for the gallants’ pleasure. Whatever the social composition of the audience, theatregoing was a minority occupation. Spectators arrived at the theatre, paid at the door and received a ticket to the appropriate part of the auditorium. Shadwell gives a more brutal insight into the theatregoing experience in A True Widow. The playwright Thomas Otway drew on Sir John Churchill, later the Duke of Marlborough, in the theatre when he thought the latter had insulted Orange Betty. The Restoration theatre was a special world for the playgoer. For the first performance of a play, entrance was probably a little more complicated, for ticket prices were higher and first performances always set the town talking.
