ABSTRACT
Provincial cities were both more aware of London culture and more able to evolve their own cultural amenities, which meant that provincial theatre was always more than a pale copy of what happened in the capital. The provincial company certainly received a short-term gain from all this, but also perhaps some longer-term problems. The richer Bath-Bristol circuit company travelled by long coaches called ‘caterpillars’ which could hold twelve persons as well as the luggage. The circuit based in York in the 1750s included Beverley and sometimes, strangely, Newcastle-upon-Tyne, but later it became more settled with Beverley retained alongside Leeds, Pontefract, Wakefield, Doncaster and Hull. Circuits were encouraged by improvements in travel and by the development of municipal authorities. The York circuit managed by Tate Wilkinson is the best-known example of this, partly because in 1795 Wilkinson published four volumes of memoirs, The Wandering Patentee.
