Dancing at the Royalty: Staging Dance at an Irregular Theatre in 1787-8

The Royalty Theatre, near the Tower of London, was designed as the first regular theatre to be built in Lonon for over fifty years. It had excellent sight lines and a stage that was wider and longer than that of the King’s Theatre Opera House. Despite every effort of the actor-manager John Palmer, however, it was not allowed to stage spoken drama and was confined to musical pieces. Singers and actors capable of mime were of prime importance, but dancing too was essential and figured in every evening’s programme. Palmer placed very full daily advertisements in the newspapers and these, together with reviews and news items, give much information about the performers and the way in which the pieces were staged. The beauty and effectiveness of the scenery was often commented on, as was the impressive staging, on which no expense appeared to be spared, although the theatre’s finances were not on a firm footing. This paper will investigate the part that dancing played in the theatre’s programmes.

Olive Baldwin and Thelma Wilson have written extensively on 17th and 18th-century singers and theatre performers for musical periodicals and for New Grove and the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. Recent articles and papers include ‘Mistresses of Dancing-schools in Edinburgh, 1755 to 1814’ (Historical Dance, 2022); ‘John Hindmarsh, 1758‒1796, Violinist and Viola player’ (Early Music Performer, December 2022); ‘Dancing Sailors and their costumes’ (Oxford, 2023); ‘Little Braham: the Apprenticeship Years of a Great Singer’ (A Handbook for Studies in 18th-Century English Music, 2023) and ‘Honest Jo Priest and his school at Chelsea’ (Early Music Performer and Research, 2024).