The proposal to build a theatre in Baldwin Street and extending to the back part of the Coopers Hall in King Street was formulated in 1764, by a group of influential citizens led by Alexander Edgar and Thomas Symons. There were 50 original subscribers, who each put up £50, and 47 of who later contributed a further £30. Additional subscribers contributed £1040, and the cost of the building in 1766 was something over £50,000 (equalling £350,000 in today's money)
Each £50 subscriber was given a numbered silver ticket admitting him and his successors without charge to The Sight of Every Performance to be exhibited in this House, though not necessarily a seat!
The Foundation Stone was laid on 30 November 1764. Thomas Paty superintended the building, and is usually regarded as the architect. However the Proprietors had obtained plans from a Mr Saunderson, the house carpenter of Drury Lane Theatre, and in the book The Theatre Royal Bristol 1766 − 1966 (Barker, 1974) Kathleen Barker is convinced that it is to him that we should attribute the design of the Theatre Royal.
We do not know what Drury Lane looked like in 1764, though clearly the intention was to use it as the model for Bristol. However, important deviations were made in the shape of the auditorium, which has a beautiful horse-shoe curve instead of Drury Lane's rectangle, and by the omission of a third tier or gallery. This curve, which was a new feature in an English Playhouse (as distinct from an opera house), was of great architectural importance; it became the model for future theatres.
In 1766 the accommodation consisted of two slip boxes above the proscenium doors, stage boxes, pit, a lower circle of nine boxes, and an upper circle, the centre of which was the gallery, with three boxes on either side of it. It was possible to book a whole box, or seats in a box, as shown in the unique seating plans of 1773/4 and 1729/30, which have survived. The total capacity was something over 1000 and the charges for the opening night on Friday 30th May 1776 were: Boxes 4s Pit, 2s 6d Gallery, 1s (= 20p, 12.5p, 5p in Decimal currency; and £14.00, £8.75, £3.50 in today's money)
The entrance to the theatre was through two 17th Century houses in King Street, purchased for the purpose: furtive and unimpressive compared to the beauty of the auditorium, but also as unobtrusive as possible for a building which without the necessary Royal Licence, was strictly speaking illegal. There could be no question in 1766 of any conspicuous facade, which might attract the unwelcome attention of the law.
To avoid prosecution, the opening performance in May 1766 was advertised as a Concert of Music and a specimen of Rhetorick which meant that after the prologue written by the century's most famous actor David Garrick, Steele's The Conscious Lovers and a farce The Miller of Mansfield were acted between the performances of the orchestra.
Various Puritan bodies (particularly strong in Bristol in the 18th Century) continued to oppose the Theatre on religious and moral grounds, but in 1778 George III's Royal Licence was granted, giving the Theatre its Royal title, and the right to display the Royal Arms.
A simple wooden portico supported by two widely-spaced Tuscan columns and with the Royal Arms as they were in 1778 was then added to the entrance, and remained the King Street facade until 1902.
The same arms now appear to the side of the Box Office in the main foyer and on the front of the upper circle in the main auditorium.
Appearing this month in 1996
Title: A Taste Of Honey Author: Shelagh Delaney