The Masons host Hamlet

This is an “at home” – or private - production of Hamlet staged for a local Freemason's group in the spring of 1820.

The playbill is adorned with Masonic emblems such as the compass. Some Lodges and rituals use these symbols as a way to denote good conduct: for example Masons should learn to "circumscribe their desires and keep their passions within due bounds toward all mankind".

Shakespeare alludes to the organisation in several of his plays and there is some speculation – but no evidence - that he may have been a Freemason.

Mr Flemmington, who is organising and appearing in many of the entertainments, may have been too. In Hamlet, he plays the role of Polonius. The main advisor to the King and the father of Laertes and Ophelia, Polonius is a busy-body, officious, and talks too much. The audiences would recognise the type. Asked to spy on Prince Hamlet, his report back is far from concise.

Polonius:
My liege, and madam, to expostulate
What majesty should be, what duty is,
What day is day, night night, and time is time,
Were nothing but to waste night, day, and time;
Therefore, since brevity is the soul of wit,
And tediousness the limbs and outward flourishes,
I will be brief. Your noble son is mad. . . .

The actor turns his garrulousness to comic effect again later in the evening in his “Lecture on Ventriloquy”.

Polonius-like he proclaims that he can hold a conversation “with three persons at the same time”.

After this marvel Mr Flemmington is back on stage to deliver Mr. Mathews's celebrated Entertainment, as now performed by him in London with unprecedented Attraction and Applause, entitled “A Call to the House or Mail Coach Adventures”

By now the audience would be on the edge of their seats!

However it was a familiar theme to spectators well used to travelling in this uncomfortable and sometimes dangerous way – in fact the railway did not come to Taunton till 1842.

Finally the audience are sent home with a smile on their faces after watching a “Laughable Bagatelle” called “The Delicate Dandy”.

In the same way that stars from the London theatres toured the main cities, Somerset looks to Bristol to welcome the actress Miss Wensley.

Full Miss Wensley playbill. With permission of The British Library

Miss Wensley is playing the part of Rosalind in As You Like it having already played in London’s famous Covent Garden, as well as ‘her native city, Bristol’.

It’s early April in 1820 and Taunton Theatre is, like many smaller provincial towns from the time, attempting to establish itself as a mainstream theatre venue, just as other major towns and cities were starting to be awarded rights to establish their very own Theatre Royal.

From the early part of the 18th century onwards, theatre productions had been tightly controlled by Government. Only a handful of theatres were awarded official patents until the later part of the century when we see the beginning of provincial ‘Theatres Royal’ – the first of which was the Theatre Royal in Bath in 1768.