The Recruiting Officer, 1800

Playbill from Australia’s first theatre

The Recruiting Officer

This nondescript looking document is the earliest Australian playbill to have survived. It was discovered in Hobart tucked away in an issue of the Sydney Gazette and sold to David Scott Mitchell.

The playbill was printed on the Government Press which had been brought out on the First Fleet. The printer was George Hughes, our first printer, who also took part in both plays.

There was a last minute cast change for the second play—B. Smith has been replaced by D. Parnell.

The Recruiting Officer by George Farquhar, first performed in 1706, was one of the most popular plays in London in the eighteenth century. It is reputed to have been performed in Sydney in 1789—the first play staged in the Colony. The Virgin Unmasked is probably the play of that name by Henry Fielding, which dates from the 1730s.

It was said that theft increased in Sydney during these performances, as thieves took advantage of the absence of the audience from their homes.
Display item The Recruiting Officer, 1800

 

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