Abstract
The Theatres Act 1843 broke the control of the ‘legitimate’ drama exercised by Covent Garden, Drury Lane and the Haymarket, thus permitting other playhouses to present spoken drama. But it was some years before this opportunity was fully taken up — no new theatres were built in London between 1845 and 18661 — mainly because the working-class audiences attending the melodramas did not represent a financially attractive proposition for theatrical entrepreneurs. Gradually, however, from the late 1860s this began to change, and over twenty-five new theatres were built in London’s West End before the turn of the century, together with many others in the London suburbs and the provincial centres.
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