English Theatricals

The name given to the Garrison amateur theatre group in Cape Town prior to 1819. After 1823 however it was used to indicate the civilian amateurs – largely organised from within the civil service – while the garrison group was called the Amateur Company (also known as the Garrison Players or Garrison Amateur Company), and the two apparently competed heavily with one another for audiences, also for use of the African Theatre. Their first production independent of the garrison amateurs was in the African Theatre during Race Week 1823, with Colman’s Ways and Means and O’Keefe’s Modern Antiques. After a few active years, dwindled in 1825, though a group called the English Comedy put on shows in 1826. Possibly re-emerged as the later English Theatrical Amateur Company in 1828, and - according to Du Toit (1988), again revived briefly between 1834 and 1838 as the Private Theatre Company.