Liberty-Hall, or A Test of Good Fellowship

Liberty-Hall, or A Test of Good Fellowship is a comic opera in two acts by Charles Dibdin the Elder (1745 - 1814)[1]

Also found as Liberty Hall or Liberty-Hall in various sources.

Not to be confused with R.C. Carton's 4 act play Liberty Hall

The original text

First performed at the Theatre Royal in Drury-Lane, London, on 8 February, 1785. First published by G. Kearsley,1785.

One reviewer ("Baker"), impressed with the production, stated that "(A) hint for the plot is taken from Fielding's The Intriguing Chambermaid"[2], referring to the two-act comedy first performed at the Theatre-Royal in Drury-Lane in 1750, and in its turn taken from a French play by Regnard.

Translations and adaptations

Performance history in South Africa

1895: According to F.C.L. Bosman (1880, p.401), this was the play performed as Liberty Hall by Edward Sass and his Gaiety Company, under the auspices of the Wheeler Company, as part of a season of eight plays with which they toured the cities, inter alia appearing at the Opera House, Cape Town, from 1 June. However this may possibly have been Liberty Hall by Carton (1892)

Sources

"Liberty-Hall" on Great Writers Inspire, Oxford University [3]

http://www.eighteenthcenturydrama.amdigital.co.uk/Documents/Details/HL_LA_mssLA688

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Dibdin

Rand Daily Mail (various issues)

D.C. Boonzaier, 1923. "My playgoing days – 30 years in the history of the Cape Town stage", in SA Review, 9 March and 24 August 1932. (Reprinted in Bosman 1980: pp. 374-439.)

F.C.L. Bosman. 1980. Drama en Toneel in Suid-Afrika, Deel II, 1856-1912. Pretoria: J.L. van Schaik: p.401

Go to ESAT Bibliography