Theatre playbill or handbill for Theatre Royal, Drury Lane, Wednesday 3 October 1827.

His Majesty's Servants will perform a comedy of a Cure for the Heart Ache... To conclude with..Webee's Romantic Opera of Der Freischutz .... To-morrow the Tragedy of Douglas. Young Norval, Mr Kean, Jun. (his 2nd appearance on any stage) after which will be produced, a new musical farce, the Illustrious Stranger or Married and Buried....On Friday, Rob Roy... On Saturday, the Tragedy of Douglas... On Monday, the Tragedy of Douglas, and other entertainments.

We believe the Mr Kean, Jun. referred to is Charles Kean son of the celebrated actor Edmund Kean. We have found references online stating that Charles was only 16 at the time he made these performances. He did so because he had been offered good money to appear and there was a pressing need to support his mother who was ill and living in poverty. Apparently he received stinging criticism in the press for the very performances listed on this handbill.

Partially laid / stuck down on piece of backing paper. The handbill (excluding backing paper) measures about 31 cm x 16.5 cm.

Condition: printed on very thin paper and is therefore fragile and should be handled with care; has faded quite a lot in places but most of the text is still legible; piece missing along bottom edge leading to loss of some text including, presumably, the name and address of the printer; heavily creased; thinning of the paper (the lightbox photograph in the image gallery clearly shows this); some grubbiness to the backing paper; some comments in pencil on the backing paper and several crosses, in pencil, on the actual handbill; foxing / spotting / discolouration of the paper. Condition is subjective so please study the photographs carefully to make your own judgement.

The colours in the photographs will not be completely accurate due to variables in the photos or scans we use and individual computer settings.