From Opera Dancer to Nabob's wife...

In Regency times, the theatre was a popular pastime for people from all walks of life. In London, on any given night, as many as 20,000 people might be attending a show.

It wasn’t always so. When the Earl of Dartmouth became Lord Chancellor in 1804, he granted licences for several theatres to open within the City of Westminster. Prior to that, the theatregoers within the city had been much more restricted in their choices. And thus, audience numbers were much smaller.

Even now, there were privileges granted to the “patent houses,” the longer established theatres at Covent Garden, Drury Lane, and the Haymarket. The new theatres were licenced on condition they did not infringe on the rights of the patent houses, and these three theatres were still the only ones allowed to offer regular drama. (Drama using spoken prose rather than music and dancing.)

Nonetheless, the patent houses felt the threat of the newer theatres and fought back by increasing the entertainment on offer. By 1818, it wasn't unusual for a night at the theatre to be five or six hours long, involving two full length plays, an after-piece, and a variety show.

The minor theatres, not permitted to put on, “proper plays,” offered Melodrama, which was then a three act play with music, rather than the schmaltzy tearjerkers the name implies today, and Burletta.

Burletta, from the Italian for, “little joke,” was the name given to a type of brief comic opera. It was the forerunner of both the light opera of Gilbert and Sullivan, and of the farces of the 20th century. It needed to be colourful, loud, and arresting, as it had to compete with audience members who often talked loudly enough to drown out the performers, and who came and went at will, throughout the show.

One way of capturing the attention of the more rowdy elements in the stalls, who were, almost exclusively men, was to use dancers. Now, we’d call them chorus girls, but in Regency times they were more popularly known as opera dancers.

The original opera dancers were as respected and famous as the singers and actors with whom they shared the stage. By Regency times, however, the term had become more generic, and the dancers, particularly in the minor theatres, were often seen as morally loose women. Indeed, some dancers did augment their wages by selling their favours. Many dreamed of attracting a wealthy patron, who would then set them up as his mistress, giving them a life of luxury they could otherwise only dream of.

For most, though, dancing was a job, one of the few ways a woman could earn a living, especially if other jobs, such as shop working, were closed to her.

This is why Alice, the heroine of, “Acting the Nabob,” has joined the dancers at the theatre. Whilst working as a seamstress she attracted a stalker, which caused her not only to lose that job, but made it impossible to find respectable employment anywhere else. The theatre has become her only means of earning enough to live.

When her feckless brother tries to sell her to her stalker, the acting skills she has learned in the theatre enable her to escape, alongside Ben, the company's leading actor. Ben has a mission of his own, for which he must impersonate his nabob cousin.

Overnight, Alice goes from opera dancer to Nabob’s wife, in a role that just might change her life.

Acting the Nabob is published by The Wild Rose Press, and can be found at most online retailers, as well as here.