Harlequin Empire: Race, Ethnicity and the Drama of the Popular Enlightenment will explore the presentation of other cultures on the British stage during the long eighteenth century, with emphasis on the period after 1750. It will particularly concentrate on popular or plebeian forms of drama such as harlequinade, pantomime, burletta and spectacle which developed outside London's royal theatres, Covent Garden, Drury Lane and the Haymarket. The popularity of theatre is not in doubt. As far as the British context is concerned, the mechanism for the distribution of theatrical performance was enabled by the networks of metropolitan and provincial playhouses, theatrical circuits and groups of strolling players which are the subject of Chapter 1. Some overall idea of the scale of Georgian period theatricality can be briefly stated.

Audience sizes for George Colman the Younger's Inkle and Yarico (1787) in the decade following its first performance at the Haymarket probably approached around one million. Performed at least fourteen times at the 1,800 capacity Hay-market (which was limited by its short summer season), Inkle and Yarico was quickly taken up by the 3,000 seat Covent Garden and, by 1788, had reached the English provincial theatrical circuits where seating capacities probably averaged around 1,000 persons. It was still being performed in Scarborough, Yorkshire, in 1830. In just two seasons at Covent Garden, 1788–90, it was performed twenty-four times. Assuming two-thirds full houses, this implies audiences at that theatre of around 48,000 persons. It was still being performed in Scarborough, Yorkshire, in 1830. In just two seasons at Covent Garden, 1788–90, it was performed twenty-four times. Assuming two-thirds full houses, this implies audiences at that theatre of around 48,000 persons. By 1794, it had been performed and printed in Boston, Massachusetts. For most people, Inkle and Yarico would have been their primary point of contact with literary expressions of anti-slavery sentiment. In provincial England it was immediately recognized ‘as capable of writing a petition for the abolition of the slave-trade as any of those associated bodies who have taken so much pains for that laudable purpose’, although its place as a vehicle for disseminating abolitionist sentiment has been ignored by modern historians of slavery.