Although censorship and regulation by the Lord Chamberlain did not apply to the Isle of Man, visiting actors from ‘across’ performed their standard repertoire. A newspaper account in 1794 described performances which included Shakespeare, contemporary melodramas entitled The Road to Ruin and The Haunted Tower, The Beggar's Opera; and, only five years after its first production, The Critics by Sheridan. The three-month season ended with a concert, given with the aid of local amateurs, and a ball. Such repertoires prevailed for the next forty years: sometimes alongside such acts as ‘a lecture on heads and the Real Phantasmagoria’. The famous American dwarf named Rush appeared in 1805, admission being 6d for the gentry and 3d for servants. Most performances were in Douglas, but occasionally they were held in the smaller towns. The first known theatre was established by Captain Tenison circa 1788, and an account of an inept performance there to a disruptive audience by ‘some gentlemen of the place’ implies that it was by amateurs.

Some of the players spent some years in the Island, including Eliza Craven Green (see NINETEENTH-CENTURY LITERATURE). Actor-manager Moss, who at the end of an unsuccessful season in 1810 was imprisoned for debt, was described on his death elsewhere in 1817 as ‘a comedian well known in this Island’. Around 1822 John Newton's company, presented School for Scandal, Romeo and Juliet, Richard III, Macbeth, Rob Roy and The Miller and His Men; his Manx-born daughter was one of the players. Occasionally some actor is announced as having claim to metropolitan fame, such as a Mr De Camp of Drury Lane, but the most notable was Edmund Kean, who played the roles of Richard III, Hamlet, Othello and Shylock. In 1823 some ‘Gentlemen Amateurs’ set up a theatre, with shareholders and a committee. The proceeds were for charity and the 16 productions in 1824 included Othello and The Rivals. A pit seat cost 2s, and a box was 3s. Two years later its costumes and scenery were sold off to meet debts.

These amateur theatricals incurred the displeasure of local Nonconformists. On an earlier occasion there appears to have been official intervention when a visiting company were ‘prohibited from continuing their performances because the fishermen attributed the failure of the herring fishing to the holding of such vain amusements’.