Retitled 'Two Views of a Cheap Theatre' in collected editions of the series
The 'cheap theatre' in question was the Britannia Theatre on Old Street, Hoxton, which had been entirely rebuilt by its owner Samuel Lane in 1858. On its former incarnation,the 'Britannia Saloon', Dickens had already reported in 1850 (['The Amusements of the People [i]' and 'The Amusements of the People [ii]', HW, Vol. I, 30 March and 13 April 1850] see Vol. 2 of [the Dent Uniform Edition of Dickens' Journalism], Item 41). For a comprehensive history of the theatre's construction and management, see Jim Davis's The Britannia Diaries, 1863–75 (1992). According to Dickens's former HW colleague John Hollingshead, the theatre became 'familiar to most theatrical people and to many others' through the publication of this essay (My Lifetime, 1895; Vol. I, p. 33).
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