David Garrick (play)

David Garrick is a comic play written in 1864 by Thomas William Robertson about the famous 18th-century actor and theatre manager, David Garrick.

The play premiered at the Prince of Wales Theater in Birmingham, where it was successful enough to be moved to the Haymarket Theatre in London, on 30 April 1864. It was a major success for the actor Edward Askew Sothern, who played the title role, but came later to be associated with the actor Charles Wyndham. The play was designed as a star vehicle, since the principal actor has to portray David Garrick himself as an actor giving a performance. A scene from the play was painted by Edward Matthew Ward, a friend of Sothern's.

The play was Robertson's first major commercial success and was frequently revived throughout the Victorian era and beyond. Several silent films were made based on David Garrick, including versions in 1913 (starring Seymour Hicks and Ellaline Terriss), 1914 and 1916. A 1923 book, Public Speaking Today, recommends it for performance by high school students alongside The Importance of Being Earnest and The Rivals. In 1922, the play was adapted as a comic opera by Reginald Somerville and played at the Queen's Theatre.

The play was evidently written in 1856, after Robertson saw a French theatre troupe performing Sullivan; but the new play was rejected by every theatre manager Robertson took it to. He sat on it for many years, then eventually showed it to Sothern, who took interest in the project. Reportedly, as Sothern read the play aloud to his manager John Buckstone –

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