The 1789 mutiny on the ‘Bounty’, and the subsequent settlement of Pitcairn Island by the mutineers was an event that caught the British imagination. News of the ‘Bounty’ mutiny reached England the following year. In 1808, American Captain Mayhew Folger discovered the mutineers on Pitcairn, but it was not until September 1814 that two British ships rediscovered the island and its community. Two years later on 20 April 1816, the performance described in this broadsheet took place. Its first performance at the Theatre Royal Drury Lane was “honoured with unanimous Applause throughout”. This broadsheet is for the third performance of the season. Reviewers loved the dresses, the scenery and the dancing, but exclaimed that they “could not for our lives conceive how the pirouettes and scientific movements of professed opera-dancers … could have been acquired by the demi-savage islanders”
Theatre Royal Drury Lane :This present Saturday April 20 1816, Their Majesties’ servants will perform (4th time) a new romantick operatick Ballet Spectacle, ... "Pitcairn's Island" ... composed by and produced under the direction of Mr Byrne; the vocal and melo-dramatick musick composed and compiled by Mr M Corri ... after which (19th time) a new farce, called "What next?" to which will be added (2d time these 20 years) the musical farce called "The two misers" [1816]
Eph-D-BRITISH-THEATRE-1816-01