Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Theatre Royal, Drury Lane

Theatre Royal, Drury Lane
Self-nom, largely, with a good deal of help from Bishonen and Ganymead. Peer Review. From the English Restoration until maybe the late 1800s, this London landmark was one of the most important theatres in the English-speaking world, and, still standing today (although it has been rebuilt three times), it is in some sense one of the oldest more-or-less-continuously operating theatres in the world. The article attempts to comprehensively cover the architecture, management, history, and notable performers and performances over 350 years. &mdash;Bunchofgrapes (talk) 17:48, 29 April 2006 (UTC)


 * Support. Generally excellent. There are a lot of red links, but since I've never heard of Bishonen to actually work on a normal topic I'm not really surprised. RyanG e rbil10 22:26, 29 April 2006 (UTC)
 * Conditional support. It's an outstanding article, but the footnotes require some formatting cleanup.  Some have periods at the end, some don't; some sources aren't listed in the "References" section but just have a full citation directly in the footnote; "Ibid." is inconsistenly capitalized (and shouldn't, as far as I know, be italicized); and so forth. Kirill Lok s  h in 23:57, 29 April 2006 (UTC)
 * I agree with all of that -- and will get to work fixing it -- except for "some sources aren't listed in the "References" section but just have a full citation directly in the footnote", which is intentional: sources referred to just once get listed in a footnote; sources cited multiple times are listed under References. As it so happens, this generally works out to put those sources which serve as more general-purpose references on the topic under "references"; also a good thing. Let me know if you really think that doing it this way is inappropriate or confusing. &mdash;Bunchofgrapes (talk) 01:53, 30 April 2006 (UTC)
 * It's probably just personal preference. The advantage of listing all the sources—including those only used once—in a bibliography is that it allows one to examine the quality of the references more easily than by hunting through the entire notes section; but the number of footnotes in this case is small enough that it's probably not a problem to do it the other way. Kirill Lok s  h in 02:02, 30 April 2006 (UTC)
 * I've made the periods at the end consistent, and have eliminated all "ibid"s, since, as someone recently pointed out to me, they run the risk of "breaking" as editing continues on the page. &mdash;Bunchofgrapes (talk) 02:04, 30 April 2006 (UTC)


 * Support: The attempt itself is bold, and the achievement is notable.  Bunchofgrapes had to get the microscopic knowledge of numerous editors and combine that with his own researches and hammer away, making the thing work, making each century proportional.  Instead of not providing the expert information found in Bishonen's and my articles, Bunchofgrapes did specialist research on all the other eras and managed in a short time to accumulate and communicate exact and careful information on the life of the theatre.  Very well done (and I was practically no help to the article).  Geogre 12:07, 30 April 2006 (UTC)
 * Such kind words, George, thank you! &mdash;Bunchofgrapes (talk) 18:22, 30 April 2006 (UTC)
 * Support. Nice theater-cruft; I tried to find flaws and couldn't. Everyking 08:42, 2 May 2006 (UTC)
 * Yay! &mdash;Bunchofgrapes (talk) 15:20, 2 May 2006 (UTC)
 * Support. Ahhhhh, what a pleasure to read. My own contribution to this lovely article has been miniscule, so I feel quite comfortable with supporting it. It's full of the most enticing cruft, and is well-proportioned and very well illustrated. I'm fascinated by the gorgeous painting of Drury Lane burning in 1809 bigger! make the image bigger! .Bishonen | talk 11:52, 2 May 2006 (UTC).
 * Subliminal hint taken. I find most everything about the 1794–1809 theatre disproportionately fascinating. It would be tempting to write a sub-article on it alone. &mdash;Bunchofgrapes (talk) 15:20, 2 May 2006 (UTC)
 * Brinsley Sheridan stood watching the fire with a glass of sherry in his hand. When people asked him how he could stand there so calmly, he said, "Can't a man enjoy a glass of sherry by his fire in peace?"  If I could find a source for that anecdote, I'd have suggested it.  Geogre 03:39, 3 May 2006 (UTC)
 * You should do one on all the versions of the theatre. Everyking 03:29, 3 May 2006 (UTC)
 * Support: Very excellent article! --Slgrandson 14:51, 2 May 2006 (UTC)
 * Support Nice article.--Dwaipayan (talk) 15:48, 2 May 2006 (UTC)
 * Support, but one comment: What is "legitimate drama"? Is there a difference between legitimate drama and other kinds of drama?  (In other words, if other theaters couldn't show legitimate drama at the time, did they only show comedies, farces, or...?) -- E lkman - (talk) 16:54, 2 May 2006 (UTC)
 * It depended a lot on the period. The boundries were always being tested. I believe one of the most common loopholes was to put a few musicians on-stage and have them play a bit of music now and then during the performance (as opposed to only during the intermission) -- this made the show into something other than a drama, an opera perhaps. I will see if I can find anything succinct yet supportable to say about this, though I think trying to nail down the definition may be more crucial for patent theatre than for this article. &mdash;Bunchofgrapes (talk) 17:02, 2 May 2006 (UTC)
 * "Legitimate" = legal, not just "good." The legitimate theater is theater that won't get you busted and thrown in Newgate.  There were always productions being done at irregular sites and plays that shouldn't be performed, and there were some longstanding cases of salutory neglect.  For example, the various fairs had plays put on, but these were not, strictly speaking, legal.  The authorities tended to ignore them.  (Imagine trying an arrest of players in the middle of Bartholomew Fair, and you'll see why.)  You could throw up some planks and lay down a cloth and act, but you could be prosecuted for it.  The patent theaters were the ones that had permission to put on plays.  A consequence of this legitimacy is that the illegitimate theaters put on lower quality plays with slapdash values, and thus "legitimate theater" began to mean "good theater."  Geogre 03:37, 3 May 2006 (UTC)
 * Further explanation: the default position was "plays are illegal." Coming out of the Interregnum and the closing of all theatres, putting on a play needed special permission.  Even in Shakespeare's day, there were serious laws against "strolling," and players were considered vagrants, for the most part, or worse.  Geogre 12:34, 3 May 2006 (UTC)
 * Ah, I see now. Actually, now that I read more closely, it says it was a patent theatre that was entitled to show "legitimate drama".  Maybe a little more introduction would be warranted for people who aren't familiar with the subject matter.  -- E lkman - (talk) 03:39, 3 May 2006 (UTC)
 * Support-We need more articles that support the Classics in this day of "If it wasn't made 3 Seconds Ago, its no good! --Ghirla -трёп- 10:44, 3 May 2006 (UTC)
 * Support: Very interesting and informative. One minor point. Can't some of those numerous refs be doubled up into "a" "b" "c" etc.  I don't know how to do it, but ALoan does. Giano | talk 12:46, 3 May 2006 (UTC)
 * I see the phenomenon of me never knowing when you are joking continues, Giano. See my most recent thoughts on abcd etc. &mdash;Bunchofgrapes (talk) 14:57, 3 May 2006 (UTC)
 * I wasn't joking! I thought someone has instituted a policy on all these sodoku like numbers all over the place? Giano | talk 16:36, 3 May 2006 (UTC)