Sheridan, Richard Brinsley

Sheridan, Richard Brinsley (1751–1816), English dramatist, theatre manager, and politician, whose best play, The School for Scandal, stands as the masterpiece of the English comedy of manners, with all the wit but none of the licentiousness of the Restoration comedy from which it derives. Sheridan, the son of an actor, Thomas Sheridan (1721–88), and a writer, Frances [née Chamberlaine] (1724–66), whose plays The Discovery and The Dupe were produced by Garrick (both in 1763), was born in Dublin, educated at Harrow, and intended for the law. But after contracting a romantic marriage with a singer he settled in London and had his first play, The Rivals, produced at Covent Garden in 1775. This was followed later in the same year by a farce, St Patrick's Day; or, The Scheming Lieutenant, and a comic opera, The Duenna. In 1776 Sheridan bought Garrick's share in Drury Lane Theatre, which he rebuilt in 1794, remaining in charge there until its destruction by fire in 1809, always in financial difficulties. His later plays, all produced at Drury Lane, include A Trip to Scarborough, altered from Vanbrugh's The Relapse, and The School for Scandal (both 1777); The Critic; or, A Tragedy Rehearsed (1779), the best of the many burlesques stemming from Buckingham's The Rehearsal and the only one to have been constantly revived; and in 1799, when he had practically deserted the theatre for politics, Pizarro, an adaptation of a popular drama by Kotzebue. Sheridan was also part-author of several entertainments and wrote the pantomime Robinson Crusoe for Drury Lane in 1781 as an after-piece to The Winter's Tale. He exploited to the full the popular taste for spectacle and pantomime, helped by the scenic artist Philip de Loutherbourg, and all his plays were produced with remarkable scenic effects and lavish costumes. His management of Drury Lane was marked by a succession of quarrels with the managers of the smaller theatres—Astley's, Sadler's Wells, the new Royalty—whose success alarmed him, and he was often instrumental in embroiling his rivals with the authorities. His last years were unhappy, and he never recovered from the destruction of Drury Lane.