200 years ago this week in the Theatre Royal Norwich there was a performance of the play Paul Pry on 20 May 1826. The theatre had reopened in late March 1826, so this performance advertised in the Norwich Mercury would have been one of the first in the new shiny building.
Paul Pry was a comedy that had become the theatrical sensation of the decade, so it’s not a surprising choice that Norwich Theatre Royal made to put it on. The play, written by John Poole and first performed in 1825, had become something of a public obsession, like an early day Inbetweeners. Well, maybe not quite like that and more like Ever Decreasing Circles, but the catchphrase “I hope I don’t intrude” became a popular refrain that lingered in the national vocabulary for some time. By the time this play was put on the audience knew at least what they were getting.
The character of Paul Pry is fundamentally unlikeable and a man without boundaries or self-awareness. For this performance, the provincial theatre here in Norwich was nicely on-trend, the cultural excitement had moved fast in the days before the railways had reached the city. There’s a pub called Paul Pry in Rayleigh in Essex which is a reminder of this piece of cultural excitement, although it’s operated by Greene King so I won’t add anything further on that. I can’t see that the play is performed any more, but perhaps there’s a need for a comeback at some point….