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Go To The The-A-Tre/don't Go


RichardB

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From Centenary of Sheffield Lit. & Phil.

A contrast to the sedate literary tea parties was afforded

by the annual gathering of the ' Shakespeare Club,' a masculine

institution. The association of the latter with the theatre — at

which a play was always 'bespoken' and attended by the

members — would not have appealed to some of the tea party

coterie. The meeting of the Club, too, took place around the

festive board at the 'Tontine Inn' or the 'Angel,' and was

the occasion for inumerable toasts.

The origin of the Club, as disclosed at their first meeting in 1819, was an attack upon

theatrical performances in a sermon by the Rev. Thomas Best,

the recently appointed vicar of St. James's. His sermon

against the stage became an annual fixture.

The vicar of Sheffield, the Rev. Thomas Sutton, was more tolerant, and the

' wags ' of the day asserted that the Parish Church bells rang

out, in merry cadence,

"go-to-the-the-a-tre, go-to-the-the-a-tre,"

to which those of St. James's Cluirch, over the way, sternly replied

"don't go, don't go."

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