Richard Brinsley Sheridan, playwright and theatre owner, was elected an MP for Stafford in 1780, promising to represent his constituents. In making this pledge, Sheridan was claiming the persona of an English parliamentarian. Yet Sheridan probably considered himself as at least partly Irish and knew that he was working within the contradictions and of the Irish diaspora. This chapter re-examines Sheridan’s comedies, suggesting ways in which the mutability of personality central to The School for Scandal can be read in terms of Sheridan’s own multiple loyalties. Identity is never merely a matter of playful slippage. Cultural and political realities demand singular commitments. A test came for Sheridan in 1785 when William Pitt presented his Irish propositions, seeking to regulate trade with Ireland. The proposals prompted protest in the English regions, notably the manufacturing districts, including Staffordshire. To appease his opponents Pitt altered his scheme in ways injurious to Ireland. The evolution of this debate placed unique pressure on the Irish-born member for Stafford. By examining Sheridan’s leading role in these debates, it is possible to come to a new understanding, not only of Sheridan’s predicament but also of how The School for Scandal evolved in a period of crisis.

One of the works of the 1764 season at Covent Garden was a new burletta called Midas. Midas was, though, not ‘new’; it was only new to London: an early version of the work had its first staging privately in 1760 in Lurgan near Belfast, and the first professional version was at Dublin’s Crow Street Theatre in 1762. The professional version was prepared in response to the appearance in Dublin of an Italian burletta company, a company that had previously performed in London and would do so again after its Dublin engagement. This interplay of repertory between the two cities - of which Midas was the most obvious product - resulted both in a new genre and a tangling with Italian opera troupes. Midas was the product of a group of Irishmen, of whom Kane O’Hara, the librettist, was the most important and the most enigmatic; this chapter explores his role in the cross-currents of drama between the two cities. In so doing, Burden’s chapter re-contextualises the history of the burletta and offers a powerful demonstration that theatre historians cannot and should not write about London’s theatre in isolation: regional influences were important tributaries to the Georgian capital’s culture.