George Jolly - Touring

Touring

Jolly still maintained his touring troupe; they remained successful at playing cities outside London — provided they didn't stay too long. In 1669 the city authorities of Norwich complained about Jolly to the King; the actors' popularity with the town's cloth workers had led Jolly to stay there for three months, and the town fathers were worried over his impact on the wool trade.

Jolly was left behind in one key development of Restoration dramaturgy: the use of scenery. The London patent companies built larger and more elaborate theatres for themselves, equipped with ever more advanced resources for the scenes and properties needed for the spectaculars of the era. Jolly's touring companies had to travel light, as the touring companies of English Renaissance theatre had done in previous generations. Jolly therefore preserved the last remant and vestige of the theatre of the previous age into the Restoration era.