The Coopers' Hall was built in 1744 and was used as a commercial school, dancing academy, saleroom, lecture hall and tumbling performances. In the late autumn of 1772 Laurence Kennedy and John Booth’s strolling company advertised ‘Concerts of Music with divers Specimens of Elocution’. They offered impressively assorted performances at the Hall which were widely attended. At this point, theatres were still restricted by law and, when the Company returned to Bristol after a summer in London in 1773, all the leading actors were arrested. In 1778, however, the Company gained a Patent which allowed them to perform all the year round.
Later, the Hall also hosted shows by the conjurors Philip Breslaw and Palatine. Italian Fantoccini (marionettes), April 1781 performed Kane O’Hara’s musical play Midas. The Harlequin puppet who could ‘bring a Bottle of Wine in one Hand a Glass in the other, pour the Wine from the Bottle into the Glass and drink it as natural as living Man to the Surprise of the Spectators’ gained particular notice in Sarah Farley’s Bristol Journal.
