Macklin in the Theatre, the Courts, and the News

In an age that is justifiably notorious for its colourful approaches to journalism and theatrical criticism alike, Charles Macklin was frequently the subject of newswriting and reviewing due to his innovative acting, his querulousness, and finally for the simple fact of his extraordinarily long public life. From his 1735 murder trial for killing another actor and his consequential taste for litigiousness to his famous portrayal of Shylock (1741 onwards), to the surprising number of biographies that followed his death in 1797, Macklin was often, and often intentionally, the subject of newswriting. His quarrels with powerful theatre managers like David Garrick and Charles Fleetwood were personal, but also understood in print as emblematic of broad, high-stakes cultural battles. Macklin’s experience with periodical writing underscores the similarly performative and combative—and hence, mutually instructive—tendencies of actors and periodicals in the eighteenth century.