‘Charms Often Sought – So Rarely Found!’: The Loves of David Garrick

About the talk

How excruciatingly dull David Garrick’s private life must have seemed to the scandal mongers of eighteenth-century England, not a jot of salaciousness to be found to ‘mock his own grinning’.

In the eyes of all, David Garrick was simply ‘a jolly decent individual,’ an outstanding actor, playwright, poet, innovator, entrepreneur, who fell in love with Shakespeare, the stage, and one or two women. There was his affair with the voluptuous Peg Woffington whom he loved passionately – even considered marriage before changing his mind. Then there was Austria’s premier ballerina, the beautiful Eva Maria, with whom, it is said, not a night was spent apart throughout their thirty-year marriage. But was that strictly true? And what about the supposed affair resulting in Garrick gaining a son? Perhaps there was more to this ordinary man than at first meets the eye.

About the speaker

Clive Francis is a successful caricaturist, playwright, and actor, having performed with both the RSC and the National Theatre and with over twenty performances in the West End. His most recent film appearances have been The Crown, Official Secrets and The Lost City of Z. He became involved with Garrick’s Temple to Shakespeare, of which he is now founder member of its restoration, back in 1998, when he helped raise the initial funding for its restoration. He also obtained, thanks to the British Library, a replica of the statue to Shakespeare by Louis François Roubiliac.