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The Dictionary of Sydney
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Playbill from the Theatre, 30 July 1796

Playbill from the Theatre, 30 July 1796

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Advertising Culture and customs Sydney's lost theatres Theatre

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Sidaway's Theatre

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Lavell, Henry

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National Library of Australia

Advertising

Sydney is Australia's advertising capital and the relationship between the city and the advertising industry stretches back to the earliest years of European settlement. Advertising helped propel commercial activity in Sydney and the advertising industry has helped shape Sydney, illuminating the city's skyline and streetscape, and influencing the lives of all Sydneysiders. Moreover, advertising has promoted the city itself as a must-see destination for tourists or a backdrop for the latest blockbuster film.

Culture and customs

Sydney's pre-industrial culture was comprehensive and public, and most European inhabitants were players, performers or spectators. After 1850, distinct but overlapping cultures emerged, imported and adapted from Europe and America. New forms of cultural transmission after World War I enabled the elaboration of new cultures based on ethnicity, age and gender, which have combined to produce Sydney's cultural diversity.

Theatre

European theatre in Sydney began before the first Fleet made landfall, with a convict play on board the Scarborough. While theatre was always popular, a commercial theatre scene did not emerge until the 1830s, and theatrical fortunes rose and fell with the city's prosperity.

Sydney's lost theatres

Theatres operated on more than two dozen sites in Sydney in the period 1796 to the 1930s. Only two of these sites still function as commercial theatres today, indicating a significant loss of the city's cultural memory.

Advertising

Theatre

Sidaway's Theatre

Convict theatre that opened in Sydney in 16 January 1796, thought to have been either at Windmill Row (Prince Street), Bells Row (Bligh Street), or High (George) Street near Jamieson or Hunter Streets. It was built by 'some of the more decent class of prisoner' and 'fitted up the house with more theatrical propriety than could have been expected'. The building was probably a primitive timber slab-sided small hall or shed, possibly with a stepped floor, the pit would be the 'front box' over or behind, and a gallery. Convict Robert Sidaway was either the prime mover in it establishment, its owner or manager. Occasional performances were held until the arrival in 1800 of Governor King.

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Lavell, Henry

Convict Henry Lavell, or Lovell, arrived in Sydney on the Friendship in 1788. Convicted of theft and forgery in London in 1782, he had been sentenced to transportation to America for life but escaped before departure in the convict mutiny on the Mercury in 1784. Recaptured, he was transported to New South Wales. In early 1788, he and three of his fellow escapees were sentenced to death for stealing food, but only one, Thomas Barrett, was hanged. Given a reprieve, Lavell was sent to Pinchgut with Joseph Hall, until June. In 1790 he was sent to Norfolk Island, returning to Sydney in 1793. He was given an absolute pardon by Governor Hunter in 1798 and by 1801 had left the colony, apparently for England. In 1789 he had a son, James Lavello, with an Aboriginal woman, possibly named Borra Borra.

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