The Theatre Royal, Windsor, which has been closed since 1866 for the purpose of making certain alterations and improvements to meet the requirements of the Lord Chamberlain, was opened on Wednesday night by the Windsor Strollers for their ninth season, two performances having been announced for Wednesday and Friday nights, and an extra performance on Thursday in consequence of the great demand for tickets. The success of the Windsor Strollers on this occasion has been beyond all precedent. They have on each successive appearance on the Windsor boards so increased their reputation as a highly-talented company of amateurs, that they may always safely calculate upon receiving the most hearty welcome at the little theatre of the Royal borough. But, on their present reappearance, there was a double reason for the encouraging patronage awarded to them. Their own merits would at all times have been sufficient to secure a large attendance; but the present occasion was a sort of commemoration of the opening of the theatre, which, under the spirited proprietorship of Mr. Fremantle, has undergone a complete transformation since the last performances in 1866. The general effect of the interior is pleasing in the extreme, and the accommodation in all parts of the house is most complete, and in every respect satisfactory. The drop scene, representing a view of the Long Walk, with Windsor Castle in the distance and a body of Life Guards on the march, reflects much credit on the painter, Mr. W. Calcott; and on the lifting of the curtain on Wednesday evening, there was a loud burst of applause, which testified to the extent which this familiar scene, so accurately and skillfully represented on canvas, pleased the audience.
The theatre was completely filled in every part — pit, dress circle, boxes, and gallery. The ordinary dress circle and the pit — the latter portion of the house, in which elegant arm-chairs were substituted for the ordinary pit seats, being reserved as an accessory to the dress circle — presented a scene of great brilliancy, all the company being in full dress, the variegated colours of which, together with the extreme elegance of the ornamentation of the theatre, combining to present a scene of gaiety which had hardly ever been equalled in the experience of the Strollers...
The concluding piece was the screaming farce “To Paris and Back for Five Pounds,” in which Mr. A. Ricardo made the fun “fast and furious” by his inimitable humour as Mr. Samuel Snozzle, who arrives at Dover with an excursion ticket to Paris, to join his sweetheart, Fanny, and his uncle, Mr. Spriggins, just as the train has started. His endeavours to catch the departing train are highly amusing. He has an utter hatred for his surname of Snozzle, and assumes that of Markham, a person who is supposed to have committed suicide by drowning. This leads him into all kinds of difficulties, one of which is his being incarcerated in the county gaol, where his abundant locks of hair are shorn into the “county crop.” His intense disgust at the operation was exhibited in the highest spirit of comedy.
Dolby, I.E.A. The Journal of the Household Brigade for the Year 1862-1880.
books.google.com. Web. 22 Jul. 2014.