York Guides

It is under Tate Wilkinson that the York circuit is said to have achieved its 'golden age'. It is his management that is most remembered in the York Theatre's history, for its financial stability, for the stars who trained in the Theatre or visited it, for its national celebrity, but Wilkinson's achievement was based on the foundation supplied by Joseph Baker. Much of the York circuit was typical of circuit management. What Tate Wilkinson added was an incoherent and fantastical disposition', recorded in many theatrical memoirs of the period, not least his own, and raised the status of the York company to being, by general consent, second only to the Bath company outside London. His was the management of which 'every actor was talking'.

Baker first met Wilkinson in London in 1758 and in April 1763 invited him to appear with his company for six nights in York. This was, according to Wilkinson, the first time there had been a Spring Race Meeting in York, and Baker decided to extend his season to cover it. Although he did not usually engage visitors or stars, he made an exception that year to give a boost to the extra week.Wilkinson had trained by working with the mimic and playwright, Samuel Foote, manager of the Haymarket Theatre in London for most of the time between 1747 and 1776. Until 1766 when he was granted a patent, Foote ran his theatre illegally,
And evaded the law by selling invitations to people to take a dish of tea or chocolate with him at the Haymarket, and there presented them with an entertainment in which he impersonated public figures.

Although Wilkinson appeared in Dury Lane, Covent Garden and various provincial theatres in legitimate drama, making his first appearance in 1757 at the age of 18, his fame was for his satiric imitations of other actors and actresses. He would deliver a short speech, giving each line in imitation of a different performer, an ability calculated to be better received in London than the provinces, where the stars were better known. Of his ability as a mimic he wrote:5

It is not to be wondered at that my imitations, when really produced on the stage, were thought superior to Mr Garrick's or Mr Foote's: For those particular actors and actresses, whose manner and voice I so strongly presented to the public, were taken on the truest ground, that of feeling myself at the time the person I imitated, and not exaggerated into buffoonery.

In York in 1763, Wilkinson was at first 'well received by a very genteel house',6 but on his last night, for his Benefit, the audience took offence at the satire in A Dish of Mr Foote's Tea. He returned in April 1764 for two weeks, when he again offended the audience, this time by being too ill to appear as Othello. Rumours were spread that he was, in fact, too drunk to perform:7

it was asserted . . . that Mr Baker and I had drunk half pints of rum and wine till we were so intoxicated, that both were carried to bed speechless.