Location: Bowes Museum, Barnard Castle

Eighteenth-century acting manuals repeatedly advised their readers to study paintings. The best actors were those whose acting drew inspiration from the best artworks – but how did this work in practice? What exactly were actors meant to be looking for? And what does this tell us about how people studied plays in and for performance three centuries ago? Through a mixture of research presentations and practical examples, this event will offer some answers to these questions, and these answers will then all ow us to see the museum’s own paintings of the actor David Garrick in a new light as the fulfilment of a very particular art of acting.