For Goethe, English plays were 'atrocious, absurd and execrable'. But that was before David Garrick came along. Max Stafford-Clark tells how the first modern actor put theatre at the heart of cultureDavid Garrick has a street, a theatre, a club and - in Lichfield, where he was born - a tea room named after him. The first modern actor, Garrick became in 1747 the patent holder and manager of the Theatre Royal, Drury La…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 09:24AM on October 5, 2002