page_title: John Quick (actor)
section_title: Life
hierarchical_section_title: John Quick (actor) / Life
caption_attribution_description: Français&#160;: Samuel de Wilde (1751-1832) John Quick dans le rôle de Vellum, 1792 Huile sur toile, 36,8 x 27,9 cm Chicago, The Art Institute Photo&#160;: Art Institute
context_page_description: John Quick was an English actor, known for comic parts.
context_section_description: The son of a brewer, he was born in Whitechapel, London. At age 13 he left his home and joined Oliver  Carr's theatrical company at Fulham, where he played Altamont in the Fair Penitent, receiving three shillings as a share in the profits. For some years, in Kent and Surrey, he played Romeo, George Barnewell, Hamlet, Jaffier, Tancred, and other tragic characters, and in 1766 was at the Haymarket Theatre under the management of Samuel Foote, with Edward Shuter, John Bannister, and John Palmer.  His performance, for Shuter's benefit, of Mordecai in Love à la Mode commended him to Covent Garden, where, on 7 November 1767, he was the original Postboy in Colman's Oxonian in Town; on 14 December the First Ferret in the Royal Merchant, an operatic version of the Beggar's Bush; and on 29 January 1768 the original Postboy in Oliver Goldsmith's Good-natured Man. At Covent Garden, with occasional visits to Liverpool, Portsmouth, and other towns, and to Bristol, where he was for a time manager of the King Street Theatre, Quick remained during most of his career.
  Quick's performances were at first as clowns, rustics, or comic servants. He was seen as Peter in Romeo and Juliet, Simon Pure in A Bold Stroke for a Wife, Third Witch in Macbeth, Gripe in the Cheats of Scapin, the First Gravedigger in Hamlet, and many similar characters. His original parts at this period included Ostler in Colman's Man and Wife, or the Shakespeare Jubilee, Skiff in Richard Cumberland's Brothers on 2 December 1769, and clown to the harlequin of Charles Lee Lewes in the pantomime of Mother Shipton on 26 December 1770. On 16 March 1772 at the first performance of The Wife in the Right by Mrs Griffith, at Covent Garden, Quick was Squeezem, a lawyer. The prologue and epilogue met with applause later the play had to stop for half an hour, The play was not well received and some of the audience broke the chandeliers. On 5 June 1772 Quick was playing a theatre in Liverpool as Prattle in The Deuce is in him. At Covent Garden he was, on 8 December 1772, the original Consol in O'Brien's Cross Purposes, and on 6 February 1773 the original Momus in O'Hara's Golden Pippin.
  These performances paved the way for his triumph, on 14 March, as the original Tony Lumpkin in She Stoops to Conquer. The character had been refused by Henry Woodward. The following season (1773–4) saw him promoted to Mawworm in the Hypocrite, Grumio, Varland in the West Indian, and Autolycus Mufti in Don Sebastian. On 31 January 1774 he played Old Rents in the Jovial Crew, Foresight and Town Clerk in Much Ado about Nothing; and on 17 January 1775 he was the first Bob Acres in The Rivals. 21 November 1776 as Venture in The Seraglio. Scores of comic characters were then assigned to him.
  At Bristol in August 1777 he was Antient Pistol in King Henry V and Tycho in A Christmas Tale
  In 1777 Bell publisher of The British Theatre advertised the weekly publication of plays with no 71 Constant Couple; with an vignette of Mr Quick as Alderman Smugler.
  The NEW ENGLISH THEATRE published in twelve volumes included part 35 Funeral; Mr Clark and Mr Quick as Lord Brumpton and Mr Sable, vignette by West and Byrne and published this day.
   On 18 August 1783 he was Bishop Gardiner in King Henry the Eighth and Bowkitt in The Son in Law at the Theatre-Royal,  Liverpool.
  On 6 April 1790, for his benefit, Quick appeared as Richard III. He took the character seriously at the outset, until the laughter of the audience proved irresistible. On 14 March 1791 Quick created the part of Cockletop, an antiquary, in O'Keeffe's Modern Antiques, and on 16 April that of Sir George Thunder in his Wild Oats. On 18 February 1792 he was the first Silky in Holcroft's Road to Ruin. In the August he was at Winchester as Barnaby in Barnaby Brittleand later Colonel Hubbub in Notoriety and Barnaby again at Portsmouth theatre in the September.   On September 2 he appears as Scrub in The Beaux Strategem with Animal Magnetism as the part of the Doctor at the New Theatre, Windsor. 
  He was the first Solus in Mrs. Inchbald's Every one has his Fault, on 5
caption: Samuel De Wilde, Portrait of the actor John Quick as Vellum, 1792.
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