Astley Bransby
English stage actor
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Astley Bransby (died 1789) was an English stage actor and theatre manager who was a long-standing member of the company of the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane under David Garrick.[1] His first known performance was Captain Plume in George Farquhar's The Recruiting Officer in 1744 at the Haymarket where he was part of a group of young actors being trained by Charles Macklin. The following year he made his first appearance at Drury Lane and remained there for three decades, with the expection of a four-year spell at the Theatre Royal, Covent Garden from 1749 to 1753. He played a vast number of supporting roles in the repertory as well as occasionally originating new roles.[2] He retired from thestage in 1777 from ill health.[3] He was a co-manager of Richmond Theatre.[4]
Selected roles
- Captain Plume in The Recruiting Officer by George Farquhar (1744)
- Octar in The Orphan of China by Arthur Murphy (1759)
- Dumnorix in The Siege of Aquileia by John Home (1760)
- Blandford in All in the Wrong by Arthur Murphy (1761)
- Bridgemore in The Fashionable Lover by Richard Cumberland (1772)
- Russet in The Jealous Wife by George Colman the Elder (1777)
