Mrs Baker’s Company

Mrs Sarah Baker shone brightly as a theatre manager at the beginning of the 1800s. Starting as a child in her family’s troupe at the famous Sadlers Wells pleasure gardens, she never learnt to read, but she could dance on a rope. Her family toured the country as entertainers, classed as ‘rogues and vagabonds’ who could be run out of town or imprisoned at the whim of a local magistrate or mayor. Sarah Baker later formed her own company. Cheerfully optimistic, she fought to gain respectability – against almost impossible odds. Her story reveals a precarious world of make-believe and slapstick, mixing with the highest and the lowest, providing a touch of magic wherever the wagons stopped and the show began.