[4] Parry's construction of the theatres was a speculative venture: he hoped to make large profits from compensation when the area was demolished, which was even then in contemplation.

The Era, commented, "For elegance of design and perfect adaptability to the requirements of dramatic art it is not surpassed, if indeed it be equalled, by any existing Theatre".

[4] The following year, French drama continued, when the Comédie-Française company made its first appearance outside France, an event that caused considerable interest.

Morton also presented a successful double bill of Gilbert and Sullivan's Trial by Jury and Offenbach's Geneviève de Brabant.

[14] At the start of 1882, John Hollingshead and Richard Barker presented Mother-in-Law, a frivolous comedy by George R. Sims, which ran in a double bill with a burlesque called Vulcan, until May.

They were followed by a spoof called The Wreck of the Pinafore by H. Lingard and Luscombe Searelle, described by The Era as "curious and impudent", which ran until October.

[14] During the rest of the 1880s a succession of managements presented a wide range of genres, from adaptations of French plays, Shakespeare, Sheridan, Ibsen, and a Dickens adaptation by the novelist's son, to musical shows, including The Fay o' Fire by Edward Jones and Henry Herman, which The Era later described as "notable as introducing Miss Marie Tempest to the regular stage".

[14] Composers whose works were presented at the Opera Comique in this period included Julia Woolf, Meyer Lutz and Victor Roger.

[21] In 1891, George Edwardes took on the management of the theatre and presented a burlesque of Joan of Arc by Adrian Ross, J. L. Shine and Frank Osmond Carr, with a cast including Arthur Roberts and Marion Hood.

[14] A feature of the early 1890s was the frequent presentation of adaptations from, or original works by, novelists such as Henry James, Rudyard Kipling and George Moore.

[14] Later that year Augustus Harris presented Charles Villiers Stanford's comic opera Shamus O'Brien, which ran for two months, from March to May.

[22] Osmond Carr's The Maid of Athens, ran for a month in June 1897, after which, said The Era, "nothing worthy of any record whatever has been attempted at this temple of the drama, which has had a singularly eccentric and mostly disastrous career.

[23] In March 1899, Horace Sedger announced a burlesque for the Opera Comique, Great Caesar, by Paul and Walter Rubens and George Grossmith Jr.,[24] but he changed his plans and presented it at the Comedy Theatre.