The Clandestine Marriage

The Clandestine Marriage is a comedy by George Colman the Elder and David Garrick, first performed in 1766 at Drury Lane.

The idea came from a series of pictures by William Hogarth entitled Marriage à-la-mode.

[2] The plot concerns a merchant, Mr Sterling, who wants to marry off his elder daughter to Sir John Melvil, who is actually in love with her younger sister, Fanny.

[3] The play was adapted into an opéra comique Sophie, ou le Mariage caché by Josef Kohaut, which was first staged by Comédie-Italienne in Hôtel de Bourgogne on 4 June 1768.

In 1999, the play was made into a film directed by Christopher Miles and starred Nigel Hawthorne, Joan Collins, Timothy Spall, Emma Chambers and Tom Hollander.