During his apprenticeship he occasionally performed at a private theatre in Exeter, when the applause he obtained prompted him to run away from home and join a company of strolling players at Ashburton, where, in 1781, he made his appearance in a barn as Carlos in Revenge.

[1] After enduring many hardships he was engaged by Hughes, manager of the Weymouth theatre, and thence returned to Exeter, where he played Macbeth and Romeo; he then (September 1791) joined Mrs. Baker's company in Kent.

Here he changed his line of acting, and took the characters of La Gloire, Jemmy Jumps, Billy Bristle, Sir David Dunder, and Peeping Tom, in all of which he was well received by a Canterbury audience.

He played with great success Mr. Hardcastle in She stoops to conquer, Clod in Young Quaker, Rupert in Jealous Wife, Sir Anthony Absolute in The Rivals, Major Sturgeon in The Mayor of Garrett, Governor Heartall in The Soldier's Daughter, and Dr. Cantwell in The Hypocrite at the Lyceum on 23 Jan. 1810.

As Charles Lamb, William Hazlitt and James Leigh Hunt record in many reviews, he excelled in the roles of peppery old buffers - apparently offstage as well as on; he was known for throwing his wig into the fire in a rage, and according to an old edition of Brewer's Dictionary of Phrase and Fable was referred to personally as Sir Anthony Absolute.

The public generally was less impressed: like many comic actors entrusted for once with a potentially tragic role Dowton seized the opportunity, and his performance included a final fainting-fit when Shylock is ordered to become a Christian - a detail that has occasionally been echoed in more recent productions (John Woodvine's Shylock for the English Shakespeare Company in the 1980s suffered a heart attack at the same point, for instance), but was grudgingly received by a Regency audience expecting the standard anti-Semitic caricature with undertones of Sir Anthony Absolute.

[1] In his old age, having neglected the advantages offered by the Drury Lane Theatrical Fund, he became destitute, and would have been in absolute want but for a benefit at Her Majesty's Theatre 8 June 1840, when Colman's The Poor Gentleman was played with an excellent cast, in which he himself took the part of Sir Robert Bramble.