This large playbill, or Great Bill advertising the plays at the Theatre Royal Covent Garden, 26 December 1768, is an example of the immediate ancestor of the theatre poster as we know it. Printed by the letterpress process in both black and the more expensive red ink, bills like this were first produced for London theatres in addition to the much smaller black playbills from the late 18th century. Both sizes of playbill appear to have been posted up outside the theatre, on the day of the performance when all the performers were settled.

The evening began at 6pm with the satirical comedy A Bold Stroke for a Wife by Susanna Centilevre, first performed in 1718, and was followed by the main event of the evening Apollo and Daphne, or, the Burgomaster, described as 'a Pantomime Entertainment not acted these Six Years' with Mr. Lewis as Harlequin and Mrs. Dyer as Columbine. Various versions of the story of Apollo and Daphne were staged in the 18th century including Theophilus Cibber's 'Dramatick Entertainment of Dancing' Apollo and Daphne, first put on at Drury Lane in 1723; Apollo and Daphne, or, Harlequin Metamorphoses,a pantomime put on in 1725 at Drury Lane, and Apollo and Daphne, or, the Burgomaster Tricked by John Rich and Lewis Theobald with music by J.E. Galliard, first staged at Lincoln's Inn Fields in 1726. Rich had made his name as Harlequin in the comic dramas he staged there based on Commedia dell'arte performances, and had opened Covent Garden in 1732. Although John Rich had died in 1761, this may well have been based on that production.