Lichfield on the main routes from London to the north-west and Birmingham to the north-east. It also became a centre of great intellectual activity, being the home of many famous people including Samuel Johnson, David Garrick, Erasmus Darwin and Anna Seward; this prompted Johnson's remark that Lichfield was "a city of philosophers". In the 1720s Daniel Defoe described Lichfield as 'a fine, neat, well-built, and indifferent large city', the principal town in the region after Chester. During the late 18th and early 19th century much of the medieval city was rebuilt with the red-brick Georgian style buildings still to be seen
The Great Garrick devise a plot to teach him a lesson. Though often overlooked by critics in favor of Whale's horror films, "The Great Garrick" was chosen by Jonathan Rosenbaum for his alternative list of the Top 100 American Films. In London in 1750, renowned English actor David Garrick announces onstage that he has been invited to Paris to work with the prestigious Comédie-Française. A person in the audience jeers that the French want him to teach them how to act. The playwright Beaumarchais (Lionel Atwill) returns to the Comédie-Française and attributes the remark to Garrick himself. The outraged French actors, led by