Some sources list the number of performances as 120, but 112, listed by Variety, seems more likely to be correct given the opening and closing dates.
It is often difficult to ascertain dates of when previews started for London productions during this period and how many previews were played. As far as we can tell in this case, previews were originally to have started on October 20, 1972, and the opening dates was definitely to have been November 1. It seems that previews did not end up starting till October 23. At this time, West End shows were allowed to play a limited number of previews. This number may have been 5, but we are not positive about that. It does seem that the production played 5 previews, judging from an ad in The Guardian.
Either during previews or perhaps even before previews started, Sven-Bertil Taube, who was playing Albert, became ill and could not perform. His understudy, Michael Ralph, played the previews that Taube could not. The opening was postponed till November 6. Given that West End productions could play only a limited number of previews, there seem to have been no performances between the date on which they had been scheduled to end and opening night.
Unless there were some last-minute cancellations, previews were played from October 24 through October 27, 1872, in the evenings, with a matinee on October 28.
