Richard Steele's career on the London stage after 1714 is characterized by his reformist programme, his efforts to protect the professionalism of the theatre, and his involvement in the arguments of political faction. Despite his ambivalence about the great comic dramatists of the Restoration, he proclaimed himself often and loudly as a reformer of the theatrical scene, and his record as both critic and playwright seemed to verify that intention. But the discrepancy between his pronouncements in Town-Talk and The Theatre on one hand and the actual repertory of plays at Drury Lane on the other seemed to characterize his reformist claims as hypocrisy, although the one play that he actually did complete for Drury Lane, The Conscious Lovers, was saliently moralistic.

Cibber, Wilks and Booth, the actor-managers, knew Steele's economic record too well to entrust him with any financial responsibility for the theatre. But he was nonetheless able to entangle the theatre in his own personal finances. The patent for Drury Lane, once Steele secured it, was an asset which Steele could mortgage, and he did so in his unending quest for solvency. The obvious danger was that Steele might not pay the mortgage and his creditors might take over the patent. The financial and personal implications of this and other problems in Steele's behaviour ultimately resulted in a legal suit which Steele lost, as he did most of the many suits against him concerning financial matters.

Steele was appointed one of the managers of Drury Lane as a reward for his propaganda efforts on behalf of the House of Hanover and the Whigs during 1713 and 1714. He was suspended from the management (1720), via a revocation of the licence and the framing of a new one that did not include him, for a variety of reasons, primary among them was failure to support the Peerage Bill that the ministry proposed. The bill failed and Steele's exclusion from the profits of Drury Lane can be seen as something of an act of revenge.