This chapter deals with translation and appropriation in the context of drama and theatre as privileged spaces for multiple incorporations of foreign cultures. After reconstructing the debate over the national stage, it considers various forms of theatrical importation and transformation. It begins by examining translation and adaptation of foreign drama, as well as the presence of foreign performers, as consolidated (and generally deplored) practices that saw a remarkable increase after the end of hostilities with France in 1815. The chapter subsequently examines the irrepressible ‘foreignization’ of the Romantic-era stage through the debate about the nationality of melodrama. It then offers a pioneering examination of the presence and mixed reception of foreign (especially French) actors and drama in London after the end of the Napoleonic wars. As the conclusion shows, by the late 1820s theatre and opera in German, Italian and French were niche but conspicuous features of the London stage and constituted an object of concern and debate for the 1832 Select Committee of Inquiry into ‘the Laws affecting Dramatic Literature’ and, more comprehensively, the stages of the nation.