#francis beaumont

[treasuresfromthearchives]

The Fashion Behind but not Behind the Fashion: 1829–T'is Thus to Follow the Mode

Artist: William Heath ('Paul Pry') (British, Northumbria 1794/95–1840 Hampstead) Publisher: Thomas McLean (British, 1788–1875) Subject: Francis Beaumont (British, 1584–1616) Subject: John Fletcher (British, 1579–1625)

May 1829

"Heath served in the army and began by drawing military satires but, by 1827, had returned to London and focused on satirizing exaggerated dress styles. He also started to sign his prints with a small top-hatted dandy holding an umbrella–Paul Pry, a nosy character in a play. This work centers on a comely young woman, seen from behind, who wears a full skirted green dress with a hem shortened to reveal flat slipper held on by ribbons. Huge puffed sleeves emphasize her tiny waist and an earring dangling below a huge beribboned hat echoes the shape of her ensemble. The woman's backward glance suggests that she is fully aware of her allure."

[dolphelecat]

Backstage Revolve Nonsense

From Chris Leask’s London Theatre Direct Instagram takeover

[natashasbitxh]

Finally got to see Peter Pan Goes Wrong in West End with Charlie Russell, Matthew Cavendish, Greg Tannahill, Matthew Howell, Harry Kershaw, Clark Devlin, Jamie Birkett, Chris Leask, Ellie Morris, and Jean-Luke Worrell! They were all amazing, I thought I'd share some of my fav bits! (Warning: There's a lot)

• Firstly, programme stuff: the note from the director basically just being Chris and Trevor arguing like a married couple. Chris being too scientific and Trevor having to remind him it's supposed to be festive.

● Them leaving a note asking if anybody was a flying operator as they didn't currently have one😭

• Robert leaving the children of the Cornley Youth Theatre abandoned in a forest with limited food and knives,to prepare for their performance of Lord of the Flies. NSPCC and police had to intervene, 2 of the children are still missing today (Ben McIntyre and Sarah Cordell)

• Jonathon's interview where's he's practically begging the interviewer to take note he was 'fashionably late', when he was actually waiting for 6 hours.

• Jonathon saying (in the interview), he's been focusing on humanitarian work, such as adopting a child from Ethiopia and a child from Vietnam. And then the interviewer just replied with "That is Brad Pitt. Everything you have just said is about Brad Pitt and not yourself."

• In the cast section, Chris Bean writing "I would like to remind my father that there is a spare ticket at the box office for him if he chooses to show up." That's so sad😭

• Trevor's section ended with "trevorzbeatz/YouTube.co.uk" 😭

• Pip (assistant stage manager) just says: "They call me Big Pip up north. Trevor's cousin. Out and about and that. Nice one." Like okay yh me too Big Pip

• They tried to feed the crocodile an alarm clock😭 (RIP Nadia tho😔)

• Annie left a little note saying she's "looking for a man" and then there's some description of what she's (not) looking for

• A page saying welcome to the theatre, but it is still very much in character😭 "Director Chris Bean always fulfils his promise of giving us a show we will remember for a very long time."

•Pre-show antics: one of the assistant stage managers (I'm gonna guess Pip? Not too sure tho) was walking around looking for a hammer. I noticed that he'd act like he was looking around and then when he spotted a child he'd go and ask them. I thought that was cute🥹

• I couldn't see the wires going through the audience cause I had seats up high, but I did see Robert pulling the end of the wire whilst on stage with the help of an audience member

• Dennis was late I think, ran across the stage from the audience with a bag on

• Lucy suddenly ran off stage, Robert not far behind shouting things like "You have to do it!" (And then later on she ran back on stage,but it seemed Robert got caught up in a convo)

• Now onto the actual show, I thought Dennis singing les mis due to his headgear was pretty funny seeing as les mis was about a door or 2 down

• At one point we were clapping for something (can't remember what, but it was during the beginning Darling Family scene), and Max joined in with the clapping. Sandra had to tell him to stop with a pointed glare and a lil hand gesture

• Every appearance with Robert as the shadow was amazing, I know it's simple but I'm always impressed with the rug pull and the way he lands

• During the bit where there's too much smoke and it engulfs the pirates, Trevor comes to the rescue but does hit Chris in the arse by accident, christrev anybody?

• I will forever love Robert trying to get Dennis to pick up the sword, Dennis picking up the boat paddle and Robert going on a rant about how he's been moving his arms for the past 5 mins why would he need the paddle

• During the interval the lights would still go out occasionally, fun touch

• As Jonathan flew up before crashing down, a banner fell down with Robert holding a bean, a reference of his show Jack and the bean

• Before this, I'd only seen the BBC recorded version of Peter Pan Goes Wrong, so I rlly enjoyed the changes. Such as the mermaids, but I RLLY laughed at Robert being the Mr Bumble in Oliver that killed a child. Especially when he went to be Peter Pan before starting to sing 'Food, Glorious Food"

• The whole poison bit was incredible, Harry's improv was on FIRE. We obvs did the traditional pantomime business which made Chris mad, he very much gave teacher vibes as he sat down on the set and said it was our own time we were wasting. He also complained that this was only the matinée and they still had an evening performance to get to. Then he pointed out how somebody in the audience was hissing, "Nobody goes to a show and says 'Yeah it was good but the person in the fourth row wouldn't stop hissing'" (this resulted in a lot of children hissing whenever he appeared on stage). Then when it got to the poison bit, a child was yelling at him to hurry up, causing Chris to go on a rant about how he didn't even want children there, sitting there on their booster seats. After the child yelled at him multiple times, Chris gave up and told the child to open it for him, which they did. Then as he was leaving, we were booing again and he was like "NO NO DONT BOO ME, IT WAS THE CHILD THAT POISIONED HIM." Then as he exited, he said something along the lines of "blame the child murderer." It was insane.

• Then, when Peter asked who would try to poison him, Tink/Annie pointed at the child that opened the bottle. I think Chris Leask actually had to turn his head downwards and to the side to hide his laughing.

• I've pointed this out before, but I'm so endeared with how worried Chris was when Annie was unconscious. HE KNEELED THERE HOVERING OVER HER BODY JUST LIKE TOUCHING HER FACE, NOT SPEAKING FOR AWHILE. Adorable. Every characters reaction was adorable...sorry Annie

• I just have to say Francis' Cabaret performance to distract us from Annie was amazing. Loved the audience clapping along as well and the rest of the cast looking absolutely shocked and confused

• I loved that we heard a whole marriage fall apart through Dennis' headgear. I want to know more abt them, the husband that took over to help Dennis sounded sweet

• When Lucy slid down the ship in her wheelchair she was flung out and then caught by Trevor in a sort of bear hug, Lucy's legs wrapped around his torso. Trevor was SEVERELY judging the cast HE WAS NOT HAPPY WITH THEM. They're besties ur honour, I thought it was so cute

• Loved Francis' Cabaret performance again during the big fight scene with the set moving.

• Trevor saying something like "You've got to be joking" when Lucy picked up the book 😭

• I wanted to scream laugh at Chris lying in the bed like an ill victorian child as Lucy closed up the story, and then Dennis choosing to lie on the squished bottom bunk

• As Lucy continued to read, Chris, Sandra, Trevor, Dennis, and Max were all checking up on one another in the background. Hugs, shoulder grabs. Guys, I love Sandra and Chris' dynamic so much, Sandra was making sure he got off the bed alright and then gave him a hug

• Of course the whole end song, Max as the crocodile encouraging us to clap

It was so amazing, everybody was fantastic!! My jaw still aches from laughing so hard! Hope ppl found this interesting cause I always love when other ppl share what happened during their show😭

[personinthepalace]

From left to right: Chris Leask as Max, Bianca Horn as Francis, Ellie Morris as Sandra, Henry Shields as Jonathan, Harry Kershaw as Chris, and Jonathan Sayer as himself

From Nancy Zamit’s instagram

[shakespearenews]

On Shakespeare's "illiteracy"

This year marks 400 years since the publication of Shakespeare's First Folio, but why was he singled out for his lack of knowledge about cla

Among playwrights, Shakespeare was an anomaly: all of his contemporaries had either matriculated at Cambridge or Oxford or, like Kyd and Jonson himself, had the private education that was a close equivalent. In a verse letter addressed to Jonson, Francis Beaumont, an Oxford matriculant as well as Jonson’s pupil, feigning untutored modesty, likens his style first to that of a Devon cheese-maker and then to Shakespeare’s: 

heere, I would lett slip (If I had any in me) schollershipp, And from all learninge leave these lines as cleare  As Shakespeares best are. 

In this jibe, even Shakespeare’s best lines lack scholarship.

Shakespeare may himself have made a joke of his unlearning. Both As You Like It and Merry Wives of Windsor feature an academically challenged character who is repeatedly called William. In the former, the stock country bumpkin is mocked by the court fool: to Touchstone’s question “Is thy name William?” he replies “William, sir”; and to Touchstone’s rhetorical follow-up, “Art thou learned?” he answers an earnest, “No, sir.” In Merry Wives of Windsor, an entire scene focuses on an underperforming schoolboy who bungles through his Latin declensions as his exasperated school master calls him to attention 10 times by name.

[spillsbury]

blair is making their debut as francis tonight wearing a drawn on beard which means we have CANONICALLY TRANS FRANCIS EVERYBODY CHEERED

[bones-ivy-breath]

Hence, All Ye Vain Delights by Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher, from The Family Library of Poetry and Song edited by William Cullen Bryant, 1886

[wretchedvulgarian]

Howdy. So I took a class in non-Shakespearean renaissance drama last semester. We read seven plays and they’re iconic and deserve to be read so I’ve compiled them for y’all. bon appetit

Comedies

The Roaring Girl, Thomas Middleton and Thomas Dekker: Rebelling, crossdressing, and stabbing f*ckboys. The mc Moll is an icon and the play subverts contemporary expectations for men and women in the best way.

A Chaste Maid in Cheapside, Thomas Middleton: The amount of bawdy jokes in this play puts Will to shame. A prime example of citizen comedy (a play that mocks London citizens); there’s disapproving parents outwitted by a daughter and her love, a comically unfit suitor, and as I mentioned plenty of d*ck jokes. My personal favorite character is Tim who returns from Cambridge and like will now only speak Latin but he’s not good at it and it’s so funny.

The Knight of the Burning Pestle, Francis Beaumont: my beloved. A grocer and his wife at the theatre decide that they don’t want to watch another citizen comedy. They decide that they’re going to put on their own play in which a grocer, played by their apprentice Rafe, is the hero. So while the original citizen comedy is going on, there is also a chivalric romance and lots of interruptions from the citizen and his wife. Metadrama turned up to 11. And by the end everything has just descended into chaos, huge monty python energy. Oh and the play was written for an all boys theatre company which is so wild to me as a concept.

The Shoemaker’s Holiday, Thomas Dekker: Probably my second favorite play we read after The Knight. (Roughly) based on the life of shoemaker Simon Eyre who eventually becomes mayor of London. It’s very fun and celebratory. There are also some great side characters like Sibyl, a witty lady’s maid, and Ralph, a wounded veteran who just really loves his wife ;-;

Tragedies

The Duchess of Malfi, John Webster: Another play loosely based off actual events. The titular duchess secretly marries her steward against her brothers’ (the Cardinal and the duke Ferdinand) wishes. The couple has three children together before the duchess’s brothers find out with the aid of spy Bosola. Ferdinand and Bosola are both incredible villains, Ferdinand because his obsession with his sister’s sexuality and his descent into madness is both disturbing and fascinating, and Bosola because his moral ambiguity makes him somehow detestable and endearing. I feel that the villains in this play rival Iago in terms of their ripeness for psychological analysis lol.

The Tragedy of Mariam, Elizabeth Cary: This may not have been my favorite of the plays we read (that’s just my opinion it was my classmate’s favorite) but it’s worth reading because it’s one of the very few renaissance plays written by a woman. It was a closet drama, not written for public performance, in Senecan style. It’s about Herod (killing of the innocents Herod not crucifixion Herod) and his second wife Mariam. Even though it’s set in ancient Israel, it reveals renaissance concerns about femininity and expectations for women from woman’s perspective.

*we also read Arden of Faversham but I’m not including that because there’s evidence to suggest parts of it were written by Shakespeare*

So yea. I expect fanfic and fanart of these plays on my desk by next thursday. thank you.