English Theatre History

popular form of teaching the Bible and Christianity to ordinary

people. These were called the Mystery Plays.
Small companies moved from town to town performing stories from the bible, performing on pageant wagons in town squares or in the grounds of churches.

theatre and performance.

result of the Reformation. In the 1530s the court of

Henry VIII was opulent and extravagant. Henry saw entertainment as a vital way to impress his courtiers and foreign kings. The Court employed jesters and musicians for entertainment and small companies of actors took on the livery of an aristocratic patron.

London as secular drama began to predominate. In 1576 Britain’s

first playhouse ‘The Theatre’ was built by Leicester’s Men in Finsbury Fields. This was outside the city walls as the City of London was hostile to public performances.

design. The most famous was The Globe.
However, there was one

theatre that was built indoors in Blackfriars. This attracted a very up-market crowd.

of the city, so a number of different theatres opened

as they were beyond the control of the cities authorities.

everyone and their audiences had a voracious appetite for new

plays. New companies flourished and writers were employed to satisfy the demand for novelty.

in the company were called ‘sharers’ and divided up the

profit between them; ‘hirelings’ were just paid a weekly wage, whilst the boys who played women’s roles were ‘apprentices’ and paid very little. Actors specialised in specific roles which they performed as part of their repertoire.

actor. He was the leading player in Shakespeare’s company, the

Chamberlain’s Men, which later became the King's Men. Burbage created many of the leading roles in Shakespeare's plays. He specialised in tragic roles and was the first Hamlet, King Lear, Othello and, as here, the first Richard III.

commissioned private performances called ‘masques’ which involved music, dance, opulent

costumes and extraordinary scenery and special effects. They were at and to members of the Royal Court. Such lavish court entertainments was fashionable throughout Europe as an expression of princely power.

arranged in perspective into British theatre.
Inigo Jones’s scenery used

a series of shutters that slid in and out using grooves in the floor. He even flew in scenery from above and introduced coloured lighting by placing candles behind tinted glass.

theatres were closed to prevent public disorder. The theatres remained

closed for 18 years.

the English public stage in the 1660s gave rise to

blockbusting semi-opera’s. Many of these were adaptations of other plays - often by Shakespeare. These had episodes of music, singing, dancing and special effects.

scenes including a storm. The advances in scene design impacted

on the design of theatre buildings, and behind the thrust stage a scenic stage was added, framed by a proscenium arch.

Purcell's song ‘Come to these Yellow Sands’ written for The Tempest, by William Shakespeare.

opera he had seen in exile in France. He encouraged

the introduction of women on stage, thus breaking with the tradition of boy actors taking female roles.
the introduction of moveable perspective scenery which revolutionised staging and the design of theatre buildings.
he also licensed two venues for performance; Lincoln’s Inn Fields and Drury Lane, these became known as the Patent Theatres.
he permitted a wide-ranging repertory: tragedies, comedies, plays, opera, musical theatre and dancing.

known as the queen of tragedy. She was trained for

the stage by the notorious womaniser the Earl of Rochester, who was also her lover.

The most infamous actress of this period was Nell Gwyn, who was painted nude for Charles II and bore him two children.

as a popular pastime, and many theatres were enlarged. When

built by Christopher Wren in 1674 Drury Lane had held less than 1,000 people. In 1794 it was rebuilt to hold 3000. New playhouses were constructed across London and the first playhouses also opened in the provinces.

London Stage in the early part of the 18th century

was the ballad opera The Beggars Opera John Gay recycled popular songs of the day and wrote new lyrics that were humorous and satirical.

Fill Every Glass

Turtle Dove

first to be called a star.
Garrick changed the whole

style of acting. He rejected the fashion for declamation, where actors would strike a pose and speak their lines formally. Garrick preferred a more easy, natural manner of speech and movement. The effect was a more subtle, less mannered style of acting and a move towards realism.

Garrick as Richard III

to the two Patent Theatres and tightened up the censorship

of drama, stating that the Lord Chamberlain with his Examiners of Plays must vet any script before a performance was allowed.
The Act was put in place by Prime Minister Robert Walpole who was concerned that political satire on the stage was undermining him and the authority of the government.

theatres to present drama. However, the Lord Chamberlain’s censorship of

plays remained in place until 1968. One of the last play to be censored was Edward Bond’s production of Saved in 1965.