Pepys’ Diary

Source: Diary of Samuel Pepys, 28 December 1666

Productions: William Shakespeare (adapted by William Davenant), Macbeth and Roger Boyle, Henry the Fifth, Lincoln’s Inn Fields Theatre and at court (Whitehall) respectively, London, 28 December 1666

Text: Up, and Creed and I walked (a very fine walk in the frost) to my Lord Bellasses, but missing him did find him at White Hall, and there spoke with him about some Tangier business. That done, we to Creed’s lodgings, which are very pretty, but he is going from them. So we to Lincoln’s Inne Fields, he to Ned Pickering’s, who it seems lives there, keeping a good house, and I to my Lord Crew’s, where I dined, and hear the newes how my Lord’s brother, Mr. Nathaniel Crew, hath an estate of 6 or 700l. per annum, left him by the death of an old acquaintance of his, but not akin to him at all. And this man is dead without will, but had, above ten years since, made over his estate to this Mr. Crew, to him and his heirs for ever, and given Mr. Crew the keeping of the deeds in his own hand all this time; by which, if he would, he might have taken present possession of the estate, for he knew what they were. This is as great an act of confident friendship as this latter age, I believe, can shew. From hence to the Duke’s house, and there saw “Macbeth” most excellently acted, and a most excellent play for variety. I had sent for my wife to meet me there, who did come, and after the play was done, I out so soon to meet her at the other door that I left my cloake in the playhouse, and while I returned to get it, she was gone out and missed me, and with W. Hewer away home. I not sorry for it much did go to White Hall, and got my Lord Bellasses to get me into the playhouse; and there, after all staying above an hour for the players, the King and all waiting, which was absurd, saw “Henry the Fifth” well done by the Duke’s people, and in most excellent habits, all new vests, being put on but this night. But I sat so high and far off, that I missed most of the words, and sat with a wind coming into my back and neck, which did much trouble me. The play continued till twelve at night; and then up, and a most horrid cold night it was, and frosty, and moonshine. But the worst was, I had left my cloak at Sir G. Carteret’s, and they being abed I was forced to go home without it. So by chance got a coach and to the Golden Lion Taverne in the Strand, and there drank some mulled sack, and so home, where find my poor wife staying for me, and then to bed mighty cold.

Comments: Samuel Pepys (1633-1703) was a British naval administrator and diarist. The two plays he saw on this one day were William Shakespeare‘s Macbeth, as adapted by William Davenant, and a Henry the Fifth that was in all probability the play by Roger Boyle, Earl of Orrery, rather than Shakespeare’s play.

Links: https://www.pepysdiary.com/diary/1666/12/28/

A Fortnight’s Ramble to the Lakes

Source: Joseph Budworth, A Fortnight’s Ramble to the Lakes in Westmoreland, Lancashire, and Cumberland (London: J. Nichols, 1810 [orig. pub. 1792]), pp. 210-212

Production: William Shakespeare, The Merchant of Venice, Keswick, 1792

Text: In the evening we went to see the Merchant of Venice in an unroofed house. The sky was visible through niches of boards laid across the upper beams. The walls were decorated, or rather hid, with cast-off scenes, which shewed in many places a rough unplastered wall. Some of the actors performed very well, and some very middling. Their poverty shall stop the pen of criticism; and their endeavours were well expressed by their motto – “TO PLEASE.”

Between the acts a boy, seated upon an old rush chair in one corner of the stage, struck up a scrape of a fiddle. By his dress, which was once a livery, we suppose he was a servant of all work, and had belonged to the manager in better days. But I must do Shylock the justice to say, he performed well; and although no person bawled out “this is the Jew that Shakspeare drew,” when he was expressing his satisfaction at Antonio’s misfortunes, a little girl in the gallery roared, “O mammy! mammy! what a sad wicked fellar that man is!”

The house was as full as it could possibly cram, and my friend counted but thirty-six shillings’ worth of spectators in the pit, at eighteen pence a head, including a young child that squealed a second to the Crowdero of the house. Perhaps, as the actors were so near the audience, it was frightened by Shylock’s terrific look. Whilst I remained, not even the “Hush a be babby” of its mother had any effect.

I found it so extremely hot, and I felt some knees press so hard upon my back, against a piece of curtain which composed the separation of pit and gallery, that I took my departure, and enjoyed a walk to the head of Derwenter [sic] lake. The moon was in splendour, and had just escaped out of a cloud that had really a terrific look. Skiddow [sic] and the hills to the right were buried in blackness; and there was an easterly breeze which seemed to assist the moon in getting the better of her sable enemies.

Comments: Joseph Budworth (c.1756-1815) was a British soldier and writer. His A Fortnight’s Ramble to the Lakes, originally published as being by ‘A Rambler’, is an early tourist’s guide to the Lake District. his account is known in particular for the first description of the experience of climbing a mountain, and for his discovery of local beauty ‘The Maid of Buttermere’. He saw The Merchant of Venice in Keswick, by Derwentwater lake, presumably in a disused building, as there was no actual theatre in Keswick at this time.

Links: Copy at Hathi Trust

Family Life and Work Experience Before 1918

Source: Extract from interview with Reginald Spurgeon, C707/12/1-2, Thompson, P. and Lummis, T., Family Life and Work Experience Before 1918, 1870-1973 [computer file]. 7th Edition. Colchester, Essex: UK Data Archive [distributor], May 2009. SN: 2000, http://dx.doi.org/10.5255/UKDA-SN-2000-1

Text: Q. And what did you spend your pocket money on?

A. Well, it was on perhaps sweets. I don’t think I was smoking, ‘cos I wouldn’t be smoking at that age. Or there might be a fair. A fair might come into town d you’d go to that. Occasionally a tuppenny gaff.

Q. What is a tuppenny gap?

A. There’d be a portable theatre come and put up in one of the meadows in the town, and they would run plays. And they was a repertory company and was changing every night. You see, a travelling repertory company. And, terribly cold, no heating, I remember I’ve sat in there, tiered up on just wooden planks, and I’ve felt cramp, you know, almost got like cricket balls underneath my feet. Just sat there and listened. And the people on one occasion they stayed here quite a time and got friendly with people. Course they had a hard struggle. Then there would have been, the play would have been, you know, “Maria Martin in the Red Barn”, “East Lynne”, and all those things. “The Face at the Window”.

Q. I’ve heard of “East Lynne” and “The Red Barn”. What was the first ore?

A. “Maria Martin”, you’ve never heard of that?

Q. No I haven’t.

A. Well, this was a murder that took place at Polstead. A village. Murdered – this girl was supposed to have been murdered in the Red Barn at Polstead.

Q. Oh. It was “Maria Martin in the Red Barn” was it?

A. Yes. Murdered in the Red Barn. This actually did happen.

Q. And they made a kind of play cut of it?

A. Yes. They made this melodrama sort of thing.

Comments: Reginald Spurgeon (1903-?) was one of eight children of a Halstead iron moulder and his silk weaver wife. Penny, or tuppenny, gaffs were cheap theatrical entertainments put on for working class audiences. There were numerous plays made about the ‘Red Barn Murder‘ of Maria Marten, in Polstead in 1827. The memory dates from late 1900s/early 1910s. Spurgeon was one of 444 people interviewed by Paul Thompson and his team as part of a study of the Edwardian era which resulted in Thompson’s book The Edwardians: The Remaking of British Society (London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1975).