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The Touchstone (play)
''The Touchstone'' is an 1817 comedy play by the British writer James Kenney. It premiered at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane in London on 3 May 1817. The original cast included Charles Holland as Finesse, James William Wallack as Garnish, John Pritt Harley as Paragon, William Dowton as Probe, William Oxberry as Croply, Frances Maria Kelly as Dinah Croply, Sarah Harlowe as Mrs. Fairweather and Frances Alsop as Miss Becky. Its Irish debut was at Dublin's Crow Street Theatre on 16 February 1818.Greene p.4538 The play was reviewed by William Hazlitt William Hazlitt (10 April 177818 September 1830) was an English essayist, drama and literary critic, painter, social commentator, and philosopher. He is now considered one of the greatest critics and essayists in the history of the English lan ... in '' A View of the English Stage''. He wrote it "has been acted here with great success. It possesses much liveliness and pleasantry in the incidents, and the dialogue is neat and pointed ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
James Kenney (dramatist)
James Kenney (1780 – 25 July 1849), an English dramatist, was the son of James Kenney, a founder of Boodles' Club in London. He produced more than 40 plays and opera libretti. Career His first play, a farce called ''Raising the Wind'' (1803), gained success through the popularity of the character of " Jeremy Diddler". Kenney produced more than 40 plays and opera libretti between 1803 and 1845. Many, in which Mrs Siddons, Madame Vestris, Foote, Lewis, Liston and other leading players appeared from time to time, enjoyed a considerable vogue. Kenney's most popular play was ''Sweethearts and Wives'', produced at the Haymarket Theatre in 1823 and revived several times. Among his other successful works were ''False Alarms'' (1807), a comic opera with music by Braham, ''Love, Law and Physic'' (1812), ''Spring and Autumn'' (1827), ''The Illustrious Stranger, or Married and Buried'' (1827), ''Masaniello'' (1829) and ''The Sicilian Vespers'', a tragedy (1840). Kenney numbered ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Frances Alsop
Frances Alsop (''née'' Daly; 1 September 1782 – 2 June 1821) was an English actress. She was the illegitimate child of Richard Daly (1758–1813), manager of the Smock Alley Theatre, Dublin, and the actress Dorothea Jordan ''née'' Bland (1761–1816). Life Frances was born and raised in England, where her mother – adopting the stage name 'Mrs Jordan' – had continued her stage career, which by 1786 led her to be part of London's Drury Lane theatre company. By 1790 Dorothea Jordan was the mistress of the Duke of Clarence (later King William IV of the United Kingdom). Frances's story begins in earnest in 1803 at her coming-of-age, when she was settled at her own home in Golden Square, London, all paid for by her mother. In 1806 Frances had changed her name to Frances Bettesworth, in order to receive a financial bequest from an elderly and wealthy gentleman of that name; a deal negotiated by her mother. On 1 August 1807 Frances married Thomas Alsop at St James's Church, Pi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Comedy Plays
Comedy is a genre of fiction that consists of discourses or works intended to be humorous or amusing by inducing laughter, especially in theatre, film, stand-up comedy, television, radio, books, or any other entertainment medium. The term originated in ancient Greece: in Athenian democracy, the public opinion of voters was influenced by political satire performed by comic poets in theaters. The theatrical genre of Greek comedy can be described as a dramatic performance pitting two groups, ages, genders, or societies against each other in an amusing '' agon'' or conflict. Northrop Frye depicted these two opposing sides as a "Society of Youth" and a "Society of the Old". A revised view characterizes the essential agon of comedy as a struggle between a relatively powerless youth and the societal conventions posing obstacles to his hopes. In this struggle, the youth then becomes constrained by his lack of social authority, and is left with little choice but to resort to ruses wh ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
British Plays
British may refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * British people, nationals or natives of the United Kingdom, British Overseas Territories, and Crown Dependencies. ** Britishness, the British identity and common culture * British English, the English language as spoken and written in the United Kingdom or, more broadly, throughout the British Isles * Celtic Britons, an ancient ethno-linguistic group * Brittonic languages, a branch of the Insular Celtic language family (formerly called British) ** Common Brittonic, an ancient language Other uses *''Brit(ish)'', a 2018 memoir by Afua Hirsch *People or things associated with: ** Great Britain, an island ** United Kingdom, a sovereign state ** Kingdom of Great Britain (1707–1800) ** United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland (1801–1922) See also * Terminology of the British Isles * Alternative names for the British * English (other) * Britannic (other) * British Isles * Brit (other) * Briton (d ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
West End Plays
West or Occident is one of the four cardinal directions or points of the compass. It is the opposite direction from east and is the direction in which the Sun sets on the Earth. Etymology The word "west" is a Germanic word passed into some Romance languages (''ouest'' in French, ''oest'' in Catalan, ''ovest'' in Italian, ''oeste'' in Spanish and Portuguese). As in other languages, the word formation stems from the fact that west is the direction of the setting sun in the evening: 'west' derives from the Indo-European root ''*wes'' reduced from ''*wes-pero'' 'evening, night', cognate with Ancient Greek ἕσπερος hesperos 'evening; evening star; western' and Latin vesper 'evening; west'. Examples of the same formation in other languages include Latin occidens 'west' from occidō 'to go down, to set' and Hebrew מַעֲרָב maarav 'west' from עֶרֶב erev 'evening'. Navigation To go west using a compass for navigation (in a place where magnetic north is the same dire ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
1817 Plays
Events January–March * January 1 – Sailing through the Sandwich Islands, Otto von Kotzebue discovers New Year Island. * January 19 – An army of 5,423 soldiers, led by General José de San Martín, starts crossing the Andes from Argentina, to liberate Chile and then Peru. * January 20 – Ram Mohan Roy and David Hare found Hindu College, Calcutta, offering instructions in Western languages and subjects. * February 12 – Battle of Chacabuco: The Argentine–Chilean patriotic army defeats the Spanish. * March 3 ** President James Madison vetoes John C. Calhoun's Bonus Bill. ** The U.S. Congress passes a law to split the Mississippi Territory, after Mississippi drafts a constitution, creating the Alabama Territory, effective in August. * March 4 – James Monroe is sworn in as the fifth President of the United States. * March 21 – The flag of the Pernambucan Revolt is publicly blessed by the dean of Recife Cathedral, Brazil. Apri ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
A View Of The English Stage
A, or a, is the first letter and the first vowel of the Latin alphabet, used in the modern English alphabet, the alphabets of other western European languages and others worldwide. Its name in English is ''a'' (pronounced ), plural ''aes''. It is similar in shape to the Ancient Greek letter alpha, from which it derives. The uppercase version consists of the two slanting sides of a triangle, crossed in the middle by a horizontal bar. The lowercase version can be written in two forms: the double-storey a and single-storey ɑ. The latter is commonly used in handwriting and fonts based on it, especially fonts intended to be read by children, and is also found in italic type. In English grammar, " a", and its variant " an", are indefinite articles. History The earliest certain ancestor of "A" is aleph (also written 'aleph), the first letter of the Phoenician alphabet, which consisted entirely of consonants (for that reason, it is also called an abjad to distinguish it fro ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
William Hazlitt
William Hazlitt (10 April 177818 September 1830) was an English essayist, drama and literary critic, painter, social commentator, and philosopher. He is now considered one of the greatest critics and essayists in the history of the English language, placed in the company of Samuel Johnson and George Orwell. He is also acknowledged as the finest art critic of his age. Despite his high standing among historians of literature and art, his work is currently little read and mostly out of print. During his lifetime he befriended many people who are now part of the 19th-century literary canon, including Charles and Mary Lamb, Stendhal, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, William Wordsworth, and John Keats.Grayling, pp. 209–10. Life and works Background The family of Hazlitt's father were Irish Protestants who moved from the county of Antrim to Tipperary in the early 18th century. Also named William Hazlitt, Hazlitt's father attended the University of Glasgow (where he was taught by Adam S ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Crow Street Theatre
Crow Street Theatre was a theatre in Dublin, Ireland, originally opened in 1758 by the actor Spranger Barry. From 1788 until 1818 it was a patent theatre. History Spranger Barry and Henry Woodward The actor Spranger Barry (1719–1777), born in Dublin and appearing in London from 1746, induced the London-born actor Henry Woodward (1714–1777), who had saved £6,000, to participate in his project to build a theatre in Dublin. Charles Macklin participated at an early stage, but soon withdrew. Barry and Woodward moved to Dublin, and the Crow Street Theatre opened in October 1758. It struggled as a rival to the Smock Alley Theatre. Maria Nossiter (1735–1759), who had lived with Barry in London, was assigned an eighth share of the profits. In 1760 Barry and Woodward opened a theatre in Cork, the Theatre Royal. By 1762 Woodward had lost half his savings; the partnership was dissolved, and he returned to London. Barry continued for a few more years, then also returned to London. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Dublin
Dublin (; , or ) is the capital and largest city of Republic of Ireland, Ireland. On a bay at the mouth of the River Liffey, it is in the Provinces of Ireland, province of Leinster, bordered on the south by the Dublin Mountains, a part of the Wicklow Mountains range. At the 2016 census of Ireland, 2016 census it had a population of 1,173,179, while the preliminary results of the 2022 census of Ireland, 2022 census recorded that County Dublin as a whole had a population of 1,450,701, and that the population of the Greater Dublin Area was over 2 million, or roughly 40% of the Republic of Ireland's total population. A settlement was established in the area by the Gaels during or before the 7th century, followed by the Vikings. As the Kings of Dublin, Kingdom of Dublin grew, it became Ireland's principal settlement by the 12th century Anglo-Norman invasion of Ireland. The city expanded rapidly from the 17th century and was briefly the second largest in the British Empire and sixt ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sarah Harlowe
Sarah Harlowe (1765–1852) was a popular actress of the London stage around the turn of the 19th century. Biography Harlowe was born in London in 1765. Under the name of Mrs. Harlowe she made her first appearance on the stage at Colnbrook, near Slough, in 1787, removing in the following year to Windsor, where she met Francis Godolphin Waldron (1743–1818), and became his wife. Stage life Waldron was prompter of the Haymarket Theatre, London, manager of the Windsor and Richmond theatres, a bookseller, an occasional actor at the Haymarket and Drury Lane, manager of the Drury Lane Theatrical Fund, the writer of several comedies, and a Shakespearean scholar. Through the interest of her husband Mrs. Harlowe obtained an engagement at Sadler's Wells, where, as a singer, actor, and performer in pantomimes, she gained some celebrity. She made her appearance at Covent Garden on 4 November 1790 in the ''Fugitive''. She was the original singer of ''Down in the country lived a lass'', the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Theatre Royal, Drury Lane
The Theatre Royal, Drury Lane, commonly known as Drury Lane, is a West End theatre and Grade I listed building in Covent Garden, London, England. The building faces Catherine Street (earlier named Bridges or Brydges Street) and backs onto Drury Lane. The building is the most recent in a line of four theatres which were built at the same location, the earliest of which dated back to 1663, making it the oldest theatre site in London still in use. According to the author Peter Thomson, for its first two centuries, Drury Lane could "reasonably have claimed to be London's leading theatre". For most of that time, it was one of a handful of patent theatres, granted monopoly rights to the production of "legitimate" drama in London (meaning spoken plays, rather than opera, dance, concerts, or plays with music). The first theatre on the site was built at the behest of Thomas Killigrew in the early 1660s, when theatres were allowed to reopen during the English Restoration. Initially ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
