''Sir Harry Wildair'' is a 1701
comic play
Comedy is a genre of dramatic performance having a light or humorous tone that depicts amusing incidents and in which the characters ultimately triumph over adversity. For ancient Greeks and Romans, a comedy was a stage-play with a happy endin ...
by the Irish writer
George Farquhar
George Farquhar (1677The explanation for the dual birth year appears in Louis A. Strauss, ed., A Discourse Upon Comedy, The Recruiting Officer, and The Beaux’ Stratagem by George Farquhar' (Boston: D.C. Heath & Co., 1914), p. v. Strauss notes ...
. It is a sequel to the 1699 hit ''
The Constant Couple
''The Constant Couple'' is a 1699 play by the Irish writer George Farquhar. It is part of the Restoration comedy tradition, and is often described as a sentimental comedy. It marked the first major success of Farquhar's career. A series of comic ...
'', portraying the further adventures of the most popular character from the earlier play.
The original Drury Lane cast included
Robert Wilks
Robert Wilks (''c.'' 1665 – 27 September 1732) was a British actor and theatrical manager who was one of the leading managers of Theatre Royal, Drury Lane in its heyday of the 1710s. He was, with Colley Cibber and Thomas Doggett, one of th ...
as Sir Harry Wildair,
John Mills
Sir John Mills (born Lewis Ernest Watts Mills; 22 February 190823 April 2005) was an English actor who appeared in more than 120 films in a career spanning seven decades. He excelled on camera as an appealing British everyman who often portray ...
as Colonel Standard,
Benjamin Johnson as Captain Fireball,
Colley Cibber
Colley Cibber (6 November 1671 – 11 December 1757) was an English actor-manager, playwright and Poet Laureate. His colourful memoir ''Apology for the Life of Colley Cibber'' (1740) describes his life in a personal, anecdotal and even rambling ...
as Marquis,
William Pinkethman
William Pinkethman(also Penkethman, Pinkeman, Pinkerman, etc.; nicknamed Pinkey) (c.1660–1725) was an English comic actor, a low comedian with a droll style, and theatre manager. He was considered an imitator of Anthony Leigh.
Starting in th ...
as Clincher,
Henry Norris as Dicky, Henry Fairbank as Shark,
Thomas Simpson
Thomas Simpson Fellow of the Royal Society, FRS (20 August 1710 – 14 May 1761) was a British mathematician and inventor known for the :wikt:eponym, eponymous Simpson's rule to approximate definite integrals. The attribution, as often in mathe ...
as Lord Bellamy,
Susanna Verbruggen
Susanna Verbruggen (née Percival) (c. 1667–1703), aka Susanna Mountfort, was an England, English actress working in London.
Life
She was the daughter of Thomas Percival (actor), Thomas Percival, a member of the Duke's Company for more than a ...
as Lady Lurewell,
Jane Rogers as Angelica and
Jane Lucas
Jane Lucas was an English stage actress and singer of the late seventeenth and early eighteenth century. From around 1693 she was a member of the United Company based at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane. In 1697 she had fellow actor Colley Cibber ar ...
as Parly. Farquhar, an
Irish Protestant
Protestantism is a Christian minority on the island of Ireland. In the 2011 census of Northern Ireland, 48% (883,768) described themselves as Protestant, which was a decline of approximately 5% from the 2001 census. In the 2011 census of the ...
from
Derry
Derry, officially Londonderry (), is the second-largest city in Northern Ireland and the fifth-largest city on the island of Ireland. The name ''Derry'' is an anglicisation of the Old Irish name (modern Irish: ) meaning 'oak grove'. The ...
, dedicated the play to
William of Orange.
[Morash p.37]
References
Bibliography
* Bevis, Richard W. ''English Drama: Restoration and Eighteenth Century 1660-1789''. Routledge, 2014.
* Morash, Christopher. ''A History of Irish Theatre 1601-2000''. Cambridge University Press, 2002.
External links
*
1701 plays
Plays by George Farquhar
West End plays
Restoration comedy
Plays set in London
Sequel plays
{{1700s-play-stub