''The Provoked Husband'' is a 1728

comedy 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 British writer and actor

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 ...

, based on a fragment of play written by John Vanbrugh. It is also known by the longer title ''The Provok'd Husband: or, a Journey to London''. Vanbrugh had worked on a projected play ''A Journey to London'' for Cibber, a sharp comedy in the Restoration-style. Unfinished at his death in 1726, Vanbrugh left the manuscript to him. In need of a new play for the Drury Lane Theatre where he was a manager, Cibber finished it under a new title ''The Provoked Husband'' which echoed one of Vanbrugh's most popular works ''

The Provoked Wife ''The Provoked Wife'' (1697) is the second original comedy written by John Vanbrugh. It made its first appearance in Lincoln's Inn Fields in May, 1697. The often-repeated claim that Vanbrugh wrote part of his comedy ''The Provoked Wife'' in th ...

''. He reworked it substantially, softening the character of Lady Loverule who was renamed Lady Townly, and adding a more conventional

happy ending A happy ending is an ending of the plot of a work of fiction in which almost everything turns out for the best for the main protagonists and their sidekicks, while the main villains/antagonists are dead/defeated. In storylines where the protago ...

than Vanbrugh had intended. The original 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 Lord Townly, Anne Oldfield as Lady Townly, Mary Porter as Lady Grace,

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 portra ...

as Manly,

as Sir Francis Wronghead,

Sarah Thurmond Sarah Thurmond or Sarah Lewis ( – 1762) was a British actress. Life Sarah Lewis was born in Epsom although the date is unknown. Her first appearances were at Drury Lane and Lincoln's Inn Fields at the end of 1711 in Greenwich where she met J ...

as Lady Wronghead,

Jane Cibber Jane Cibber ( Johnson; 1704/1706 — 1733) was a British stage actress.''The Routledge Anthology of Restoration and Eighteenth-Century Drama'', pg. XIII Life She was born in 1704 or 1706 as Jane Johnson. Her guardian was the writer Richard Sav ...

as Jenny, Joe Miller as Moody and

Roger Bridgewater Roger Bridgewater (died 1754) was a British stage actor of the eighteenth century.''The Routledge Anthology of Restoration and Eighteenth-Century Drama'' p.XXXIX He worked as party of the Drury Lane company for many years, specialising in dramat ...

as Count Basset. The play was a huge success and enjoyed a lengthy run at the theatre, boosting the finances of the struggling Drury Lane. It appeared to be the hit of the season, only to be eclipsed by the even more dramatic success of John Gay's ''

The Beggar's Opera ''The Beggar's Opera'' is a ballad opera in three acts written in 1728 by John Gay with music arranged by Johann Christoph Pepusch. It is one of the watershed plays in Augustan drama and is the only example of the once thriving genre of satiri ...

'' which opened three weeks later at the rival Lincoln's Inn Fields Theatre.Koon p.118 ''The Provoked Husband'' was revived frequently over the following century, become a staple part of the

repertory A repertory theatre is a theatre in which a resident company presents works from a specified repertoire, usually in alternation or rotation. United Kingdom Annie Horniman founded the first modern repertory theatre in Manchester after withdrawin ...

in many theatres.

References

Bibliography

* Burling, William J. ''A Checklist of New Plays and Entertainments on the London Stage, 1700-1737''. Fairleigh Dickinson Univ Press, 1992. * Koon, Helene. ''Colley Cibber: A Biography''. University Press of Kentucky, 2014. * Nicoll, Allardyce. ''History of English Drama, 1660-1900, Volume 2''. Cambridge University Press, 2009. 1728 plays West End plays Plays by Colley Cibber Plays by John Vanbrugh Comedy plays {{1720s-play-stub