''The Rival Fools'' is a 1709

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

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 ...

. It drew inspiration from the earlier play ''

Wit at Several Weapons ''Wit at Several Weapons'' is a seventeenth-century comedy of uncertain date and authorship. Authorship and Date In its own century, the play appeared in print only in the two Beaumont and Fletcher folios of 1647 and 1679; yet modern scholarshi ...

''. Despite Cibber's previous record of turning out hits, it was not a great success. The original

Drury Lane Drury Lane is a street on the eastern boundary of the Covent Garden area of London, running between Aldwych and High Holborn. The northern part is in the borough of Camden and the southern part in the City of Westminster. Notable landmarks ...

cast featured

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 Sir Oliver Outwit,

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 the ...

as Young Outwit,

Barton Booth Barton Booth (168210 May 1733) was one of the most famous dramatic actors of the first part of the 18th century. Early life Booth was the son of The Hon and Very Revd Dr Robert Booth (priest), Robert Booth, Dean of Bristol, by his first wife ...

as Cunningham, William Bullock as Sir Gregory Goose,

as Samuel Simpson, George Pack as Sir Threadbare,

Theophilus Keene Theophilus Keene (1680-1718) was an Anglo-Irish stage actor and theatre manager. Keene was from a Presbyterian background. He originally began acting at the Smock Alley Theatre in Dublin. Having arrived in London from Ireland in 1704, he appear ...

as Priscian,

Anne Oldfield Anne Oldfield (168323 October 1730) was an English actress and one of the highest paid actresses of her time. Early life and discovery She was born in London in 1683. Her father was a soldier, James Oldfield. Her mother was either Anne or Eliz ...

as Lucinda, Mary Porter as Mirabel and Elizabeth Willis as Governess.Van Lennep p.182

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. * McGirr, Elaine M. ''Partial Histories: A Reappraisal of Colley Cibber''. Springer, 2016. * Nicoll, Allardyce. ''History of English Drama, 1660-1900, Volume 2''. Cambridge University Press, 2009. * Van Lennep, W. ''The London Stage, 1660-1800: Volume Two, 1700-1729''. Southern Illinois University Press, 1960. 1709 plays Plays by Colley Cibber West End plays Comedy plays {{18thC-play-stub