''The Fortune Hunters; Or, Two Fools Well Met'' is 1689

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 James Carlile. It was originally staged by the

United Company The United Company was a London theatre company formed in 1682 with the merger of the King's Company and the Duke's Company. Both the Duke's and King's Companies suffered poor attendance during the turmoil of the Popish Plot period, 1678&ndas ...

at the

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 Dr ...

in London. The original Drury Lane cast included Anthony Leigh as Sir William Wealthy,

Edward Kynaston Edward Kynaston may refer to: *Edward Kynaston (actor) (c. 1640–1712), English actor *Edward Kynaston (1709–1772) Edward Kynaston (6 October 1709–1772), of Garth and Bryngwyn, Montgomeryshire and Hardwick, Shropshire, was a British landow ...

as Tom Wealthy,

William Mountfort William Mountfort (c. 1664 – 10 December 1692), England, English actor and dramatic writer, was the son of a Staffordshire gentleman. Biography His first stage appearance was with the Dorset Garden Theatre company about 1678, and by 168 ...

as Young Wealthy,

James Nokes James Nokes (Noke, Noak, Noakes) (died c.1692) was an English actor, whose laughter-arousing genius was attested by Cibber and other contemporaries. Life Nokes was one of the male actors who played female roles in the newly reopened playhouses s ...

as Spruce, John Bowman as Littlegad,

Elinor Leigh Elinor Leigh was a British stage actor of the seventeenth century. Born Elinor Dixon, she was billed as Mrs Leigh or Mrs Lee after she married the actor Anthony Leigh in 1671. This has led to some difficulty distinguishing on playbills between he ...

as The Lady Sly,

Charlotte Butler Charlotte Butler was an English stage actress and singer of the seventeenth century. She may have joined the Duke's Company in the 1670s, but her first definite recorded performance was in Aphra Behn's '' The Revenge'' (1680) The anonymous ''A Sat ...

as Sophia, Susanna Mountfort as Maria and

Frances Maria Knight Frances is a French and English given name of Latin origin. In Latin the meaning of the name Frances is 'from France' or 'free one.' The male version of the name in English is Francis. The original Franciscus, meaning "Frenchman", comes from the ...

as Mrs Spruce.Van Lennep p.370 The work remained popular into the eighteenth century. It was revived at the Queen's Theatre,

Haymarket Haymarket may refer to: Places Australia * Haymarket, New South Wales, area of Sydney, Australia Germany * Heumarkt (KVB), transport interchange in Cologne on the site of the Heumarkt (literally: hay market) Russia * Sennaya Square (''Hay Squ ...

in 1707 with a cast featuring William Bullock,

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 ...

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 ...

, George Pack, Henry Norris,

Lucretia Bradshaw Lucretia Bradshaw (fl. 1714 - 1741) was an English actress. She was often billed as Mrs. Bradshaw. In Thomas Betterton's 1741 ''A History of the English Stage'', it is stated that: She declared herself to have learned from Elizabeth Barry: "to ...

Margaret Bicknell Margaret Bicknell (1695?–1723) was a Scottish theatre actress and dancer. Early life and education She was sister of Elizabeth Younger, an actress, who survived her some years. Younger informed Mrs. Saunders, a well-known actress who had f ...

and Anne Oldfield. This led to further stagings at the Haymarket in 1708 and 1709, followed by Drury Lane in 1711 and

Lincoln's Inn Fields Lincoln's Inn Fields is the largest public square in London. It was laid out in the 1630s under the initiative of the speculative builder and contractor William Newton, "the first in a long series of entrepreneurs who took a hand in develo ...

in 1717 and 1728.

References

Bibliography

* Canfield, J. Douglas. ''Tricksters and Estates: On the Ideology of Restoration Comedy''. University Press of Kentucky, 2014. * Van Lennep, W. ''The London Stage, 1660–1800: Volume One, 1660–1700''. Southern Illinois University Press, 1960. 1689 plays West End plays Restoration comedy {{17thC-play-stub