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Three Hours After Marriage
''Three Hours After Marriage'' was a restoration comedy, written in 1717 as a collaboration between John Gay, Alexander Pope and John Arbuthnot, though Gay was the principal author. The play is best described as a satirical farce, and among its satirical targets was Richard Blackmore. ''Three Hours After Marriage'' tells the story of Doctor Fossil, a pompous ageing scientist, who has just married a much younger woman, Mrs Townley who is then immediately beset by two rival suitors who try to win her affections. The wife and suitors then go to comical lengths to hide their intentions from Dr Fossil. The plot is complicated by the presence of a female poet Phoebe Clinket and Sir Tremendous, a literary critic. It premiered on 16 January 1717 at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane. The cast included Benjamin Johnson as Doctor Fossil, Anne Oldfield as Mrs Townley, Margaret Bicknell as Phoebe Clinket, Colley Cibber as Plotwell, William Penkethman as Underplot, Henry Norris as Possum, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
John Gay
John Gay (30 June 1685 – 4 December 1732) was an English poet and dramatist and member of the Scriblerus Club. He is best remembered for ''The Beggar's Opera'' (1728), a ballad opera. The characters, including Captain Macheath and Polly Peachum, became household names.. Early life Gay was born in Barnstaple, England, last of five children of William Gay (died 1695) and Katherine (died 1694), daughter of Jonathan Hanmer, "the leading Nonconformist divine of the town" as founder of the Independent Dissenting congregation in Barnstaple. The Gay family- "fairly comfortable... though far from rich"- lived in "a large house, called the Red Cross, on the corner of Joy Street". The Gay family was "of respectable antiquity" in North Devon, associated with the manor of Goldsworthy at Parkham and with the parish of Frithelstock (where the senior line remained, resident at the priory Cloister Hall with its lands, until 1823) and became "powerful and numerous" in the town, "established a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
John Dennis (dramatist)
John Dennis (16 September 1658 – 6 January 1734) was an English critic and dramatist. Life He was born in the parish of St Andrew Holborn, London, in 1658. He was educated at Harrow School and Caius College, Cambridge, where he took his B.A. degree in 1679. In the next year he was fined and dismissed from his college for having wounded a fellow student with a sword. He was, however, received at Trinity Hall, where he took his M.A. degree in 1683. After travelling in France and Italy, he settled in London, where he became acquainted with Dryden, and close to Wycherley, Congreve and the leading literary figures of his day; and being made temporarily independent by inheriting a small fortune, he devoted himself to literature. The Duke of Marlborough procured him a place as one of the queen's waiters in the customs with a salary of £20 a year. This he afterwards disposed of for a small sum, retaining, at the suggestion of Lord Halifax, a yearly charge upon it for a long term ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Richard Cottrell
Richard Cottrell (born 15 August 1936) is an English theatre director. He has been the Director of the Cambridge Theatre Company and the Bristol Old Vic in England, and of the Nimrod Theatre in Sydney, Australia. He has also directed for the Royal Shakespeare Company, the Chichester Festival, the Stratford Shakespeare Festival in Stratford, Ontario, the National Theatre of Portugal, and other theatre companies around the world. Cottrell is also a translator of plays, and an author of a book on art appreciation. Career Cottrell was born 15 August 1936, in London. He attended Cambridge University, and trained as an actor in Paris.1969 Bio on McKellen.com Work in Britain From 1964 to 1966 Cottrell was General Manager of the Hampstead Theatre Club. The first play he directed there was |
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 satirical ballad opera to remain popular today. Ballad operas were satiric musical plays that used some of the conventions of opera, but without recitative. The lyrics of the airs in the piece are set to popular broadsheet ballads, opera arias, church hymns and folk tunes of the time. ''The Beggar's Opera'' premiered at the Lisle's Tennis Court, Lincoln's Inn Fields Theatre on 29 January 1728 and ran for 62 consecutive performances, the second-longest run in theatre history up to that time (after 146 performances of Robert Cambert's ''Pomone (opera), Pomone'' in Paris in 1671). The work became Gay's greatest success and has been played ever since; it has been called "the most popular play of the eighteenth century". In 1920, ''The Beggar's Opera ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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 satirical ballad opera to remain popular today. Ballad operas were satiric musical plays that used some of the conventions of opera, but without recitative. The lyrics of the airs in the piece are set to popular broadsheet ballads, opera arias, church hymns and folk tunes of the time. ''The Beggar's Opera'' premiered at the Lincoln's Inn Fields Theatre on 29 January 1728 and ran for 62 consecutive performances, the second-longest run in theatre history up to that time (after 146 performances of Robert Cambert's '' Pomone'' in Paris in 1671). The work became Gay's greatest success and has been played ever since; it has been called "the most popular play of the eighteenth century". In 1920, ''The Beggar's Opera'' began a revival run of 1,463 perf ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Ascent Of Man
''The Ascent of Man'' is a 13-part British documentary television series produced by the BBC and Time-Life Films first broadcast in 1973. It was written and presented by British mathematician and historian of science Jacob Bronowski, who also authored a book adaptation. Intended as a series of "personal view" documentaries in the manner of Kenneth Clark's 1969 series ''Civilisation'', the series received acclaim for Bronowski's highly informed but eloquently simple analysis, his long, elegant monologues, and its extensive location shoots. The programme began broadcasting on BBC2 at 9pm on Saturday, 5 May 1973 and was released in the US 7 January 1975. Overview The title alludes to ''The Descent of Man'' (1871), Charles Darwin's second book on evolution. Over the series' 13 episodes, Jacob Bronowski travels around the world in order to trace the development of human society through its understanding of science. It was commissioned specifically to complement Kenneth Clark's ''C ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Jacob Bronowski
Jacob Bronowski (18 January 1908 – 22 August 1974) was a Polish-British mathematician and philosopher. He was known to friends and professional colleagues alike by the nickname Bruno. He is best known for developing a humanistic approach to science, and as the presenter and writer of the thirteen-part 1973 BBC television documentary series, and accompanying book ''The Ascent of Man'', which led to his regard as "one of the world's most celebrated intellectuals". Bronowski's family moved from Congress Poland to Germany and then to England while he was a child. He won a scholarship to study mathematics at the University of Cambridge. His interests have been described as ranging "widely, from biology to poetry and from chess to Humanism". He taught mathematics at the University College Hull between 1934 and 1942. During World War II he led the field of operations research and worked to increase the effectiveness of Allied bombing. After the war he headed the projects division of ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Patent Theatre
The patent theatres were the theatres that were licensed to perform "spoken drama" after the Restoration of Charles II as King of England, Scotland and Ireland in 1660. Other theatres were prohibited from performing such "serious" drama, but were permitted to show comedy, pantomime or melodrama. Drama was also interspersed with singing or dancing, to prevent the whole being too serious or dramatic. Restoration era Public entertainments, such as theatrical performances, were banned under the Puritan rule in the English Commonwealth. After he was restored to the throne, Charles II issued letters patent to Thomas Killigrew and William Davenant, granting them the monopoly right to form two London theatre companies to perform "serious" drama. The letters patent were reissued in 1662 with revisions allowing actresses to perform for the first time (Fisk 73). Killigrew established his company, the King's Company at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane in 1663; Davenant established his comp ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Richard Steele
Sir Richard Steele (bap. 12 March 1672 – 1 September 1729) was an Anglo-Irish writer, playwright, and politician, remembered as co-founder, with his friend Joseph Addison, of the magazine ''The Spectator''. Early life Steele was born in Dublin, Ireland, in March 1672 to Richard Steele, a wealthy attorney, and Elinor Symes (''née'' Sheyles); his sister Katherine was born the previous year. He was the grandson of Sir William Steele, Lord Chancellor of Ireland and his first wife Elizabeth Godfrey. His father lived at Mountown House, Monkstown, County Dublin. His mother, of whose family background little is known, was described as a woman of "great beauty and noble spirit". His father died when he was four, and his mother a year later. Steele was largely raised by his uncle and aunt, Henry Gascoigne (secretary to James Butler, 1st Duke of Ormonde), and Lady Katherine Mildmay. A member of the Protestant gentry, he was educated at Charterhouse School, where he first met Add ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Giles Jacob
Giles Jacob (1686 – 8 May 1744) was a British legal writer whose works include a well-received law dictionary that became the most popular and widespread law dictionary in the newly independent United States.McDowell, Gary. The Language of Law and the Foundations of American Constitutionalism', p. 172 (2010). Jacob was the leading legal writer of his era, according to the Yale Law Library. The literary works of Giles Jacob did not fare as well as his legal ones, and he feuded with the poet Alexander Pope both publicly and in literary form. Pope named Jacob as one of the dunces in his 1728 ''Dunciad'', referring to Jacob as "the blunderbuss of the law". Jacob is remembered well for his legal writing, though not so much for his poetry and plays. Early life Giles was born in Romsey, Hampshire, and was baptized on 22 November 1686.Kilburn, Matthew. "Giles Jacob" in Matthew, H.C.G. and Brian Harrison, eds. ''The Oxford Dictionary of National Biography.'' vol. 29, 546–7. Lond ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Leonard Welsted
Leonard Welsted (''baptised'' 3 June 1688 – August 1747) was an English poet and "dunce" in Alexander Pope's writings (both in ''The Dunciad'' and in ''Peri Bathos''). Welsted was an accomplished writer who composed in a relaxed, light hearted vein. He was associated with Whig party political figures in his later years (the years in which he earned Pope's enmity), but he was tory earlier, and, in the age of patronage, this seems to have been more out of financial need than anything else. He was the son of a Church of England priest and was orphaned at six. He attended Trinity College, Cambridge but left without a degree. He married Frances Purcell, the orphaned daughter of Henry Purcell, around 1707, and the couple had a daughter, also named Frances. However, the mother died in 1712, and Welsted married Anna Maria Walker, the sister of an admiral, that year. In his poetry, he referred to her as Zelinda. Frances Welsted, the daughter, died in 1726, seventeen years old, a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Sultaness
''The Sultaness'' is a 1717 tragedy by the British writer Charles Johnson. It is a reworking of the 1672 French play '' Bajazet'' by Jean Racine set in the Ottoman Empire. In common with early eighteenth century plays it places much greater emphasis on the emotional anguish of its female characters than Racine's original. Like other plays set in Ottoman courts there may have been subtle parallels with contemporary British politics, particularly the divisions between George I and his son George, Prince of Wales. More strongly the play references the ongoing Austro-Turkish War and the role of Prince Eugene of Savoy who later that year won a major victory at the Siege of Belgrade. The original cast included Barton Booth as Bajazet, Mary Porter as Roxana, Anne Oldfield as Atalida, John Mills as Acomat and Lacy Ryan as Osmyn. Johnson used the preface of the play to attack the recent comedy '' Three Hours After Marriage'' by John Gay and Alexander Pope Alexander Pope (21 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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