''The Fool: Scenes of Bread and Love'' is a play by the English playwright Edward Bond. It traces the life of the poet

John Clare John Clare (13 July 1793 – 20 May 1864) was an English poet. The son of a farm labourer, he became known for his celebrations of the English countryside and sorrows at its disruption. His work underwent major re-evaluation in the late 20th ce ...

against the backdrop of the

Industrial Revolution The Industrial Revolution was the transition to new manufacturing processes in Great Britain, continental Europe, and the United States, that occurred during the period from around 1760 to about 1820–1840. This transition included going f ...

, from his roots in rural East Anglia via literary success in London to his final years in a

lunatic asylum The lunatic asylum (or insane asylum) was an early precursor of the modern psychiatric hospital. The fall of the lunatic asylum and its eventual replacement by modern psychiatric hospitals explains the rise of organized, institutional psychiatr ...

. The play was first performed at the

Royal Court Theatre The Royal Court Theatre, at different times known as the Court Theatre, the New Chelsea Theatre, and the Belgravia Theatre, is a non-commercial West End theatre in Sloane Square, in the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea, London, England ...

in 1975, in a production directed by Peter Gill and featuring a cast including

Tom Courtenay Sir Thomas Daniel Courtenay (; born 25 February 1937) is an English actor. After studying at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art, Courtenay achieved prominence in the 1960s with a series of acclaimed film roles, including ''The Loneliness of ...

David Troughton David Troughton (born 9 June 1950) is an English actor. He is known for his Shakespearean roles on the British stage and for his many roles on British television, including Dr Bob Buzzard in ''A Very Peculiar Practice'' and Ricky Hanson in ''Ne ...

and

Nigel Terry Peter Nigel Terry (15 August 1945 – 30 April 2015) was an English stage, film, and television actor, typically in historical and period roles. He played Prince John in Anthony Harvey's film '' The Lion in Winter'' (1968) and King Arthur in ...

among others. After a 35-year hiatus, ''The Fool'' was revived in the UK in late 2010 as part of the six-play Edward Bond Season at the

Cock Tavern Theatre The Cock Tavern Theatre was a pub theatre located in Kilburn, London, Kilburn in the north-west of London. The venue specialised in new works and critical revivals. Resident companies Good Night Out Presents and OperaUpClose were also based at t ...

in Kilburn, London. Bond himself directed the production, with Ben Crispin playing the role of John Clare. It is one of the highly regarded works in Bond's output.

Original cast

*John Clare -

*Miles -

*Darkie -

*Lawrence -

Mick Ford Mick Ford (born 1 August 1952) is a British actor, screenwriter and playwright, best known for his portrayal of intellectual convict Archer in the cinema version of '' Scum''. Early life and education Ford was born on 1 August 1952 in Croyd ...

*Patty -

Bridget Turner Bridget Joanna Turner (22 February 1939 – 27 December 2014) was an English actress. She played a radical English teacher, Judy Threadgold, opposite Alun Armstrong's woodwork teacher in Alan Plater's ''Get Lost!'' for Yorkshire Television, ...

*Mary - Caroline Hutchison *Lord Milton -

Nicholas Selby Nicholas Selby (born James Ivor Selby, 13 September 1925 – 14 September 2010) was a British film, television and theatre actor. He appeared in more than one hundred television dramas on the BBC and ITV during the course of his career, inclu ...

*The Parson -

John Normington John Normington (28 January 1937 – 26 July 2007) was an English actor primarily known for his work on television. Normington was also a member of the Royal Shakespeare Company performing in more than 20 RSC productions. He performed widely ...

*Lord Milton's Guests - Peter Myers,

John Boswall John Boswall (2 May 1920 – 6 June 2011) was a British actor probably best known for playing Wyvern in '' Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest''. Early life and education Boswall was born John Stuart on 2 May 1920 in Oxfordshire, Engla ...

,
Malcolm Ingram,
Robert Lloyd,
Shiela Kelley,
Avril Marsh *Wadlow, Lord Milton's Gamekeeper - Roger Hume *Hilary, the Assistant Keeper -

David Ellison David Ellison (born January 9, 1983) is an American film producer and actor best known as the founder and CEO of Skydance Media. Early life and education David Ellison was born in Santa Clara County, California. He is the son of billionaire Ora ...

*Bob - Roderick Smith *Peter - Malcolm Ingram *Betty - Shiela Kelley *Hamo - Brian Hall *Gentlemen - Peter Myers, Robert Lloyd, John Boswall *Hicks, a Warder -

Tony Rohr Tony Rohr (born 1940) is an Irish actor. Career Rohr played Grandad in '' The Lakes'' and Solomon Featherstone in ''Middlemarch''. He has also appeared in ''The Bill'', '' The Long Good Friday'', '' McVicar'', '' Softly, Softly'', ''Crown Cour ...

*Governor - Peter Myers *Porter - Ken Gajadhar *Jackson - Brian Hall *Porter's Backers - Malcolm Ingram, Mick Ford *Jackson's Backers - David Troughton, Roger Hume *Referee - David Ellison *A Boy - Roderick Smith *Mrs. Emmerson -

Isabel Dean Isabel Dean (born Isabel Hodgkinson, 29 May 1918 – 27 July 1997) was an English stage, film and television actress. Life and career Born in Aldridge, Staffordshire, Dean studied painting at Birmingham Art School. In 1937, she joined the Che ...

*Charles Lamb - Robert Lloyd *Mary Lamb - Gillian Martell *Admiral Lord Radstock -

Bill Fraser William Simpson Fraser (5 June 1908 – 9 September 1987) was a Scottish actor who appeared on stage, screen and television for many years. In 1986 he won the Laurence Olivier Award for Best Comedy Performance for his stage role in the play '' ...

*Dr. Skrimshtrb - John Boswall *Tommy - Tony Rohr *Michael - Roger Hume *Arny - Brian Hall *Napoleon - John Normington *A Man in a Straitjacket - Mick Ford *An Attendant - David Troughton

Reception

The Spectator ''The Spectator'' is a weekly British magazine on politics, culture, and current affairs. It was first published in July 1828, making it the oldest surviving weekly magazine in the world. It is owned by Frederick Barclay, who also owns ''The ...

'''s Kenneth Hurren criticized the play and the performance after the

premiere, arguing that the work consists of two different plays that "do not so much blend with as disappear into each other" and saying that Courtenay "has a hard time with Clare". In a 2001 article for ''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid d ...

'',

Benedict Nightingale William Benedict Herbert Nightingale (born 14 May 1939) is a British journalist, formerly a regular theatre critic for ''The Times'' newspaper. He was educated at Charterhouse and Magdalene College, Cambridge. His first published theatre review ...

described ''The Fool'' as "moving". In 2006,

Mark Ravenhill Mark Ravenhill (born 7 June 1966) is an English playwright, actor and journalist. Ravenhill is one of the most widely performed playwrights in British theatre of the late-twentieth and twenty-first centuries. His major plays include ''Shoppin ...

praised the boxing match as one of Bond's "brilliant images". Elizabeth Davis of ''Kilburn Times'' wrote, after seeing the 2010 performance directed by Bond, that "the play has powerful moments but the production was overly long (at 2hr 45mins) and, at times, as po-faced as the pompous vicar. Nevertheless, Bond, as ever, creates a memorable and thought-provoking evening." In the same year, Ravenhill lauded the play as a "brilliant ..landmark" work and wrote, "There is no play that more acutely captures the experience of being a writer who is happily snatched up by London literary circles and then just as hastily dispatched". Michael Billington of ''

The Guardian ''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'', and changed its name in 1959. Along with its sister papers ''The Observer'' and ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardian'' is part of the Gu ...

'' called ''The Fool'' "a fine play" in a 2010 review of a different play.

Lyn Gardner Lyn Gardner is a British theatre critic, children's writer and journalist who contributes reviews and articles to ''The Stage,'' '' Stagedoor'' and has written for ''The Guardian''. Theatre critic and educator A graduate in drama and English from ...

described it as "a very fine play about Clare" in the same paper. Playwright Nicholas Wright referred to it as a "great play". Pamela McCallum wrote in 2016 that the play "represents a high point of post-war British drama and perhaps can be taken as a site of division between generations in theatre. The following generation—

Churchill Sir Winston Leonard Spencer Churchill (30 November 187424 January 1965) was a British statesman, soldier, and writer who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom twice, from 1940 to 1945 during the Second World War, and again from 1 ...

, Ravenhill, Kane, and Butterworth—foreground, in very different ways, the psychological distortions and devastating brutalities of the contemporary world".

Awards

''The Fool'' won Best Play of 1976 in the ''Plays and Players'' London Critics Award.

References

External links

BBC News on the Edward Bond Season 2010

Details of original production in 1975
{{DEFAULTSORT:Fool, The 1975 plays Plays by Edward Bond Plays based on real people