The Old Debauchees (1732)/Somebody Else (1844) - T01287291258Script in Hand readings. The Old Debauchees - History is laced with tales of how men prey on women and how women employ intellect and wit to counter unwelcome and presumptuous advances. These two short plays, from the pens of two very accomplished authors of the period, illustrate how two different eras deal with the eternal problem. In passing, Fielding takes every opportunity to castigate the hypocrisy of the Catholic church whilst Planch? has great fun at the expense of the 19th century reality of arranged marriages.Author Henry Fielding (The Old Debauchees). Author James Robinson Planche (Somebody Else). | |
| 11 Oct 12 | Theatre Royal, Bury St Edmunds :: V76 listing details L02026059591 |
Miss in her Teens (1747)/Who's the Dupe (1779) - T01000518061Script in hand readings. Miss in her Teens - Captain Loveit returns from war to claim the beautiful Miss Biddy, with the help of his loyal servant Puff, but before he can win her heart (and her fortune) he must fight off her previous lovers. With sharp wit and punchy dialogue, this is an hilarious tale of pride and conceit where honour must be proved the ultimate victor. Who's the Dupe - With love, trickery and deceit, this is the story of young Granger who must compete with the stuffy and intelligent Gradus for the love of his beautiful Doiley. But when every dupe is played, who will be triumphant in winning the lady's hand?Author David Garrick (Miss in her Teens). Author Mrs Hannah Cowley (Who's the Dupe). | |
| 6 Sep 12 | Theatre Royal, Bury St Edmunds :: V76 listing details L783940826 |
A Bold Stroke for a Wife (1718) - T1417854010This wonderful play is perhaps the finest example of Centlivre's masterful plotting of comic intrigue. The soldier Feignwell and Anne Lovely are in love, but their path to the altar is blocked by her guardians Sir Philip Modelove who has ?May in his fancy and dress, but December in his face and heels'; Periwinkle ?a kind of virtuoso ? a silly half witted fellow'; Tradelove ?a fellow that would out-lie the devil for the advantage of stock' and Centlivre's magnificent creation ? ?the very rigid Quaker' Obadiah Prim; each of whom has a different view of what sort of husband would make the right match. The satirical bite of this sparkling comedy is directed at Tory respectability, religious propriety and capitalist speculative greed.Author Susannah Centlivre. | |
| 18 Apr 12 | Theatre Royal, Bury St Edmunds :: V76 listing details L0255778371 |
Lovers' Vows - T1704943202Script in Hand. A stirring romantic tale of past wrongs haunting victim and perpetrator. This hugely popular play is best known as the one which causes moral consternation in Jane Austen's Mansfield Park. Continuing the exciting development for our Script in Hand readings, we are turning the Theatre Royal into a radio studio for a day and giving you the chance to be a live audience for a performance of three of our favourite Restoring the Repertoire plays. Sit onstage with the actors and become part of the live recording and post-show discussion!Author Elizabeth Inchbald. | |
| 7 Mar 12 | Theatre Royal, Bury St Edmunds :: V76 listing details L608537989 |
Speed the Plough (1800) - T416687401A Script in Hand reading. A country comedy packed with vivid characters and comic incident. Young lovers, castle intrigues, marital mishaps and a ploughing competition... Continuing the exciting development for our Script in Hand readings, we are turning the Theatre Royal into a radio recording studio for a day and giving you the chance to be a live audience for a performance of three of our favourite Restoring the Repertoire plays. Sit onstage with the actors and become part of the live recording and post-show discussion! Originally read April 2004Author Thomas Morton. | |
| 26 Jan 12 | Theatre Royal, Bury St Edmunds :: V76 listing details L1949781703 |
The Basset Table - T01666702884A comedy in five acts by Susanna Centlivre first performed at the Theatre Royal Drury Lane in 1705 directed by Lynn Whitehead. Lady Reveller is a rich widow and a gambling addict. Can she be saved from her huge debts by the love of a good man, the aptly named Lord Worthy? Does she even want to be? Featuring a cast of outrageous characters including a learned young lady who prefers dissection to dating and an onstage game of eighteenth century card craze, basset, this is a colourful, dangerous comedy. Script in Hand reading.Author Susanna Centilvre. | |
| 14 Apr 11 | Theatre Royal, Bury St Edmunds :: V76 listing details L0387123929 |
The World in a Village - T01390871297When two young men return from adventures at sea with very different tales to tell, the villagers' attitudes to money and morality are severely tested. John O'Keeffe, author of The Poor Soldier, really does manage to squeeze the whole world into a village, presenting a microcosm of English society with lively characters from across the social spectrum. A Script in Hand reading.Author John O'Keeffe. | |
| 17 Mar 11 | Theatre Royal, Bury St Edmunds :: V76 listing details L0200057418 |
Knave or Not - T0659052818A comedy in five acts by Thomas Holcroft first performed at the Theatre Royal Brury Lane January 25, 1798 directed by Abigail Anderson. Harry Monrose is Holcroft's gothic-inspired anti-hero who has travelled the world and seen its corruptions and hypocrisy. 'Such is the world: and shall i, like a driveller, make myself its football? No; it shall be mine!' He resolves to play society at its own game and make his fortune in the process. From the playwright of He's Much to Blame, a darkly glittering, cynical comedy that caused an uproar at its first performance and was immediately censored for being too close to the truth. A Script in Hand reading.Author Thomas Holcroft. | |
| 17 Feb 11 | Theatre Royal, Bury St Edmunds :: V76 listing details L0452133951 |
Reform/The Factory Lad - T02048915294Reform - a patriotic drama in one act by William Thomas Moncrief first performed at the Royal Coburg Theatre on 14 March 1831. The Factory Lad - melodrama in two acts. A double bill of Georgian political theatre! Moncrieff’s riotously funny allegory of parliamentary corruption openly lobbies for reform with a capital ‘R’, while Walker’s radical melodrama stages the desperate plight (and flight) of theworking class in an age of machinery.Author William Thomas Moncrief (Reform). Author John Walker (The Factory Lad). Director Abigail Andersen. | |
| 11 Nov 10 | Theatre Royal, Bury St Edmunds :: V76 listing details L1956874437 |
John Bull; or An Englishman's Fireside - T01731099544In the figure of the honest and good-hearted Job Thornberry, Colman offered his audience a comforting vision of the English national character: robust, virtuous and quick to oppose injustice. Not just a rollicking comedy, John Bull powerfully staged the nation at a time when England was imperiled by the growing power of Napoleonic France.Author George Colman the Younger. Director Colin Blumenau. | |
| 4 Oct 10 | Theatre Royal, Bury St Edmunds :: V76 listing details L01077664413 |
Charles The First - T0263987698A Script in Hand reading. An historical tragedy in five acts by Mary Russell Mitford first performed at the Royal Victoria Theatre on 2 July 1834 Written at a moment of political unrest and unpopular monarchy, Mitford’s dramatisation of the imprisonment and trial of Charles I was quickly suppressed by authorities who felt that ‘it amounted to everything but cutting off the King’s head upon the stage’. Only nine years later was it finally performed - and even then at a theatre outside the Lord Chamberlain’s jurisdiction. | |
| 10 Sep 10 | Theatre Royal, Bury St Edmunds :: V76 listing details L1591979232 |
All on a Summer's Day - T0502817454First performed on 15 Dec 1787 at the Theatre Royal Covent Garden. Lady Carrol is wilful, outspoken and likes to flirt. Exchanging love-letters with young Mooneye and passing her husband off as her father, however, takes things one step too far! Another rediscovery from the pen of our very own Bury playwright, Elizabeth Inchbald. Rehearsed ReadingAuthor Elizabeth Inchbald. | |
| 15 Jul 10 | Theatre Royal, Bury St Edmunds :: V76 listing details L076050891 |
The Poor Soldier - T1037090592First performed on 4 November 1783 at the Theatre Royal Covent Garden. Join us and rediscover the original Broadway musical! Following the American Revolution our hero returns home to Ireland with love in his heart and a song on his lips.Author John O'Keefe. Music William Shield. Director Colin Blumenau. | |
| 29 Jun 10 to 3 Jul 10 | Theatre Royal, Bury St Edmunds :: V76 listing details L2048676421 |
A Day in Turkey - T0306444818Rehearsed Reading. A comedy in five acts by Hannah Cowley, first performed on 3 Dec 1791 at the Theatre Royal Covent Garden. Linking perfectly with Staging The East (see below), this comedy by another successful woman playwright of the Georgian era has it all: beautiful Russian slaves, a cheeky French servant with his own ideas about liberty, and a Turkish Bassa in love.Author Hannah Cowley. | |
| 11 Jun 10 | Theatre Royal, Bury St Edmunds :: V76 listing details L01209715007 |
Hamlet Travestie - T1117002885A Rehearsed Reading. Travesties, or spoofs, of Shakespeare were a hugely popular part of the comic repertoire of 19th-century theatre, a tradition now taken up by the likes of the Reduced Shakespeare Company. John Poole was the pioneer of the form and this is the first of its kind. If you know anything at all about Hamlet, you’ll love this send-up of Shakespeare’s verse and Shakespeare productions - complete with comedy footnotes!Author John Poole (1810). | |
| 28 Apr 10 | Theatre Royal, Bury St Edmunds :: V76 listing details L01806154476 |
King Lear - T1706288807Rehearsed Reading. It was Nahum Tate who famously gave King Lear a happy ending - a change which held the stage for nearly 150 years and which Samuel Johnson preferred to the original. Successive 18th century actors and managers continued to make amendments but JP Kemble, who first played Lear to Sarah Siddons’s Cordelia, restored much of Tate’s original verse (at the expense of Shakespeare’s!) and it is a version from his prompt book which we will perform.Author Nahum Tate. Adapted by JP Kemble. | |
| 4 Mar 10 | Theatre Royal, Bury St Edmunds :: V76 listing details L01277731074 |
The Jew of Venice - T0820900934A Rehearsed Reading. Granville’s version of Shakespeare’s The Merchant of Venice held the stage for forty years after its triumphant production with Thomas Betterton as Bassanio in 1701. Played by the same cast as our own production of The Merchant..., this is a fascinating game of spot the difference, giving a unique insight into the changing tastes of audiences and playwrights.Author George Granville. | |
| 21 Feb 10 | Theatre Royal, Bury St Edmunds :: V76 listing details L1656938301 |
Speculation - T201241842A comedy by Frederick Reynolds first performed in 1795. The final reading in our ‘credit crunch’ season satirises the murky world of financial speculation. Mr Project has embezzled his rich ward’s inheritance and lost it in hopeless investment schemes - his only hope is to marry her off before anybody takes a look at his books. With scenes taking place everywhere from country estates to Debtors’ prison and Bubble’s Gambling Club, this delightful play gives a fascinating prospect over the Georgian social scene. A Rehearsed Reading.Author Frederick Reynolds. | |
| 12 Nov 09 | Theatre Royal, Bury St Edmunds :: V76 listing details L800090197 |
The Rent Day - T664795252A domestic drama by Douglas Jerrold first performed on 25 January 1832 Continuing our season of plays exploring the ‘credit crunch’, Douglas Jerrold, author of Black Eyed Susan, makes a welcome return to Restoring the Repertoire. The Rent Day is a boisterous mix of sentiment and broad comedy, telling the story of virtuous Martin Heywood’s struggle against repossession, and featuring a colourful cast of characters including the treacherous steward, Crumbs; avaricious appraiser, Bullfrog, and unscrupulous Silver Jack. A Rehearsed Reading | |
| 15 Oct 09 | Theatre Royal, Bury St Edmunds :: V76 listing details L01693115105 |
The Road to Ruin - T0216362349A comedy in five acts by Thomas Holcroft first performed on 18 February 1792 at the Theatre Royal, Covent Garden Our ‘credit crunch’ season of rehearsed readings, in which we explore the pitfalls of the financial world, starts with Thomas Holcroft’s most successful play, in which he skilfully paints the picture of a superficial and decadent society. Banker’s son Harry Dornton has brought his father’s business to the brink of bankruptcy due to reckless gambling. Is his desperate, last ditch attempt to avert disaster going to work?Author Thomas Holcroft. | |
| 14 Sep 09 | Theatre Royal, Bury St Edmunds :: V76 listing details L0219071974 |
The Miller and his Men - T01193534219This archetype of spectacular melodrama with villainous miller, brigand crew, innocent heroine and explosive finale, was first performed at the Theatre Royal, Covent Garden. Rehearsed reading.Author Isaac Innes Pocock (1813). Director Abigail Anderson. | |
| 20 Aug 09 to 21 Aug 09 | Theatre Royal, Bury St Edmunds :: V76 listing details L0234262806 |
The Two Foscari - T2023442550A historical tragedy in five acts by Lord Byron (1821) The Two Foscari was based on the life of Francesco Foscari (1373 -1457), doge of Venice from 1423 to 1457. Later to become the basis of Guiseppe Verdi’s opera I due Foscari, the play explores an inescapable conflict between parental love and political authority.Author Lord Byron. | |
| 8 Jul 09 | Theatre Royal, Bury St Edmunds :: V76 listing details L1591500905 |
Duplicity - T987543335First performed on 13 October 1781. Mr Osborne is engaged to be married to Melissa and his long standing best friend Sir Harry Portland has fallen in love with Clara. It sounds like the perfect recipe for domestic bliss until Sir Harry’s life starts to unravel and one by one he loses everything he holds dear. The ultimate blow comes when he discovers his woes are all thanks to his friend Mr Osborne. Interspersed with some laugh out loud funny scenes, this is one of the most interesting of Holcroft’s satirical contemplations of a gambling obsessed society with self-destructive tendencies. A rehearsed reading.Author Thomas Holcroft. | |
| 11 Jun 09 | Theatre Royal, Bury St Edmunds :: V76 listing details L1721909630 |
Cato - T327793626A rehearsed reading. A tragedy in five acts by Joseph Addison Joseph Addison’s Cato, premièred on 14 April, 1713 at the Theatre Royal Drury Lane, was an immediate success and became one of the most popular plays of the period. The play tells the story of Cato the Younger, implacable foe of Caesar, an incorruptible individual who struggles against tyranny. George Washington was so taken with the character of Cato that he made the Roman republican his role model.Author Joseph Addison. | |
| 7 May 09 | Theatre Royal, Bury St Edmunds :: V76 listing details L0270367779 |
Double Bill: The Celebrated Mrs Inchbald/The Wolf and the Lamb - T01927605506The Celebrated Mrs Inchbald - This fascinating and beautiful study of Bury’s own playwright Elizabeth Inchbald was premiered to great acclaim in September 2008 in Stanningfield, the location of the writer’s birth. The Wolf and the Lamb - A reading of a typical farce of the early nineteenth century which sees two twin brothers, Gossamer and Edwin, played by the same female actor, vie for the love [and twenty thousand pound dowry] of their young and beautiful cousin Rose. Tickets and further details to be announced.Author Katie Bonna (The Celebrated Mrs Inchbald). Performer Katie Bonna (The Celebrated Mrs Inchbald). Author Thomas Egerton Wilks (The Wolf and the Lamb). Director Alexander Ferris (The Wolf and the Lamb). | |
| 16 Apr 09 | Theatre Royal, Bury St Edmunds :: V76 listing details L2039689745 |
The London Merchant or The History of George Barnwell - T383003198Rehearsed Reading. A tragedy in five acts by George Lillo first performed at Drury Lane on 22 June 1731. Dubbed a domestic tragedy, Lillo's drama is based on a traditional ballad. It dramatises the downfall of a promising London merchant’s apprentice who is led to debauchery, theft and murder by the prostitute Millwood.Author George Lillo. Director Colin Blumenau. | |
| 5 Mar 09 | Theatre Royal, Bury St Edmunds :: V76 listing details L1215589969 |
A Trip to Bath - T01561135537Rehearsed Reading. Plots, deceptions and hidden desires abound amongst a group of visitors to a fashionable Bath guesthouse. Edward and Lucy, young, rich and in love, look set to be corrupted not only by the two unscrupulous fortune-hunters in pursuit of them, but also by the greed of their parents. A witty and daring comedy of manners, it features the gloriously inept Mrs Tryfort - prototype for Mrs Malaprop in The Rivals. This Rehearsed Reading will be its English Premiere.Author Frances Sheridan (1765 / 1999)). Director Colin Blumenau. | |
| 3 Feb 09 | Theatre Royal, Bury St Edmunds :: V76 listing details L01231167930 |
Which is the Man? - T265347323In this truly inspired comedy of manners her portrayals of Lord Sparkle, the beautiful but flawed Lady Bell Bloomer and the Cornish rustic buffoon Pendragon are as vivid as any of the masterful caricatures of Gillray, Rowlandson or Cruikshank.Author Hannah Cowley. | |
| 16 Jul 08 | Theatre Royal, Bury St Edmunds :: V76 listing details L350481186 |
He's Much to Blame - T01746331021Rehearsed Reading. In this scathing comedy of relationships we see one of the key figures in the radical movement of the 1790s dip his pen in bile and write a consummate critique of the society of the time.Author Thomas Holcroft. | |
| 12 Jun 08 | Theatre Royal, Bury St Edmunds :: V76 listing details L01182028422 |
St Patrick's Day/The Mogul Tale - T900863022Rehearsed readingAuthor Richard Brinsley (St Patrick's Day). Author Elizabeth Inchbald (The Mogul Tale). | |
| 13 May 08 | Theatre Royal, Bury St Edmunds :: V76 listing details L0403659263 |
The Mutiny at the Nore - T898459100A nautical drama in three acts by Douglas Jerrold Having experienced the harsh regime of the Royal Navy himself, Jerrold drew on the true events of mutinous outbreaks in 1797 to highlight the savage reality of war. First performed in 1830, this play is much darker than its more light-hearted forerunner, Black Eyed Susan. A rehearsed reading. | |
| 19 Mar 08 | Theatre Royal, Bury St Edmunds :: V76 listing details L1710021502 |
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| 21 Sep 06 | Theatre Royal, Bury St Edmunds :: V76 listing details L01242890400 |
| 15 Dec 05 | Theatre Royal, Bury St Edmunds :: V76 listing details L0729663476 |
| 7 Oct 05 | Theatre Royal, Bury St Edmunds :: V76 listing details L01613825573 |
