The Alchemist
T0109122038
While the master of the house is out of town to escape the plague, his house-keeper sets up with 'a cheater and his punk' as the city's premiere conman. A full range of alternative services is offered to the citizens who beat a furtive path to their door - anything from the secret of eternal youth to that recipe of recipes, which will turn a tin can into bankable gold. Masters of the ludicrous disguise, in one amazing day they aim to prove 'who shall shark the best.' Their frantic fraudulence reaches boiling point when the gang receives some alarming news. Jonson's satire mercilessly burns away the dross, exposing a society whose obsessions make it vulnerable to any well worked scam - as long as it promises the instant jackpot in business, gambling, quarrelling or sexual conquest.
Archive :: production:T0109122038, play:S2247, venue:V204
Production details
Firehouse and Hoxton Hall have joined forces to stage a reworking of this classic, using contemporary stories from the local community in Hoxton. Over the next few months, our StoryStation will be found in a stall on Hoxton Street Market. From these recordings will come a new version of The Alchemist - one that belongs firmly to Hoxton.
