Old Dive's History of Norwich Castle - Part the Eighth - From Tudor Torture to Georgian Gaol - Chapter IX

Fancy another quick break? Hokay, as we've reached Charles the Second let's check out my favourite feature of post-Commonwealth London … Restoration Comedies! Huzzah!

On his return from France to take up the English throne, Chazza the Second brought back some habits he'd picked up in exile. One was a sympathy for Catholicism which would cause all manner of problems that fortunately do not concern us here; another was a love of theatre and in particular of young women, one of whom would very definitely catch his eye.

One of the few portraits of Nell Gwyn where her boobies are actually covered up.

Peter Lely again, via the interweb.

From child prostitute in her alcoholic mother's bawdy-house, via pimped "orange-girl" at age thirteen (selling oranges and "other favours" to the toffs at the King's Company's new theatre on Drury Lane), an actress at fourteen, specialising in bawdy comedies and thence into the king's bed at eighteen, Nell Gwyn was only one of a veritable village of mistresses kept by Charles and bore him two sons before retiring from the stage and tragically dying at thirty-seven after a series of strokes "almost certainly due to the acquired variety of syphilis." Nell died wealthy and owned several houses, moving from one to another during the social season as she followed the king around his realm. Go, Girl!

Drury Lane Theatre in David Garrick's day, via the interweb.

Before sufficient comedies were written to satisfy the new king's taste (that women should play women's and on occasion, men's parts, that there be sexually explicit language, risqué seduction scenes, bawdiness, outrageously exaggerated characters, cross-dressing, but most of all mockery of high society and the people at his court), the early audiences enjoyed a diet of Shakespeare and Jonson.

This encouraged the birth of the serious professional actress, such as Elizabeth Barry, the first "celebrity" but as the new comedies took hold, bawdy comediennes such as Nell Gwyn and Susanna Mountfort became the fashion. Gods forgive them for what the first "celebrities" spawned in the age of TV…

Aphra Behn, the first woman to "write for bread" … hugely successful playwright of Restoration Comedies. Courtesy the British Library.

It also gave Aphra Behn the opportunity to become the first female playwright, producing successful comedies as well as more serious plays depicting the plight of women in seventeenth century England.

Breeches rôles were wildly popular, with actresses dressing as men and enjoying the resulting comedic freedom; Susanna Mountfort in particular was an expert at "roistering" in male drag. Nell Gwyn had herself in her early teens roamed London dressed in male clothing with a false beard (for reasons best know to herself). Pepys loved nothing more than going to watch the same actresses night after night if the rôle was risqué enough and adored Nell so much that he hung a nude portrait of her above his desk at the Admiralty (a proto-girlie-calendar).

Egotistical courtiers came to the royal court theatres specifically to see themselves personally mocked and satirised, the more outrageously the better. Gradually, however, with comedy's increasing popularity, new theatres opened up that admitted the "middling sorts" and even the hoi-polloi, much to Pepys' disgust and new plays were written to cater for these audiences.

I have a perverse passion for Restoration Comedies. Of the five-hundred or so that survive, a few dozen are still in the repertory canon and are played regularly (including Aphra Behn's sex comedy "The Rover"). The original scripts were published in blue tissue paper wrappers and are scarce, but you can pick up later editions for a few groats and they're well worth tracking down, especially (once Covid is dealt with) for a bit of tipsy after-dinner farce with friends.

One of the earlier "aristocratic" comedies by the Duke of Buckingham.

All booky pics courtesy Old Dive.

 

Not so many silly character names as in the later comedies as the early ones were aimed at specific people in the royal court who loved to be seen portrayed scandalously.

 

A risqué farce from David Garrick, continuing the tradition into the next century.

 

Bring on the silly names …

 

One of my favourites, by actor and playwright Colley Cibber.

 

… who himself played Lord Foppington.

 

Early celebrity autobiographies were called Apologies (for the life of whoever).

Today's celebrity autobiographies would need to be a whole lot more grovelling.

Colley Cibber's is a splendidly entertaining read.

 

Of course there had to be a reaction from the more prudish, joyless, party-poopers …

 

The most infamous of these is Jeremy Collier's rant against the immorality and profaneness of the English Stage. Originally published in 1698, by the time my 1699 copy had come out it had run to a fourth edition, so popular was it.

 

Our Mister Collier doesn't mince his words.

 

It's a laugh-out-loud read, for all the wrong reasons.

This concludes my advertising break on behalf of Restoration Comedy. Next time we'll get back on topic.

Should you wish to pursue the phenomenon in all its colourful variety, the British Library's Introduction to Restoration Comedy is a fine place to start: https://www.bl.uk/restoration-18th-century-literature/articles/an-introduction-to-restoration-comedy