Roaring Boys Read Free Page B

all of them were open for business at the same time, he or she might well have had the choice of anything up to a dozen plays from which to choose within the space of a week. Hundreds, indeed thousands, of people might pack into any one performance at a large theatre such as the Globe when it was full to capacity, a good many of them, of course, standing for the privilege. Shrewd actors such as Edward Alleyn and playwrights like William Shakespeare had become very wealthy men; there was money to be made in the theatre for both actors and writers even if all too many of them let it slip through their fingers and drank or gambled it away. The actor Richard Burbage was just as much a star to the audiences of his day as Sir Laurence Olivier or Sir Ian McKellen four hundred years later.
    However, by then theatre had become properly established. It was nothing like as easy for the pioneers of a quarter of a century earlier; indeed it would have been almost impossible for them to imagine what the future might hold. Companies of players did not, of course, suddenly appear from nowhere once playhouses started being built. Plays had been regularly, if seasonally, performed since early medieval times by the various guilds, and cycles of religious dramas such as those of the York, Wakefield, Coventry and Chester Mysteries and the Cornish ‘Ordinalia’ were popular and provided a welcome break in the working year. No doubt some of those craftsmen taking part were talented actors but they were quite definitely amateurs. At major festivals such as Christmas or May Day there was lighter fare like the Mummers’ plays which might well incorporate, along with their regular characters, those of Robin Hood and Maid Marian. Noblemen and other wealthy landowners would also keep among their servants those able to perform ‘interludes’ for the entertainment of guests, though these were hardly theatrical performances as we understand them and often took place while everyone was eating, drinking and chatting.
    Gradually the repertoire grew, first with the appearance of the morality plays, of which the best known example is
Everyman
, though still as the name suggests with a religious theme; then, mainly for private consumption within schools and colleges, broader and more adventurous drama. In 1534, when Henry VIII was still on the throne, Nicholas Udall became headmaster of Eton College. He had a keen interest in drama and wrote a number of plays for the boys, one of which,
Ralph Roister Doister
, still survives. It was immensely popular and there are references to it being performed years later. Its comic theme was to influence a whole generation of professional playwrights, for the main character, Doister himself, is a swaggering, roistering, woman-chasing, cowardly buffoon with a high opinion of himself, who gets his comeuppance at the hands of a determined lady. Doister is a likely prototype for the Falstaff of
The Merry Wives of Windsor
.
    By the time Elizabeth came to the throne, bands of players along with tumblers and musicians were travelling around the countryside playing in the towns and villages, especially at fairs and on public holidays, offering drama which was pure entertainment. The general population loved the arrival of the players and flocked to see the plays but their betters took a very different view of the matter. Players were considered no better than the ‘sturdie beggars’, tinkers, vagabonds, thieves and masterless men who roamed the countryside in bands. As to what they performed, plays were ‘the Devil’s sermons’ and those who performed them should be whipped out of town with the other travelling scum. Such was the prejudice that actors realised drastic action was needed if they were to survive, and it was fortunate that the growing wealth and ostentation of the aristocracy was set to provide it. Actors were suddenly in demand as it became the fashion for a lord or earl to have his own company of players as