The Upstart Crow

A synopsis of the show reveals:

It is 1605 and England’s greatest playwright is in trouble. King James has been on the throne for two years and Will Shakespeare has produced just two plays, both of which being generally considered to resemble the large semi-flightless birds recently discovered pecking corn and going ‘gobble gobble’ in the New World. Measure for Measure was incomprehensible bollingbrokes by any measure and All’s Well That End’s Well didn’t even end well. Will must lift his game or risk his head. Those who work at the pleasure of the King live in constant fear of his favour. No one has forgotten what happened to Henry VIII’s marriage guidance councillor.

Will desperately needs to come up with a brilliant new plot but he is finding it impossible to focus on finding one. He’s too distracted by family troubles. He’s considering dividing all his lands and property between his jealous, squabbling daughters and, to add to the confusion, two shipwrecked, Moorish, cross-dressing, identical twins have just arrived, separately and unaware of each other, at his door. How the futtock can a Bard be expected to find a plot for a play with all that is going on in the house?

To make matters worse Will’s friend and housekeeper Kate, horrified at the exploitation of showbiz animals for entertainment, has recently ‘liberated’ the Globe Theatre’s prize dancing bear. Kate intends to keep the poor distressed animal in the scullery until she can reintroduce her into the wild, but Mr Whiskers (who was born to dance) has other plans. You can take the dancing bear out of the theatre, but you can’t take the theatre out of the dancing bear.

Cast & Crew

Cast

Arragon
Bottom
Burbage
Cover Desiree/Daning bear
Cover Kate/Judith/Susanna
Cover Will/Burbage/Dr Hall
Dancing bear/cover Arragon
Desiree
Dr John Hall
Judith
Kate
Susanna
William Shakespeare

Crew

Director
Writer

Seen by

Photographs

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Photo credits

Observations

  1. On 27th December 2022 at 9:04 p.m., Kentcountrygirl noted:

    This production originally opened in March 2020 but only 3 weeks into the run it closed due to the covid pandemic. It reopened in September 2022 for a very limited run, with minor cast changes.

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