Scan barcode
grubstlodger's review against another edition
4.0
Like any good script, there were a number of roles I would like to play.
I really enjoyed the conceit of this play, I imagine Mischief Theatre would do a really good take on it. The audience sits down to watch a play ‘The London Merchant’ but a Grocer and his wife are fed up with plays mocking London Cits and so barge on stage and make demands.
Chief among the demands is that their apprentice plays a heroic, knightly grocer - because it’s fun and he’s such a good actor.
The actors then try and put on their play - a funny if rather derivative comedy about two lovers tricking her father and suitor, while the grocers make comments and try to shoehorn in their grocer/knight.
Most of the times it is like two plays going on separately, though they do intersect a little. Were I to write a modern take on this, I’d probably have them intersect more.
I really likes the grocer’s many pet names for his wife (he’d be fun to play) - though the most fun would be the suitor, Humphrey.
As much as I was enjoying everyone else’s lines, I couldn’t wait till Humphrey could come on and do something ninnyish again. His lines were written in verse but it seemed like it could be played self-consciously, as if the character knew he had to rhyme and so forced himself.
Very good fun, all around.
I really enjoyed the conceit of this play, I imagine Mischief Theatre would do a really good take on it. The audience sits down to watch a play ‘The London Merchant’ but a Grocer and his wife are fed up with plays mocking London Cits and so barge on stage and make demands.
Chief among the demands is that their apprentice plays a heroic, knightly grocer - because it’s fun and he’s such a good actor.
The actors then try and put on their play - a funny if rather derivative comedy about two lovers tricking her father and suitor, while the grocers make comments and try to shoehorn in their grocer/knight.
Most of the times it is like two plays going on separately, though they do intersect a little. Were I to write a modern take on this, I’d probably have them intersect more.
I really likes the grocer’s many pet names for his wife (he’d be fun to play) - though the most fun would be the suitor, Humphrey.
As much as I was enjoying everyone else’s lines, I couldn’t wait till Humphrey could come on and do something ninnyish again. His lines were written in verse but it seemed like it could be played self-consciously, as if the character knew he had to rhyme and so forced himself.
Very good fun, all around.
lauracollins096's review against another edition
3.0
*3.5 stars
This was actually a really funny read and even though I had to read it for coursework I ended up really enjoying it! I don't think I misunderstood tooo much!
This was actually a really funny read and even though I had to read it for coursework I ended up really enjoying it! I don't think I misunderstood tooo much!
caitlinejones's review against another edition
5.0
Incredibly close to modern parody. Enjoyed way more than I expected!
booksaremyjam's review against another edition
3.0
Okay, after some critical reading and a debate or two I've come to a different conclusion about this play. Although to just simply sit down and read it can be daunting, to act it out is something completely different. Beaumont was a very intelligent man in that he played with the concepts of satire and parody that his audience wasn't ready for (explaining why this play wasn't well received in the beginning). The citizen and his wife, though frustrating at times, add certain elements to the play that are wonderfully original. The character Rafe is, by far, the best character in the play for all that he represents. And Humphrey! My God, Humphrey. The man only speaks in rhyme, which illutrates to the ridiculousness of the romantic genre and how it is "played out." All in all Beaumont was a critic of the very thing he worked in. It's a tough play to sell, but once you really crack down and read it the gems can be found.
caelinsullivan's review against another edition
adventurous
funny
medium-paced
- Diverse cast of characters? No
3.5
giulay's review against another edition
3.0
Read for University
Pleasant read that showed how blurry the line between actors and audience can be.
Silly and funny at times, kinda random some other times. It made fun of the chivalric code in a way that I really enjoyed.
Pleasant read that showed how blurry the line between actors and audience can be.
Silly and funny at times, kinda random some other times. It made fun of the chivalric code in a way that I really enjoyed.
smcleish's review against another edition
4.0
Originally published on my blog here in January 2002.
To a modern reader or theatre audience member, The Knight of the Burning Pestle irresistibly suggests another seventeenth century story, the far better known [b:Don Quixote|3836|Don Quixote|Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra|http://d.gr-assets.com/books/1309376671s/3836.jpg|121842]. When it was reprinted and revived in 1633, it was given a preface refuting the idea that it was derivative, by pointing out that its original performance occurred before the first appearance of Cervantes' novel in England. (This denial is a measure of just how popular Don Quixote was already by the 1630s.)
The structure of The Knight of the Burning Pestle is a double play within the play. A group of players is about to perform The London Merchant, a romantic comedy satirising that class, when two members of the audience object. A grocer and his wife are not used to play-going, but they fear that their trade isn't going to be taken seriously; and they insist that the grocer's apprentice, Ralph, be permitted to take a part which shows grocers in a better light. This is done, Ralph taking the part of a modern knight errant, an apprentice fired by tales of chivalry to take up a device appropriate to his origins, a shield showing a burning pestle (as in pestle and mortar). His adventures, and the constant interference of his not too bright master and mistress, play havoc with the drama that is meant to be on stage.
The Knight of the Burning Pestle is very funny, and ends up (of course) satirising the aspirations of the merchant class a great deal more strongly than would have been the case with The London Merchant alone. That's probably the reason that it failed when first produced, before an audience a little too similar to that which it parodies, but success on revival (and its bizarre title) has left it one of the best known Jacobean comedies.
To a modern reader or theatre audience member, The Knight of the Burning Pestle irresistibly suggests another seventeenth century story, the far better known [b:Don Quixote|3836|Don Quixote|Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra|http://d.gr-assets.com/books/1309376671s/3836.jpg|121842]. When it was reprinted and revived in 1633, it was given a preface refuting the idea that it was derivative, by pointing out that its original performance occurred before the first appearance of Cervantes' novel in England. (This denial is a measure of just how popular Don Quixote was already by the 1630s.)
The structure of The Knight of the Burning Pestle is a double play within the play. A group of players is about to perform The London Merchant, a romantic comedy satirising that class, when two members of the audience object. A grocer and his wife are not used to play-going, but they fear that their trade isn't going to be taken seriously; and they insist that the grocer's apprentice, Ralph, be permitted to take a part which shows grocers in a better light. This is done, Ralph taking the part of a modern knight errant, an apprentice fired by tales of chivalry to take up a device appropriate to his origins, a shield showing a burning pestle (as in pestle and mortar). His adventures, and the constant interference of his not too bright master and mistress, play havoc with the drama that is meant to be on stage.
The Knight of the Burning Pestle is very funny, and ends up (of course) satirising the aspirations of the merchant class a great deal more strongly than would have been the case with The London Merchant alone. That's probably the reason that it failed when first produced, before an audience a little too similar to that which it parodies, but success on revival (and its bizarre title) has left it one of the best known Jacobean comedies.
More...