Norwich in 1727 – Don Quixote at the King’s Arms Playhouse

As I’m up at 02:00 waiting for security to open at Rome Fiumicino airport, I thought I’d look at some newspapers from 1727 as that’s great entertainment for an early morning. It’s one of the earlier editions of the Norwich Mercury, which was printed from the early 1720s until May 1949.

“Never play’d Here.

By the Norwich Company of Comedians:

At the King’s-Arms Playhouse on Monday next, being the 20th of this Instant February, will be Acted a COMEDY call’d,

DON QUIXOTE.

With the Comical Humours of Sancho Pancha his Esq; Teresa Pancha his Wife, and Mary the Buxom his Daughter.

The Parts to be perform’d as follow, viz.

MEN.

Duke, Mr. Duckworth.
Cardenio, Mr. James.
Ambrofio, Mr. Frisby.
Bernardo, the Chaplain, by Mr. Collier.
Mannel, the Civility Maſter, Mr. Green.
Pedro Rezzio, Mr. Morris.
The Page, Mr. Buck.
Don Quixote, Mr. Marshal.
Sancho Pancha, his Esq; Mr. Paul.

WOMEN.

Dutchefs, Mrs. Paul.
Marcella, Mrs. Frisby.
Rodriquez, by Mrs. Green.
Teresa Pancha, Mrs. Plomer.
Mary the Buxom, Mrs. Buck. With Dresses and Entertainments proper to the Play.

To begin at Six a Clock. Vivat REX.

And on Thursday next, being particularly desired, will be Acted the Provok’d Wife.”

Firstly, the King’s Arms Playhouse is something of a mystery and doesn’t come up on any searches. There have been ten pubs in Norwich with this name, but there’s only one which seems to have been open at this time and it’s a pub still in existence, now called Berstrete Gates. Don Quixote had been written just over 100 years before, so was an old favourite even back nearly three hundred years ago.

It’s rather sub-optimal that no first names were given, it’s too hard to work out who any of these early actors and actresses were. They were a touring company, as their names appear in locations across the region. Fortunately, a little more is known about the Norwich Company of Comedians, who between 1731 and 1757 made the White Swan Inn, near Peter Mancroft, their home. This pub started trading in the early 1600s, but the building was pulled down in the 1960s to make way for car parking. A sub-optimal decision…. Anyway, despite more being known about the company, there’s still no link between the names of the performers in this production and the history of the comedians, so that didn’t help much.

Despite my failures of research, it’s still a rather lovely little piece of Norwich history, a theatre company performing 300 years ago to surprise and delight the locals….