Children of the Queen's Revels

Abstract

Originally published in 2005, this book provides a detailed study of the Children of the Queen's Revels, the most enduring and influential of the Jacobean children's companies. Between 1603 and 1613 the Queen's Revels staged plays by Francis Beaumont, George Chapman, John Fletcher, Ben Jonson, John Marston and Thomas Middleton, all of whom were at their most innovative when writing for this company. Combining theatre history and critical analysis, this study provides a history of the Children of the Queen's Revels, and an account of their repertory. It examines the 'biography' of the company - demonstrating the involvement in dramatic production of dramatists, shareholders, patrons, audiences and actors alike, and reappraising issues such as management, performance style and audience composition - before exploring their groundbreaking practices in comedy, tragicomedy and tragedy. The book also includes five documentary appendices detailing the plays, people and performances of the Queen's Revels Company.

Challenging the call: Should sports governing bodies be subject to judicial review?

“…155 It was held in Lennox v British Show Jumping Association 156 that such bodies would be reviewable in Scotland. This results in "forum shopping", 157 whereby a party will simply seek to claim in the most favourable jurisdiction. Such inconsistencies are unsatisfactory and, for example, could lead to the situation whereby athletes of the same nationality, in the same sport, might have differing legal remedies available to them simply because of the team/SGB of which they are a member.…”

Moving Targets: Constructing Canons, 2013–2014

“…Collected works editions, 'acting editions', 'dramatic-history anthologies', 'numerous [but unnamed] other small series', 'bibliographical editions' (is any edition not bibliographical? ), the 'great many small or genrespecific anthologies', 'collections of medieval drama', Shakespeare, and 'the Shakespeare "apocrypha"', are all excluded (14)(15)(16). The result is a canon of early modern drama bereft of Shakespeare, closet drama, university drama, early Tudor drama, and plays by women.…”

“…'The author', Lucy Munro observed, 'is a useful organising principle, but it is not the only one available' 14 and 'repertory studies' -as it has come to be known -shifted the focus away from individual, named dramatists and their plays toward the playing companies for whom they wrote and were written respectively, considered alongside 'other contributors to a company's dramatic output, such as actors, sharers, playhouse owners (and the buildings themselves), audiences, and patrons'. 15 Proposals of canons without recourse to the singular, named 'author' as the traditional touchstone for inclusion or exclusion were now feasible:…”

Issues in review: Dramatists, playing companies, and repertories: Introduction

“…That is, it offers commentators a means of 'considering the impact of all those involved in the production and dissemination of plays: dramatists, actors, shareholders, playhouse functionaries, patrons, audiences and publishers'. 11 It is at the level of the acting company, where the work of playwrights becomes a product offered up for public consumption, that these various agencies intersect. Accordingly, it makes sense to see repertory studies not simply as a response to the ideas of French theorists of the mid to late twentieth century, but more widely as a way of synthesizing the findings of theatre historians over a rather longer period.…”