New Allusions to London ‘Shewes’ and Playhouses, 1575-1604

Abstract

A small number of references to Elizabethan ‘shewes’, dramatic performances and theatres occur among thousands of prosecutions for petty crime recorded in the Bridewell Hospital archives. The earliest of these references concerns an allegedly planned ‘maye game’ that threatened public order in 1575. Among further allusions, Thomasine Breame, a notorious brothel madam, returned from a play in the winter of 1577 to lie all night with the prostitute wife of a pimp, Thomas Wise. In 1578, Elizabeth Everys attended a play at the Bell inn, Bishopsgate where she was given money, and a year later Jane Wolmer went with one of Leicester’s men to a play at the Curtain. In 1579, John Gosse was caught whipping boys for sexual gratification near the Theatre. Alice Pinder, returning from a play perhaps at Blackfriars in 1600, gave one Robert [?] Welche ‘thuse and carnall knowledge of her bodye’. Finally, the Bridewell depositions make two hitherto unknown references to the Rose playhouse. Such particularities add to our understanding of playgoing in the period, but do not settle broader questions regarding the social composition of audiences at the early theatres.