3 Review(s)

For this volume George Taylor has edited five plays by two largely forgotten eighteenth-century playwrights, Samuel Foote and Arthur Murphy. The plays are The Minor and The Nabob by Foote and The Citizen, Three Weeks after Marriage and Know Your Own Mind by Murphy. All, apart from the last, are two- or three-act farces, the main popular fare of the eighteenth-century theatre. They are still eminently playable today, each exploring a different aspect of London society. Both playwrights have an acute ear for amusing and socially revealing dialogue, with a deft sense of situation comedy. Foote was an important theatre manager who established the success of the Haymarket Theatre by his particular brand of satire and mimicry. Had Murphy been more assiduous in his theatrical career and maintained good relations with David Garrick, his reputation as a dramatist might now have ranked him alongside Goldsmith and Sheridan.