Returning to their local inn from a performance at Court of the play, Henry IV, the players, led by Dick Burbage, are arguing about their performance, when they are approached by their patron, the Lord Chamberlain. He tells them that the Queen has commanded that Will Shakespeare is to write a play about his great comic creation, Sir John Falstaff, in love. The catch is, that it is to be performed in two weeks time following the great feast of the Garter Ceremony - which happens to coincide with Will's 34th birthday. As Will panics at the news, Ben Jonson arrives to lend a hand, but when every boy actor in the company goes down with the measles, all seems lost. A lost bear, a stage-struck wife of a jealous husband, a hen-pecked friend, a vocal Mistress - and many others - add to the chaos. But all ends happily, of course!
Commissioned by the Millennium Shakespeare Birthday Celebrations Committee and first performed in Stratford-upon-Avon on April 25th 2000.
"[They] have every reason to feel highly delighted with the outcome of their commission ... Reg Mitchell has produced a rollicking pageant for the town. Very funny - packed with every conceivable Shakespeare legend and countless puns on the plays." (Stratford Standard.)
ISBN : 1-904232-02-7
Mistress Alice Jordan
Host of the tavern
Francis, a tapster
Will Shakespeare
Oddsbody, his odd job man
Richard Burgabe - actor
John Heminge - actor
John Fletcher - a poet
Lord Chamberlain
Ben Jonson - Will’s friend
Susanna - Will’s daughter
Robert Jordan
George Witter
Mistress Johnson
Two chambermaids
Two bailiffs
A Singer
A Welsh Priest
Doctor John Hall
Mistress Margaret Witter
William, her son
A Bear Keeper
His Bear
Two ladies in waiting
Queen Elizabeth 1st
Several children
