The ludic element of drama in the Middle Ages - or drama with early subject matter - is here to the fore. Medieval English Theatre is the premier journal in early theatre studies. Its name belies its wide range of interest: it publishes articles on theatre and pageantry from across the British Isles up to the opening of the London playhouses and the suppression of the civic mystery cycles, and also includes contributions on European and Latin drama, together with analyses of modern survivals or equivalents, and of research productions of medieval plays. This edition combines, perhaps unexpectedly, royalty and games. Games of all kinds, from jousting and "Christmas games" to those usually associated with children, are shown, it is suggested, to be more than they at first appear. Apparently run-of-the-mill entertainments, when presented to the court by the Londoners, by the court to a visiting emperor , or by the retainers of royalty and nobility to the general public for commercial gain, turn out to have unexpected political resonances; while the potential underlying sadism of children's games gains a horrific immediacy when diverted to the torturing of Christ. Even today, the musical SIX says a great deal more about royalty and role-playing than initially might appear, especially when set against eye-witness accounts of the first meeting of Anna of Cleves with Henry VIII, and what modern novelists have made of it . In the process we learn a great deal more about the detail of these games, from the maskerie costumes of James VI and Anna of Denmark to the elaborate fantasy challenges of the jousters in 1400/1401, which incidentally suggest that fourteenth-century court culture, whose language was Anglo-French, is a major missing link in the history of what is usually treated as purely English literature. Contributors: Philip Bennett, Philip Butterworth, Sarah Carpenter, Elisabeth Dutton, James Forse, Gordon Kipling, Michael Pearce, Meg Twycross.

Newest research into drama and performance of the middle ages. Medieval English Theatre is the premier journal in early theatre studies. Its name belies its wide range of interest: it publishes articles on theatre and pageantry from across the British Isles up to the opening of the London playhouses and the suppression of the civic mystery cycles, and also includes contributions on European and Latin drama, together with analyses of modern survivals or equivalents, and of research productions of medieval plays. This volume features essays on stagecraft, performance, and reception across a wide range of theatrical genres. Overlapping themes include a return to the York Corpus Christi Play, the practicalities of pageant waggon construction and maintenance, mechanical stage effects, international influences, East Anglian theatre and "folk" happenings, academic Latin drama, and private gentry festivities. Contributors include Jamie Beckett, Phil Butterworth, Peter Happe, James McBain, Tom Pettitt, James Stokes, and Diana Wyatt.

Essays on the performance of drama from the middle ages, ranging from the well-known cycles of York to matter from Iran. Medieval English Theatre is the premier journal in early theatre studies. Its name belies its wide range of interest: it publishes articles on theatre and pageantry from across the British Isles up to the opening of the London playhouses and the suppression of the civic mystery cycles, and also includes contributions on European and Latin drama, together with analyses of modern survivals or equivalents, and of research productions of medieval plays. The articles here focus on civic theatre and display. Chester, York, Durham and Newcastle, and London. Practicalities are to the fore: what the Drawers of Dee actually did, how the actors in the York Corpus Christi Play knewwhat time it was, the difficulties presented to London pageantry by unauthorised house-extensions and horse-droppings. Even the stately entertainments of a royal tour by James VI & I featured (in Newcastle, of course) negotiationover the monopoly on coal disguised as a historical event in a play about King Alfred and Canute. Ranging further afield is an introduction to the living tradition of Iranian mystery plays, whose history and development have somethought-provoking parallels with those of medieval waggon plays in the West. Finally, the director and producer discuss their 2019 production of John Redford's Wit and Science by Edward's Boys, the first to be played by aboys' company since the sixteenth century.

Essays on aspects of early drama. Medieval English Theatre is the premier journal in early theatre studies. Its name belies its wide range of interest: it publishes articles on theatre and pageantry from across the British Isles up to the opening of the London playhouses and the suppression of the civic mystery cycles, and also includes contributions on European and Latin drama, together with analyses of modern survivals or equivalents, and of research productions of medieval plays. The articles in this fortieth volume engage with the key communities for early theatre: royalty, city and household, and religious institutions. Topics include the Royal Entry of Elizabeth Woodville into Norwich (1469); Henry VIII's Robin Hood entertainment for Catherine of Aragon; the sun's contribution to stage effects in the York Corpus Christi Play: the engagement with local worthies in Mankind; and the convent drama of Huy, in the Low Countries. Contributors: Aurelie Blanc, Philip Butterworth, Clare Egan, John Marshall, Olivia Robinson, Michael Spence, Meg Twycross.