Plymouthhistory

About the author
Having earned a First Class Honours Degree in
Drama and an MA in Film and Television, Laura
Quigley spent years in educational management
and publishing before receiving awards for her
writing for theatre and publishing her own local
histories: The Devil Comes to Dartmoor and Bloody
British History Plymouth. She regularly gives talks
to Buckland Abbey and Hidden Heritage and she’s
currently working on South West Secret Agents,
true stories of WW2 espionage in the West Country,
out in 2014.
Exits & Entrances: Stories from
Plymouth's Theatre History by Laura Quigley ©
Early Days
In the 1400s, travelling players in Plymouth were considered vagabonds and thieves and often
whipped out of town. Early Plymouth had little time for their theatricals which were frequently
bawdy or satirical, playing to the base pleasures of the crowd, and like many authorities, the
Mayor of Plymouth was eager to see such unholy offerings removed.
However the Tudor monarchs brought with them a love for entertainment and in 1515, strolling
players called The King’s Joculars appeared at the Town Gates and started a tradition. In 1539, a
juggler and six players were paid for entertaining the Mayor and his brethren at the Mayor’s house.
During the Elizabethan age visitors from London could expect some theatrical offerings, though it
would be a long while before Plymouth had its own theatre and even longer before theatre was
seen as respectable entertainment. There was a small arena under the Hoe for bull baiting, a
popular Elizabethan pastime that I for one am glad did not continue. I’m reliably informed that the
adrenalin from baiting the bull makes the beef very tender but for me this is a cruel substitute for
‘dinner and a show’.
By 1604, puritan feeling was growing in the town, and strolling players were again evicted, on one
occasion paid NOT to play for the townspeople. Perhaps they just weren’t very good. On May Day
the same year, Morris Dancers and musicians still performed upon the Hoe, yet in 1628 again
another poor street performer was paid off “to be gone”.
17 th century Morris Dancers
The English Civil War would see all forms of
entertainment banned by the puritan authorities,
including swearing, drinking, gambling, make-up,
ostentatious costume and any form of theatrics. Even
after the war, when the town’s authorities had been
pardoned by King Charles II, there seems to be little
support for theatre The only spectacles were hangings,
duckings, throwing rubbish at some poor soul in the
stocks and the annual drunken re-inactments of Freedom
Day, commemorating when Plymouth fought off an attack
by the French in 1403.