5 April, 1594 - Friar Bacon

Here's what the Earl of Sussex's Men and the the Queen's Men performed at the Rose playhouse on this day, 424 years ago...

Henslowe writes: R at frier bacon the 5 of aprell 1593 ... xx^s

In modern English: Received at Friar Bacon, 5^th April, 1594 ... 20 shillings

From the title page of a prose tale of Friar Bacon, 1629,
which was re-used for the 1630 edition of the play.

Today, Sussex's Men and the Queen's Men revived again their magical fantasy about the wizard Friar Bacon with which they had opened the current season at the Rose four days ago. This play may have been Robert Greene's Friar Bacon and Friar Bungay, or it may have been the anonymous John of Bordeaux; you can read more about it in the entry for 19th February, 1592.

Friar Bacon received 20 shillings, only half the box office that it had done on Monday, and a figure below the average for the Rose, but one in keeping with the typical response to this much-revived but rarely crowd-pleasing play.

Henslowe links

• Transcript of this page of the Diary (from W.W. Greg's 1904 edition)
• Facsimile of this page of the Diary (from the Henslowe-Alleyn Digitisation Project)

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