24 August, 1594 - Cutlack

Here's what the Admiral's Men performed at the Rose playhouse on this day, 424 years ago...

Henslowe writes: y^e 22 of aguste 1594 ... R at cvttlacke ... xxiij^s vj^d

In modern English: [24^th] August, 1594 ... Received at Cutlack ... 23 shillings and sixpence

Illustration of Belinus (or Brennius, it's not clear)
from Holinshed's Chronicles (1577)

Today, the the Admiral's Men revived Cutlack, their play about the eponymous Danish king and his violent intervention into a civil war in ancient Britain. You can read more about this play in the entry for 16 May, 1594.

Like the rest of the company's older repertory, Cutlack is not doing well at the box office. However, it has rebounded considerably since its dismal 13 shillings a week and a half ago, which suggests that it may have been suffering then from a patch of bad weather rather than a catastrophic decline in interest.

What's next?

There will be no blog entry tomorrow because 25th August was a Sunday in 1594 and the players did not perform. Henslowe's Diary ... as a Blog! will thus return on 26th August for a week that will contain two surprises!

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)

Comments?

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