16 April, 1596 - A Knack to Know an Honest Man

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

Henslowe writes: y^e 16 of ap^rell 1596 ... R at the knacke ... xj^s

In modern English: 16^th April, 1596 ... Received at The Knack ... 11 shillings

Two  Young Venetian Men (anon., 1515)

Today, the Admiral's Men chose to revive A Knack to Know an Honest Man, their comical moral romance set in Venice. You can read more about this play in the entry for 23rd October, 1594.

How strange. The company performed this once-popular play in September, ignored it until January, and have then ignored it again until now. These extremely infrequent performances seem to have no effect on box office, and today's is quite dreadful, especially for a holiday week. If there is a strategy here, it's not a very good one.

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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