9 November, 1596 - The French Doctor

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

Henslowe writes: y^e 9 of novmbȝ 1596 ... R at the frenshe docter ... xiiij^s 

In modern English: 9^th November, 1596 ... Received at The French Doctor ... 14 shillings

A French Physician
by Matthew Darly, 1771

Today, for the last time, the Admiral's Men revived The French Doctor, a lost play that you can read more about in the entry for 19 October, 1594.

The French Doctor first appeared in the Diary two years ago, and may already have been an old play. In the past year, it has become a puzzling entity, often attracting very small audiences and yet still being revived, often with several months going by between individual performances. Today is the Diary's very last recording of a performance, but five years from now the company will expend money on buying the text from the actor Edward Alleyn, who seems to have owned it.

As Roslyn L. Knutson writes in her article for the Lost Plays Database, there must have been something valuable about The French Doctor despite its unimpressive box office. She suggests that its virtue may have been "playability" - that is, there was something about the play that made it easy for actors to perform even after an interval of several months between a performance. 

But now, we must say farewell to The French Doctor and start wondering what new plays the company will create to replace it...

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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