27 May, 1597 - A Woman Hard to Please

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

Henslowe writes: 27 | tt at womon hard to pleasse | 00 | 05 

In  modern English: 27^th [May, 1597] ... total at Woman Hard to Please ... 5 shillings

A woman looks deeply unimpressed by her
rescuer in Paolo Uccello's St George and
the Dragon (c.1470)

Today, for the last time, the Admiral's Men revived their enigmatic lost play, A Woman Hard to Please. You can read more about this play in the entry for 27 January.

The company has waited two and a half weeks to bring back A Woman Hard to Please, but the box office is absolutely terrible for today's performance.

This is the last record of a performance of A Woman Hard to Please in Henslowe's Diary. The play began in January with a strong premiere, and for a while the company pushed it hard, with frequent performances that received solid audiences. But over the last few weeks the box office has cratered, and the company has performed it less often. They have clearly decided that it has delighted London long enough. 

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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