The Fool (play)
{{Use dmy dates|date=April 2022}}
{{Infobox play
|name = The Fool
|image = The_Fool_(play).jpg
|image_size =
|caption = Paperback first edition: Methuen, 1976
|writer = Edward Bond
|chorus =
|characters =
|mute =
|setting =
|premiere = 18 November 1975
|place = Royal Court Theatre, London
|orig_lang = English
|series =
|subject =
|genre =
|web =
}}
The Fool: Scenes of Bread and Love is a play by the English playwright Edward Bond.{{Cite web|url=https://www.dramaonlinelibrary.com/plays/the-fool-iid-127097|title=The Fool - Drama Online|website=www.dramaonlinelibrary.com}} It traces the life of the poet John Clare against the backdrop of the Industrial Revolution, from his roots in rural East Anglia via literary success in London to his final years in a lunatic asylum.{{Cite web|url=http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/theatre-dance/features/whatever-happened-to-edward-bond-2122521.html|title=Whatever happened to Edward Bond?|date=November 2, 2010|website=The Independent}}{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=eckvFCb8yU4C&q=the+fool+edward+bond&pg=PA61|title=Dramatic Strategies in the Plays of Edward Bond|first1=Jenny S.|last1=Spencer|first2=Jane|last2=Spencer|date=December 17, 1992|publisher=Cambridge University Press|isbn=9780521393041|via=Google Books}} The play was first performed at the Royal Court Theatre in 1975, in a production directed by Peter Gill and featuring a cast including Tom Courtenay, David Troughton and Nigel Terry among others.{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=rS0QAgAAQBAJ&q=the+fool+edward+bond+royal+court+theatre+november+1975+cast&pg=PT103|title=Bond Plays: 3: Bingo; The Fool; The Woman; Stone|first=Edward|last=Bond|date=December 10, 2013|publisher=A&C Black|isbn=9781408160909|via=Google Books}}
After a 35-year hiatus, The Fool was revived in the UK in late 2010 as part of the six-play Edward Bond Season at the Cock Tavern Theatre in Kilburn, London.{{Cite news|url=https://www.bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-11534846|title=Edward Bond: I still get letters written in blood|first=Tim|last=Masters|work=BBC News |date=October 20, 2010}} Bond himself directed the production, with Ben Crispin playing the role of John Clare.{{Cite web|url=https://www.kilburntimes.co.uk/entertainment/theatre/review-the-fool-cock-tavern-theatre-kilburn-1-685873|title=Review: The Fool, Cock Tavern Theatre, Kilburn|first=Elizabeth|last=Davis|website=Kilburn Times}} It is one of the highly regarded works in Bond's output.
Original cast
{{Div col}}
- John Clare - Tom Courtenay
- Miles - David Troughton
- Darkie - Nigel Terry
- Lawrence - Mick Ford
- Patty - Bridget Turner
- Mary - Caroline Hutchison
- Lord Milton - Nicholas Selby
- The Parson - John Normington
- Lord Milton's Guests - Peter Myers,
John Boswall,
Malcolm Ingram,
Robert Lloyd,
Shiela Kelley,
Avril Marsh - Wadlow, Lord Milton's Gamekeeper - Roger Hume
- Hilary, the Assistant Keeper - David Ellison
- Bob - Roderick Smith
- Peter - Malcolm Ingram
- Betty - Shiela Kelley
- Hamo - Brian Hall
- Gentlemen - Peter Myers, Robert Lloyd, John Boswall
- Hicks, a Warder - Tony Rohr
- Governor - Peter Myers
- Porter - Ken Gajadhar
- Jackson - Brian Hall
- Porter's Backers - Malcolm Ingram, Mick Ford
- Jackson's Backers - David Troughton, Roger Hume
- Referee - David Ellison
- A Boy - Roderick Smith
- Mrs. Emmerson - Isabel Dean
- Charles Lamb - Robert Lloyd
- Mary Lamb - Gillian Martell
- Admiral Lord Radstock - Bill Fraser
- Dr. Skrimshtrb - John Boswall
- Tommy - Tony Rohr
- Michael - Roger Hume
- Arny - Brian Hall
- Napoleon - John Normington
- A Man in a Straitjacket - Mick Ford
- An Attendant - David Troughton
{{Div col end}}
Reception
The Spectator
In a 2001 article for The New York Times, Benedict Nightingale described The Fool as "moving".{{Cite news|last=Nightingale|first=Benedict|date=2001-02-18|title=THEATER; An English Playwright With Very Mixed Notices|language=en-US|work=The New York Times|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2001/02/18/theater/theater-an-english-playwright-with-very-mixed-notices.html|access-date=2020-06-09|issn=0362-4331}} In 2006, Mark Ravenhill praised the boxing match as one of Bond's "brilliant images".{{Cite web|last=Ravenhill|first=Mark|date=2008-01-10|title=Mark Ravenhill: The playwright explains why he's drawn to his gritty|url=https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/theatre-dance/features/mark-ravenhill-playwright-explains-why-he-s-drawn-his-gritty-uncompromising-works-769307.html |archive-url=https://ghostarchive.org/archive/20220618/https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/theatre-dance/features/mark-ravenhill-playwright-explains-why-he-s-drawn-his-gritty-uncompromising-works-769307.html |archive-date=18 June 2022 |url-access=subscription|url-status=live|access-date=2021-03-30|website=The Independent|language=en}} Elizabeth Davis of Kilburn Times wrote, after seeing the 2010 performance directed by Bond, that "the play has powerful moments but the production was overly long (at 2hr 45mins) and, at times, as po-faced as the pompous vicar. Nevertheless, Bond, as ever, creates a memorable and thought-provoking evening."{{Cite web|last=Davis|first=Elizabeth|date=2010-10-20|title=Review: The Fool, Cock Tavern Theatre, Kilburn|url=https://www.kilburntimes.co.uk/entertainment/theatre/review-the-fool-cock-tavern-theatre-kilburn-1-685873|archive-url=|archive-date=|access-date=2020-06-19|website=Kilburn Times|language=en}} In the same year, Ravenhill lauded the play as a "brilliant [...] landmark" work and wrote, "There is no play that more acutely captures the experience of being a writer who is happily snatched up by London literary circles and then just as hastily dispatched".{{Cite web|last=Ravenhill|first=Mark|date=2010-11-02|title=Whatever happened to Edward Bond?|url=http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/theatre-dance/features/whatever-happened-to-edward-bond-2122521.html|archive-url=|archive-date=|access-date=2020-06-19|website=The Independent|language=en}}
Michael Billington of The Guardian called The Fool "a fine play" in a 2010 review of a different play.{{Cite news|last=Billington|first=Michael|date=2010-06-22|title=Town {{!}} Theatre review|url=http://www.theguardian.com/stage/2010/jun/22/town-review|access-date=2021-03-30|newspaper=The Guardian|language=en}} Lyn Gardner described it as "a very fine play about Clare" in the same paper.{{Cite news|last1=Cook|first1=Mark|last2=Gardner|first2=Lyn|date=2013-03-09|title=This week's new theatre|url=http://www.theguardian.com/stage/2013/mar/09/this-weeks-new-theatre|access-date=2021-03-30|newspaper=The Guardian|language=en}} Playwright Nicholas Wright referred to it as a "great play".{{Cite web|last=Dowden|first=Neil|date=2012-01-12|title=Nicholas Wright - Page 3 of 3|url=http://exeuntmagazine.com/features/nicholas-wright/|access-date=2021-03-30|website=Exeunt Magazine}} Pamela McCallum wrote in 2016 that the play "represents a high point of post-war British drama and perhaps can be taken as a site of division between generations in theatre. The following generation—Churchill, Ravenhill, Kane, and Butterworth—foreground, in very different ways, the psychological distortions and devastating brutalities of the contemporary world".{{Cite journal|last=McCallum|first=Pamela|date=2016-10-16|title=The Politics and Poetics of Contemporary English Tragedy by Sean Carney (review)|url=https://muse.jhu.edu/article/632773|journal=University of Toronto Quarterly|language=en|volume=85|issue=3|pages=325–326|doi=10.3138/utq.85.3.325|s2cid=157470354|issn=1712-5278}}
Awards
The Fool won Best Play of 1976 in the Plays and Players London Critics Award.{{Cite web|last=Demling|first=Ann Marie|date=1983|title=The Use of the Grotesque in the Plays of Edward Bond.|url=https://digitalcommons.lsu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=4841&context=gradschool_disstheses|archive-url=|archive-date=|access-date=|website=LSU Digital Commons}}
References
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External links
- [https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-11534846 BBC News on the Edward Bond Season 2010 ]
- [https://web.archive.org/web/20100911152119/http://dspace.dial.pipex.com/town/parade/abj76/PG/works/fool.shtml Details of original production in 1975 ]
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