This book is so full of meticulously researched detail that if it were not for its central sense of fun and more than a whiff of scandal it might challenge the staying power of all but the most devoted student of 18th Century theatre.
Fortunately Ian Kelly, appropriating his subject's wittiest and most articulate style, has delivered a riveting page turner with an atmosphere so thick that you can see wig powder wafting in the air and smell the gorged street drains of London.
Samuel Foote is not a well known name. Kelly makes a very convincing case that not only is this an error but, indeed, a travesty. One of the earliest celebrity satirists, intimate of Garrick, Woffington, the aristocracy and even the Crown, the one legged cross dressing playwright, manager and, by all accounts, sublime mimic was buried in ignominy far from the spotlight he craved.
His story from the most celebrated to the most reviled is a truly fascinating and highly informative read.
Fortunately Ian Kelly, appropriating his subject's wittiest and most articulate style, has delivered a riveting page turner with an atmosphere so thick that you can see wig powder wafting in the air and smell the gorged street drains of London.
Samuel Foote is not a well known name. Kelly makes a very convincing case that not only is this an error but, indeed, a travesty. One of the earliest celebrity satirists, intimate of Garrick, Woffington, the aristocracy and even the Crown, the one legged cross dressing playwright, manager and, by all accounts, sublime mimic was buried in ignominy far from the spotlight he craved.
His story from the most celebrated to the most reviled is a truly fascinating and highly informative read.
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