Before Shakespeare
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Queen Elizabeth's singing you a song: guess these playhouse-related answers for your royal patent...

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Before Shakespeare
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9 Days of Before Shakespeare: Christmas Quiz v.2018

Question 1 of 9

1

On the first day of Christmas, my noblemen's troupes beguiled me...
In 1582, two troops played at court who go on to feature importantly in the commercial playhouses in London. One was the Earl of Derby's Men, and another associated with his son. What was he commonly known as?

Select one of the following:

  • Lord Bedford

  • Lord Strange

  • Lord Carew

  • Lord Pembroke

Explanation

Question 2 of 9

1

On the second day of Christmas, my astrologer flirted futilely...
In 1599, Simon Forman went into the fields to have a parley with a woman. What playhouse had they both just left?

Select one of the following:

  • Curtain

  • Theatre

  • Blackfriars

  • Newington Butts

Explanation

Question 3 of 9

1

On the third day of Christmas, my yeoman acted slyly...
Yeoman of the guard Richard Hicks and his son-in-law Peter Honingborne lay suit against Jerome Savage, defaming his character, complaining that he will draw on his "great friends" to prejudice the suit, and pointing out that a playhouse is no fit establishment for the neighbourhood. We know more about these figures thanks to surviving (and genuinely quite exciting) sewer records. What playhouse is in question?

Select one of the following:

  • Swan

  • Blackfriars

  • Newington Butts

  • The Red Lion

Explanation

Question 4 of 9

1

On the fourth day of Christmas, inevitably some Lyly…
About what figure did Lyly complain, "Would those Comedies might be allowed to be plaid that are pend, and then I am sure he would be decyphered, and so perhaps discouraged"?

Select one of the following:

  • Martin Marprelate

  • Gabriel Harvey

  • Thomas Nashe

  • William Shakespeare

Explanation

Question 5 of 9

1

On the fifth day of Christmas, my clown joked very drily...
At "the Cross-Keys in Gracious-Street... [Richard] Tarlton then (with his fellows) playing at the Bell... came into the Cross Keys." On this occasion, he humiliated a man called Banks through a double act with what?

Select one of the following:

  • An ingenious device

  • A brazen head

  • An impertinent broomstaff

  • A horse of very strange qualities

Explanation

Question 6 of 9

1

On the sixth day of Christmas, who threw shade on Marley?
In a tirade against new fads in stage poetry, who uses an early (and derogatory) instance of the phrase "blank verse" ?

Select one of the following:

  • Thomas Nashe

  • William Shakespeare

  • Philip Sidney

  • Robert Greene

Explanation

Question 7 of 9

1

On the seventh day of Christmas, who acted far too noisy...
In 1579, London complained on behalf of the Queen that "diverse disordered persons have of late in the nighttime been disorderly, disquieted her most excellent Majesty from her sleep and natural rest by shooting of guns and Calyvers, and throwing of squibs [fireworks], by sounding of drums and fifes upon the River of Thames to her Majesty's great offence."
By 1594, Lord Hunsdon makes a concession to the City council that his company of players (the Lord Chamberlain's Men--Shakespeare's company) will no longer use what to attract people to their plays?

Select one of the following:

  • Fireworks

  • Flags and Trumpets

  • Drums and Trumpets

  • Guns and Trumpets

  • Playbills and Drums

Explanation

Question 8 of 9

1

On the eighth day of Christmas, who had no life of Riley?
Who both sues and petitions to be able to have control of a lease and sublet a playhouse, partly because her husband has lately died and "she has tenne children . . . and nothing left to relieve her and her poor children"?

Select one of the following:

  • Anne Farrant at the Blackfriars

  • Margaret Brayne at The Theatre

  • Alice Layston at the Cross Keys

  • Ellen Burbage at The Theatre

Explanation

Question 9 of 9

1

And a human in a stage tree…
What play features a tree that is struck with an axe and then "poureth out blood," before pronouncing: "Go, ladies, tell Ceres I am that Fidelia that so long knit garlands in her honour, and, chased with a satyr, by prayer to the gods became turned to a tree; whose body now is grown over with a rough bark, and whose golden locks are covered with green leaves, yet whose mind nothing can alter, neither the fear of death, nor the torments."

Select one of the following:

  • Robert Greene's James IV

  • George Peele's The Old Wives Tale

  • John Lyly's Love's Metamorphosis

  • Robert Wilson's Fair Em

  • Hamlet

Explanation