The category of the justly neglected
Some works are forgotten because lost in the mists of oblivion really is the best place for them.
To the White Bear pub theatre in Kennington this evening to see Westward Ho, a work by Thomas Dekker and John Webster (so not the collaborative dreamteam made in heaven), which has not had a London production for 400 years.
And while I have seen some excellent productions, at least two of them at the White Bear, of lesser-known works from the Jacobean repertoire, this was not one of them. I am not sure even assembling the most eminent thesps one could think of would do anything to make this play work. (Eastward Ho, as I recall, did stand up reasonably well when Anthony Sher included it in his West End season of obscure Jacobean plays.)
The plot is thin and the characterisation and motivation inconsistent, even by the not very exacting standards of Jacobean drama. Parts of it are almost completely incomprehensible - possibly in the day these were topical allusions to set the house in a roar, but they have faded very fast.
However, long passages of smutty innuendo are still quite comprehensible, even if they make the Carry On films look sophisticated in comparison.
However, this was clearly not the reason why the play has languished unproduced for so many centuries.
It's just plain bad.
Or, to be polite, 'of historical interest only'.