"Much disapprobation was manifested at the close of the curtain."

[redscharlach]

While I'm making plodding progress through my recent icon requestathon, here's a little something I stumbled across on Google Books, while on yet another workcentric fact-hunt

Comments

[artekka]

Playgoers of the Regency were notoriously vocal in their criticisms. When the Covent Garden Theater was damaged by fire and they tried to raise the ticket price in 1809 to pay for repairs, "for seventy-one nights, between the 18th September and the 16th December, no performance was possible on account of the uproar. The invention of new noises for Covent Garden became a fine art...some of the more inventive geniuses of the opposition contrived to introduce live porkers into the theatre, their ears being pinched at proper intervals when a variation in the harmony was required. There was a regular performance called the O.P. [old price] Dance, which consisted, apparently, of a simultaneous and measured tramping of the feet all over the house. It was impossible to hear a word a few feet from the stage, and as soon as the curtain rose the audience turned their backs on the performers and devoted themselves to the diversions of the house."

[redscharlach]

I love the idea of bringing a live pig to the theatre, just in case you want to heckle. And if the show turns out to be good, then hey, the pig's had a good night out!

[artekka]

"This little piggy went to Hamlet..."

What a mean play to take a pig to.

[ginbitch]

I confess I have a file on my computer of my favourite bits from The GM... Oh how sad am I! Laughed a lot at your summary - the GMs innovative founder, Edward Cave, would assuredly have been desperate to add your summaries to his reviews! He was never a man to baulk at excellence!

<3

[redscharlach]

But would he have made me pretend to be a bloke? I can't imagine that the GM took many submissions from women, or did it?

*hangs around wearing a false beard and looking shifty*

[ginbitch]

Actually (and I feel like a total history geek for this) Cave was a great supporter of women writers. Amongst other women, he championed the young poet and classicist, Elizabeth Carter and encouraged his other writers to write poems in her honour with the general theme of 'Phwoar! Would you look at the virtue on _that_!', 'I'd totally tap that sense of British pride!' and 'Cor! What a lovely pair of classical translations!' Samuel Johnson was one of contributers. Later women fared less well, however: the GM was to accuse the historian Catharine Macaulay of stealing and editing documents in the British Library which did not agree with her account of Britain's past

[artekka]

'Phwoar! Would you look at the virtue on _that_!', 'I'd totally tap that sense of British pride!' and 'Cor! What a lovely pair of classical translations!'

*dies laughing* "She's got HUGE... classical translations!"

[blamebrampton]

I hope Miss Kelly did very well out of it!

My fingers are now crossed for a 400th anniversary rephrasing of the KJV. Obviously not the whole thing ...

[artekka]

It's called the NIV. :P

[blamebrampton]

*Snort!* Now I wish I had a copy so I could check for Mehs!

[redscharlach]

Well, I could have a go:
And when he had opened the seventh seal, there was silence in heaven about the space of half an hour. And then there was a resounding trumpet call and I saw the Angel of the Lord fiddling with his iPhone and saying "WTF, I thought I had this thing on silent??"

But there's already a project to translate the Bible into LOLcat, and I don't want to step on any toes (or paws)...

[kazzy_cee]

LOL!!!! Love it!! :D

[redscharlach]

Perhaps I ought to offer my services to the Guardian as a culture critic. ;-)

[gregoria44]

There should be far more disapprobation and less slovenly booing in the world of modern entertainment. It would enliven Cowell offerings, fo'sho.