From Sturdy Beggars to Famous Players

Hollar's view of London, 1647, showing the second 'Globe' theatre on Bankside

The Origins of English Theatre
Before the sixteenth century, most English drama was of a religious or didactic nature - albeit often comical and irreverent in places, to hold the audience's attention. Court masques of the early Tudor era may have retold great English historical events or classical stories, sometimes