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Red Bull Theatre
Map
The overlays that highlight 17th century London features are approximate and derived from:
- Built-up London – Hollar's 1666 map before the Fire
- City of London wall and Great Fire damage – Hollar's 1666 map after the Fire
1893 text
This well-known theatre was situated in St. John’s Street on the site of Red Bull Yard. Pepys went there on March 23rd, 1661, when he expressed a very poor opinion of the place. T. Carew, in some commendatory lines on Sir William. Davenant’s play, “The just Italian,” 1630, abuses both audiences and actors:—
There are the men in crowded heaps that throng
To that adulterate stage, where not a tongue
Of th’ untun’d kennel can a line repeat
Of serious sense.
There is a token of this house (see “Boyne’s Trade Tokens,” ed. Williamson, vol. i., 1889, p. 725).
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Susanna Link to this
There is a short history of this playhouse "noted for the vulgarity and obstreperousness of its patrons" from the Encyclopedia Brittanica:
http://www.britannica.com/shakespeare/micro/496...
Paul Brewster Link to this
"at this time [3 August 1660] used by a troupe headed my Michael Mohun."
per L&M
"MOHUN, MICHAEL (c. 1625-1684), English actor, played at the Cockpit in Drury Lane before the Civil War. He served on the king's side with credit and was promoted captain, and subsequently, in Flanders, major. At the Restoration he returned with Charles II. and took up his former profession, playing a great variety of parts, usually as second to Charles Hart."
per 1911 Encyclopedia
Glyn Link to this
The Red Bull was at 181-183 St John Street, Clerkenwell: north of the junction with Aylesbury Street. Early in the Diary it stages plays but by the middle of the Diary it was holding prizefights instead.
Pauline Link to this
"it was holding prizefights instead."
Perhaps following the realization on March 23 1661 that the musique room provided the perfect "arena" in which to stage a fight:
From that day's Diary entry: "in the musique-room the boy that was to sing a song, not singing it right, his master fell about his ears and beat him so, that it put the whole house in an uprore."
Sjoerd Link to this
Samuel thought worth mentioning this story about Thomas Killigrew:
"The other, Thos. Killigrew
Terry F Link to this
The Red Bull shows on the 1746 map where Glyn has it, sc. at 181-183 St John Street, Clerkenwell: northwest of the junction with Aylesbury Street 3/5 east and near the north edge of this segment of the map (south of the White Horse Yard). http://www.motco.com/map/81002/SeriesSearchPlat...
Pedro Link to this
Red Bull Yard.
On the map above that Terry mentions you can see Red Bull Yard that was named after the Theatre.
(Book of Days)