Acting was a dangerous, even violent, profession back in the sixteenth century, says Bruce Alexander, the well-known actor and patron of Thame Players’ Theatre Company, in a new video just released on YouTube.
In the video, The Death of Big Knell, Bruce tells the dramatic story of how William Knell, a leading actor with the Queen’s Men, met an untimely death in Thame. The Queen’s Men were formed in 1583 at the express command of Queen Elizabeth I and were directly responsible for providing entertainment at court. Amongst their leading actors was William Knell, dubbed an ‘Absolute Actor’ in the phrasing of the time – he would undoubtedly have been equivalent to a Hollywood star in today’s terms!
Because the Plague was raging in London, the Queen’s Men decided to go on tour in 1587, with their first stop being the prosperous market town of Thame. They were performing The Famous Victories of Henry V (a precursor to Shakespeare’s play Henry V) at the White Hound Inn – thought to have been where the War Memorial Gardens now are in Thame. Following the afternoon performance, a fight broke out between William Knell and another actor, John Towne, as a result of which Towne was injured but Knell was sadly killed. It seems that violent occurrences were not that uncommon amongst actors at the time: the famous playwright Ben Jonson, initially working as an actor with the Admiral’s Men, was briefly imprisoned for killing a man in a duel in 1598, but subsequently freed using a legal ploy.
The Queen’s Men travelled on to Stratford-on-Avon after this episode and it’s rumoured that, being a man down, they went back to London taking the young William Shakespeare with them. Whether this was true we shall probably never know. When you watch the video, you will hear there was another connection between William Knell and Shakespeare – you’ll have to look to find out what it was!
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