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2 unusual facts about A Just View of the British Stage


A Just View of the British Stage

The staging of Harlequin Sheppard — a play by John Thurmond based around the exploits of the famed criminal and escape-artist Jack Sheppard — by the three impresarios of the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane: Colley Cibber, the actor Barton Booth, and Robert Wilks, in November 1724, spurred Hogarth into immediate action.

Whether Jack Hall actually escaped this way is unknown; there are few surviving records of Hall aside from the sensationalist Memoirs of the Right Villainous John Hall, and the account of Hall in The Newgate Calendar does not mention any escape.



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