The full title of the club is "The Most Ancient and Most Puissant Order of the Beggar's Benison and Merryland, Anstruther", where the word 'Merryland' is a euphemism for the female body - used often in contemporary erotic literature.
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It was written by Arne for the 1777 production of John Gay's The Beggar's Opera at Covent Garden.
An updated version of The Beggar's Opera by John Gay, it focuses on a corrupt world inhabited by rakish mobsters and their double crossing gangs, raffish madams and their dissolute whores, panhandlers and street people as they conduct their dirty business, ply their trade, and struggle to survive in brothels, shanty towns, and prisons.
His best known opera is probably The Beggar’s Wedding (1729), which capitalizes on the success of John Gay's The Beggar's Opera (1728).
In 1919 he produced the designs for Nigel Playfair's (1874–1934) ground-breaking production of As You Like It in Stratford upon Avon, then in 1920 for Playfair's highly successful London revival of John Gay's The Beggar's Opera.
She worked in Britain until she toured America with The Beggar's Opera, staying on in Greenwich Village after the tour had finished.
She appeared in several Lampe operas and played Lucy in John Gay's The Beggar’s Opera for many years.
The restoration of the musical score for The Beggar's Opera by John Gay and Dr Pepusch (originally produced in 1728) was undertaken by Frederic Austin and completed in 1920 in time for the production by Nigel Playfair, with artistic designs by Claud Lovat Fraser, which opened at the Lyric Theatre, Hammersmith on 6 June 1920 and ran for a record number of 1,463 performances until 23 December 1923.
At various points in the 1980s, Lee drummed for various theatre projects by the comedy/drama/"horror-panto" troupe Count of Three in both London and at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, including versions of The Beggar's Opera, Titus Andronicus and Dr Calamari's Music Hall of the Macabre.
While in prison awaiting his fate, he was reported to have drunk freely and entertained himself (and others) by reading from The Beggar's Opera, identifying with the character of Macheath.
Although Pepusch is now best known for his arrangement of the music for The Beggar's Opera (1728) -- to the libretto of John Gay—he composed many other works including stage and church music as well as concertos and continuo sonatas.
His works for the stage include the mock operas Pyramus and Thisbe (1745) and The Dragon of Wantley (1734), which ran for 69 nights, a record for the time, surpassing The Beggar's Opera.
John Gay’s The Beggar's Opera alludes to the idea that women awaiting trial or temporarily reprieved from hanging by virtue of an inaccurate diagnosis of pregnancy would sometimes attempt to conceive by their jailers in hopes of pardon.
Previously banned plays, movies, books and records, including Havel's adaptation of The Beggar's Opera, became available.
In addition to comic classics like The Beggar's Opera, the Reeds usually presented new works by English writers such as F. C. Burnand, W.S. Gilbert, William Brough and Gilbert à Beckett.
Duncombe published in both the Whitehall Evening Post and the London Journal. Alexander Pope satirized the London Journal by name in The Dunciad, and Duncombe had written a letter to it criticizing John Gay's The Beggar's Opera for its vitiating effects on public morals.