Vortigern And Rowena

Melissa Murray's witty play, based on a true story, is about how Richard Brinsley Sheridan (played by Lorcan Cranitch) is, in 1796, a producer down on his luck, needing some. He's been offered the find of a lifetime, a lost play by Shakespeare about an ancient British king and queen. His star, John Philip Kemble (brilliantly played by Alex Jennings) has agreed to take the lead. But what's this? The young man who claims to have "discovered" the play, William Henry Ireland (Rufus Wright) seems suspiciously familiar with the text.

In 1796, hoping to cash in on public interest in a "lost" Shakespeare play said to have been found in an attic, Richard Brinsley Sheridan had outbid Covent Garden to stage Vortigern and Rowena at his own Drury Lane theatre. Melissa Murray's comedy follows in a fine Radio 4 tradition of tales of historic thespian folk with a backstage account of the play's first (and only) night. Here is Sheridan, peering at his sozzled nose in the mirror; the great actor Kemble, portrayed with just enough 18th-century luvvieness by Alex Jennings; and the cast and crew who know that if the play fails they won't get paid. The performance was a sell-out, for as Sheridan had observed to Kemble, "every Englishman considers himself as good a judge of Shakespeare as of his pint of porter". And he was right.