- Edition: King Leir
King Leir
- Introduction
- Texts of this edition
- Contextual materials
- Facsimiles
180King Leir, Scene 27
Cast
Captain: David Kynaston
English Watchman 2: Phil Borg
English Watchman 1: Scott Clarkson
Once again the Queen's Men subverted our expectations moving from heroic action into broad comedy with the introduction of two comic English watchmen.
Queen's Men Dramaturgy: Medley Style (Sc. 27)
181Read about the Queen's Men medley style in Scene 24
Watchmen get a bad rap in Elizabethan plays: the watchmen in the Queen's Men's Famous Victories and Shakespeare's Dogberry, for example, are similarly lacking in their capacity to do their job. This scene is structured around an elaborate joke led by the Second Watchman and designed to persuade the First Watchman to abandon his post and come to the pub. It is the kind of comic rhetorical exchange, featuring repeated double-takes, that has been a feature of broad comedy down through the centuries. The scene justifies the ease with which the French landing is assured on English soil and establishes a slapstick quality that will be preserved through the climactic battle scenes. The stakes of the action are high but the comic tone predicts the happy outcome.
Read about the Queen's Men medley style in later scenes
Watch video of Scene 27 on the Performing the Queen's Men website. (The video footage is password protected. Click on "Cancel" in the pop-up window to obtain password.)