The Great Fire of London

John Kirk is a storyteller and drama facilitator specialising in drama workshops and theatre for young people.Recently I have being doing a lot of history projects in the name of education; The Gun Powder Plot, The Princes in the Tower and The Great Fire of London.

In 2013 it wouldn’t be uncommon to hear that a lesson was being in some way led or influenced by an artist but theatre’s relationship with education is historic.

As a visual and aural medium theatre has always been an effective method of communicating information quickly to an illiterate society.  The Greeks used comedy and drama to make social and political points, Mystery plays were a popular way of sharing the stories of the Bible with Medieval audiences and even William Shakespeare got in on the act with a series of plays we now recognise as his histories.

John Kirk is a storyteller and drama facilitator specialising in drama workshops and theatre for young people.Why though, are there so few plays concerning The Gun Powder Plot and The Great Fire of London?

I don’t really have an answer to this but I do have a couple of theories.

In the case of The Gun Powder Plot (the failed attempt to blow up the opening of Parliament and King James I in 1605 – “Remember, remember the 5th of November”) and to some extent The Great Fire of London (a fire in Pudding Lane leads to 4 days of devastation in 1666) my initial thought is that perhaps there were plays and they weren’t good enough to survive the test of time or that I just don’t know them if they are out there.John Kirk is a storyteller and drama facilitator specialising in drama workshops and theatre for young people.

My second thought is that 17th Century England is a politically volatile place where the censor still dictates what is appropriate for the public.  The Gun Powder Plot is an attempt on the life of a reigning monarch at the beginning of the century.  In 1643 Charles I was executed after a Civil War and England became a republic for almost ten years before the restoration of the monarchy and finally James II being run out of England for being Catholic.

Socio-political statement might also have jarred with the increasing public appetite for Restoration Comedy as the likes of Wycherley (The Country Wife) and Moliere (Tartuffe) titillate audiences with plays about gossip and the naughtiness of society.

My final theory and the one I’m sticking to as to why there are no really great plays about two of England’s most famous historical events is health and safety.  Plays about fire and combustion tend not to mix well with wooden theatres!  Perhaps sense prevailed and they left these two topics for another generation.