The name of Will Kemp may ring a bell with you… You’ll recall him perhaps, from that fine series, Upstart Crow. And you’ll no doubt remember that 1999 box-office hit “Shakespeare in Love”. The film where Joseph Fiennes and Gwyneth Paltrow played star-crossed lovers, both on and off the stage. Also, it’s the film in which Judi Dench won the Oscar for Best Supporting Actress, with a little under 6 minutes screen time. Actor Philip Barlow played the part of Will Kemp as a minor comic actor in Shakespeare’s Company of Actors. His time in the film was probably even shorter than Judi’s.
In real life however, Will Kemp was rather more of a player than the film allows. He was originally an actor for Ned Alleyn’s theatre company (Ned being played by the dishy Ben Affleck). He then became a shareholder in the Lord Chamberlain’s Men, along with Richard Burbage (the lovely, but perhaps not quite so dishy Martin Clunes), and with Shakespeare himself. And the audiences adored him.
Will Kemp was a comedian, and comedy was a major part of Tudor theatre – even in the tragedies. Like today, audiences had short attention spans, and so they welcomed a bit of banter, wit and repartee by a renowned comedian in the midst of all the history, or to break the doom and gloom. That’s why Shakespeare wrote so many supporting comic roles in his plays. More often than not, it was Will Kemp that Shakespeare had in mind, and who played those characters, to the audience’s delight.
Kemp’s role in the film was that of Peter, the gormless assistant of Juliet’s nursemaid, (wonderfully played of course by Imelda Staunton). In real life, Shakespeare really did write the part of Peter specifically for Kemp. Scholars believe with a fair degree of certainty that Will also played Dogberry in Much Ado, Touchstone in As You Like It, and the gravedigger in Hamlet. There’s also a fair chance that Shakespeare wrote Falstaff in Henry IV for Will too. They’re all roles that can be played for laughs.
Just like that
But there was a major problem. Kemp was very much the Tommy Cooper – or even the Michael Barrymore – of Tudor theatre.
Unpredictable, brilliant – and capable of going dangerously off-piste. His habit of deviating from the script caused Shakespeare to tear at the little hair he had left on his head. In the state-controlled world of Elizabethan theatre, where the Queen’s censor could shut your company down at the very hint of a word out of place, subversiveness was very dangerous. It was almost certainly Will who Shakespeare had in mind, when he had Hamlet sternly say:
“let those that play your clowns speak no more than is set down for them”.
Dancing the jig
So how do you curb the unpredictable, dangerous ad-lib comedy, but retain the genius comic, so beloved by the crowd? The theatre managers came up with a trade-off for Kemp and his fellow comics. Keep to the censor-approved comic script in the play, and in return, you can have a star turn at the close of the play. Kemp et al accepted the trade and got their moment in the spotlight (or torch-light rather). Plays closed with comedy – a light-hearted jig.
A jig though, had a different meaning to ours back then. Not just a dance, but a mini concert, with singing and jokes and comedy sketches. Think of a bawdy, musical Monty Python show. Kemp and his fellow comics were in their element. Not merely the minor comic turns in the main play, they were kings of the stage at the close of play. Fast-forwarding to 1651. The English Dancing Master, a manual of country dances, lists Kemp’s Jig. Will’s performances were still remembered and commemorated at least fifty years after his last stage performance.
Mr. Albion, a keen musician, wondered if jig is the root of the slang word gig, meaning a musical turn…
Cancel culture
Inevitably, the end-of-play jigs didn’t stop the bawdiness, the satire, the subversiveness. Documents record the bosses of theatre companies hauled up before the courts. They had to answer for insults and libels made by their clowns against innocent citizens in the curtain-closing jigs. The authorities often suppressed performances completely when things got too near the knuckle. And it looks like this very issue was the theatrical downfall of Will.
In 1599, he resigned from the Lord Chamberlain’s company. We don’t know the official reason, but given the artistic – and commercial – tensions arising out of trying to manage a force of nature like Will, we can surmise that the Company made him an offer he couldn’t refuse. The long-suffering theatre managers probably considered that the commercial cost of a loose-mouth genius closing the production down outweighed the benefits of keeping him on. Whatever the reason, it was the final curtain for Will (an apt theatrical pun, you’ll agree).
A nine day’s wonder
What does a comic who’s burned his theatrical bridges do? He goes on tour! Will traded on his fame, put on the motley and flexed his entrepreneurial skills to the limit. Like any modern-day influencer, he promoted himself shamelessly. Will challenged himself to dance from London to Norwich – that’s around 130 miles – in nine days. A nine day’s wonder! That’s an average of around 15 miles a day. And that’s exactly what he did.
What’s more, after his exploit ended, he published a pamphlet about the challenge. You can still read it today for free – here’s the link. The pamphlet had two purposes: a hefty slice of self-promotion with a generous seasoning of exaggeration; and a riposte to his critics – perhaps we should call them trolls? – who claimed that Will was lying and hadn’t succeeded in his challenge at all . Even after 400 years, Will’s humour and braggadocio shine though. It’s worth the read.
He talks fondly of the folk – both men and women – who challenged him and tried to out-dance him on the way. Of course, Will always won these contests. He also mentions the “cut-purses and dy-doppers”, otherwise known as common pickpockets, who followed his entourage, looking for easy marks. Of course, Will was instrumental in identifying the felons and getting them shipped back to London.
But let’s examine the small print. Will actually took 27 days to complete the feat. He had several days of inactivity between each dancing session, while he rested up at various hostelries, or stayed with rich patrons. Often, at the end of a dancing session he’d hitch a ride on a horse to his overnight digs. But, he’d always return back to the point at which he finished the last dance. To keep him honest, he was accompanied by a mister George Sprat, his overseer or auditor, who made sure he kept to the rules. His entourage was completed by his servant William Bee, and his personal musician, Thomas Slye.
Tabor and drum
Incidentally, I was rather puzzled to read that Will had only one accompanying musician, Thomas. The text mentions both a pipe and a tabor (which is a drum, to keep time). Who played the other instrument? But then I saw the woodcut of Will and his musician, at the front of the pamphlet. Thomas cleverly played both instruments at once. This clip shows how it was done.
Norwich or bust
What makes Will’s account so fascinating, is that you can immediately recognise place names, and chart his journey. From the city gates of London he danced through Whitechapel and Mile End, and then, accompanied by many thousands of Londoners, (according to Will), he had a little rest at Bow. He then goes “over the bridge” – that will be the crossing over the river Lea – to Stratford. A bear-baiting match had been set up there, but Will wanted to avoid the “great multitude”, and pressed on to Ilford.
A Great Spoon
At Ilford, Will was accosted by his adoring fans, and offered “a great spoon”. No, it’s not what you think. A great spoon was a liquid measurement of around two pints of ale. Will needed to quench his thirst, and he duly did, surrounded by an admiring crowd. That event, which happened over 400 years ago, is still commemorated today in Ilford…appropriately enough, the local Wetherspoons pub is called “The Great Spoon”. You’ll even find a statue of Will Kemp in it, downing his great spoon of ale.
A Merry Dance
And then on to Romford, where, after 11 miles or so of dancing, Will rested at an Inn for 2 days. He had hitched a ride on a horse from Ilford to Romford, but when he set out again on the Wednesday, he retraced his footsteps, so as to start dancing from where he last finished. Mr. Sprat would allow no cheating.
And so Will continued his dance through Essex, Suffolk and Norfolk, with dancing days interspersed with rest days. Will took 27 days to complete his 9 days of dancing. Having reached Norwich, he rested up in order to enter the city on the Saturday, surely to maximise the chance of multiple spectators. Here’s a table of his journey:
Ever the showman, once he entered Norwich, he performed a spectacular acrobatic feat for the crowd, by leaping over a church wall. The church – and the wall – are still there, and Will’s feat is duly commemorated.
It is fair to say that the good citizens of Norwich made quite a fuss of Will, and you can still spot his legacy around the town today, in plaques and carvings.
Show me the money
How did Will “monetise” his efforts? After all, that was the whole point of the exercise. The burghers of Norwich actually awarded him a modest pension of forty shillings a year for life, which is worth around £300 today. He also made money by the publishing of his promotional pamphlet.
But his major source of revenue was by placing a number of bets with interested gamblers against his own performance. He boasts in the pamphlet that he expected a three-fold return on his speculation. Will’s personality shines through in the closing lines, when he takes issue with those counterparties who had, at the time of publication, not yet honoured their debt, and he threatens to publish their names, if they don’t cough up within a few days.
Morris minor with bells on
What sort of dancing was Will performing? It was that most English of dances, the Morris. You’ve no doubt watched the local Morris troop perform on a Sunday afternoon at a village fete. Those dances are probably not far removed at all from those performed by Will and his fellow dancers. An Elizabethan would recognise many features of a modern Morris.
Bells invariably feature, usually tied to the dancer’s knees, sometimes to the arms or wrists. In Will’s day, you could get sets of bells that played different notes, that a skilled dancer could harmonise. One primary source from the mid 1500s notes,
“Two dozen of morris bells costt a shilling”.
Will himself describes an encounter in Sudbury with a stout young woman who challenged him to dance the Morris with her for a mile. Will accepted, and his “Maydemarian”, as he calls her, tucked up her petticoats. Then Will…
“ fitted her with bels, which she merrily taking, garnisht her thick short legs…
Of course, Will won.
Sticks and bits
Besides the ubiquitous bells, the Morris dancers, both ancient and modern, shared a love of handkerchiefs for waving, swords for brandishing and sticks for whacking. You can see Will waving his hankies, in the engraving on the first page of his pamphlet.
There would of course be musicians. But other strange characters often take their place in the Morris. There’s sometimes a hobby horse. Will’s “Maydemarian” sometimes joins in, (played perhaps by a man in drag), as her alter ego, Maid Marion. Or there may be a May Queen. And there is a mysterious character with a blackened face. Nowadays, more often than not, it’s a green or a striped face, to avoid giving offence.
Have a look at this lovely stained glass window from the V&A museum, dating from around 1621, which shows some of these ancient Morris elements:
Let’s do the Fandango
I banged on in my last post about how folk history is generally undocumented, instead being passed on by word-of-mouth and through folk culture. That’s true of the Morris. The first written reference dates from around the 1490s, but the dance is undoubtedly older.
A Victorian historian, Reginald Corlass, stated with authority that John of Gaunt, son of King Edward III, brought back the dance from Spain in the 1300s. He told his readers that the dance was introduced to Spain by the Moors (hence its name), and that, as well as the English Morris, the dance was the originator of the Spanish dance, the Fandango. Reginald’s chatty article published in 1878, in a quarterly journal, The Reliquery and Illustrated Archaeologist. The journal is another fascinating read that you can browse for free here.
A problem though is that Reginald doesn’t name his sources. That’s a big sin for a serious academic researcher, but perhaps forgivable for writers with a more informal approach (such as from your humble author here). Is there any evidence to support Reginald’s claim? Well, a Moorish, that is a north African, origin of the dance, could very well explain the character with a blackened face that we still see in English Morris dancing .
And look at this model of a dancer, by German carver Erasmus Grasser, from very early on indeed – from around the 1480s. It’s a figure named a Moreska dancer, ethnically from a north African background – and with bells around his knees.
Hiding in Plain Sight
Beyond old dusty books, you’d have to look hard to find evidence of Will Kemp’s wacky shenanigans, although they’re there if you look hard enough. Especially in his favoured city of Norwich. But we still use his catch phrase “a nine day’s wonder”, without really knowing its origin. (Actually, Will was using a phrase common in his own time, which had been recorded as far back as Chaucer, who wrote in Troilus and Creseyde, “wonders last but nine nights”).
Our evidence of living history is actually out there on the village green, with every trusty group of Morris dancers. And not just in England, but throughout the English speaking world. That’s a link with the past which has lasted at least six hundred years. And when you next see a troop, spare a thought for Will and his claim to the title of prime Social Influencer!
