The Maddermarket Theatre and the Playing of Shakespeare

Summary

The question which is constantly being put to me is: “Why choose an out-of-the-way place like Norwich for a theatrical experiment? ” My answer must be biographical.

Norwich, a city of 130,000 inhabitants, has always been cut off from the rest of England by rather bad communications. It is not on the Great North Road, and such roads as existed when our Maddermarket began led to Norwich and to nowhere else save the sea. This relative isolation created in the city a spirit of independence; the inhabitants made everything they needed, and by the fifteenth century were able to export woollen goods dyed with the root of the Madder, for which was created a special Madder Market. The prosperity of the city is reflected in the forty remaining perpendicular-style churches of this period, all within the city walls. The place is very much alive and many municipal experiments have been tried out here, such as lighting the streets by electricity and inaugurating the first free library to be put on the twopenny rate. There was a fairly large, educated audience ready to hand; the idea of giving Shakespeare's plays upon the kind of stage for which they were written seemed both acceptable and respectable, and we received a warm support in our venture.