Still Standing Upright: Ben Jonson, 350 Years Alive

Abstract

This year marks the 350th anniversary of the death of Ben Jonson – who, but for the happenstance of Shakespeare, would certainly have been Britain's national playwright, but whose achievement has in fact been overshadowed not only by the genius of his sometime colleague, but by the quite different styles and theatrical assumptions of their respective work. The dramatist Peter Barnes, who acknowledges a debt to Jonson in his own writing, is also a leading director of the playwright's work, with productions of Eastward Ho, The Alchemist, Bartholomew Fair, and The Devil is an Ass already to his credit, and, among other productions planned for this anniversary year, one of TheMagnetic Lady for BBC Radio, in apt juxtaposition to the projected RSC revival of The New Inn. Here, Peter Barnes contributes a personal celebration of the playwright's distinctive and defiantly unquenchable work.