New Release from University of Exeter Press : Singing Simpkin and Other Bawdy Jigs
Musical Comedy on the Shakespearean Stage Scripts, Music and Context by Roger Clegg and Lucie SkeapingISBN: 9780859898782 February 2014 | £30, $43 PB | 352pp www.exeterpress.co.uk Email: f.driessen@exeter.ac.uk
About the book
A popular crowd-pleaser in the late sixteenth and mid-seventeenth century, the dramatic jig was a short, comic, bawdy musical-drama which included elements of dance, slapstick and disguise. With a cast of ageing cuckolds and young head-strong wives, knavish clowns, roaring soldiers and country bumpkins, jigs often followed as afterpieces at London's playhouses, and were performed at fairs, in villages and in private houses. Troublesome to the authorities, they drew the crowds by offering a lively antidote to more sober theatrical fare.
This performance edition presents for the first time nine examples of English dramatic jigs from the late sixteenth century through to the Restoration; the scripts are re-united as far as possible with their original tunes. Musical notation and dance instructions are provided alongside the text of the jigs. It gives a comprehensive history, discusses sources, plots, instrumentation and dancing, and offers practical information on staging jigs today.
'Singing Simpkin presents and appraises textual and musical evidence relating to the stage jig with exemplary thoroughness. The book adds greatly to our picture of stage performance generally, from Shakespeare's time to the Restoratioin.' - Jeremy Barlow, specialist in early English music from 1550 to 1750.
About the authors
Roger Clegg is Senior Lecturer in Drama Studies at De Montfort University. Lucie Skeaping presents 'The Early Music Show' on BBC Radio 3. She is a musician and broadcaster. Both have run jig workshops for the Royal Shakespeare Company, Shakespeare's Globe and with students of music and drama.
