What's On

Creation Theatre, Orange Tree Theatre and the Cultural Programme at Oxford University present

The Busy Body

By Susanna Centlivre: a script-in-hand performance

Book Tickets

Friday 24 January

Performance

Venue

Mordan Hall, St Hugh's College St Margaret’s Road Oxford OX2 6LE

Performances

5pm

Two young women plot to escape their controlling guardians. But will the nosy Marplot - the "busy body" - ruin the plan?

A clever and hilarious exploration of how women might find freedom of choice in an age of the marriage contract, Susanna Centlivre’s comedy (first performed in 1709) was hugely popular on the 18th-century stage – not least, for its brilliant cast of characters. Led by Professor David Taylor, who specialises in British literature and culture from the mid-17th to the mid-19th century at the University of Oxford, this project partners with Oxford’s Creation Theatre and Orange Tree Theatre, Richmond, to revive this play for the 21st century.

The Busy Body is also showing at the Orange Tree Theatre, Richmond, London on Sunday 26 January 2025 at 3pm. Book tickets via orangetreetheatre.co.uk.

Plan your visit

Address

Mordan Hall, St Hugh's College St Margaret’s Road Oxford OX2 6LE

Creative Team

Dr David Taylor

Professor of English, University of oxford

Dr David Francis Taylor specializes in literature and culture of the 17th, 18th, and 19th centuries. His research focuses on British theatre and performance of this period and also on the relationship between literary culture and visual culture.

He is the author of two books: Theatres of Opposition (2012), which explores how opposition politics was played out on the London stage in the 18th century; and The Practice of Parody: A Literary History of Caricature (2018), which looks at how political cartoons in the ‘golden age of caricature’ made use of literary texts by the likes of Shakespeare and Milton. Dr Taylor is also co-editor of The Oxford Handbook of the Georgian Theatre, 1737-1832. At the moment, he’s writing a book about the history of spectacle.

Dr Taylor has extensive experience of public engagement. In 2017, he curated the exhibition ‘Draw New Mischief: 250 Years of Shakespeare and Political Cartoons’ at the Royal Shakespeare Theatre in Stratford-upon-Avon, and a version of the exhibition travelled with the RSC to the Barbican, London, in 2017-18.

Dr Taylor is currently working with theatre companies to bring forgotten plays of the 18th century – by women especially – back to the stage. He is also collaborating with a company specializing in virtual and augmented reality technology to create a smartphone app that will allow users to step into a spectacular pantomime from the 1780s at the press of a button.