Shakespeare is the star in Stamford

Shakespeare's own life is turned into a drama, with the playwright taking star-billing.

It’s a Friday night in the summer of 1832 and audiences are arriving for an evening of entertainment at Stamford’s Theatre in Lincolnshire...

Shakespeare is very much at the heart of the evening’s show. But, as we can see from this surviving playbill now stored in the British Library, it was a veritable variety night of entertainment, with a mix of singing, dancing and drama.

And it wasn’t one of the Bard’s own plays which took star billing - it was a play about the man himself. Shakespeare’s own life turned into a drama, with Shakespeare now a character himself within the play.

This kind of hero worship of the Bard isn’t a new phenomenon. From the middle of the 18th century there was growing interest in Shakespeare and his life.

Enthusiasts who loved his plays demanded every detail about his life, from his family childhood in Stratford-upon-Avon to his role as an actor-manager during the reign of Elizabeth and then James the First and Sixth.

In its most extreme form it was called 'Bardolatry'.

Shakespeare’s Early Days is performed here at a theatre in Stamford – we can't tell which theatre from the playbill – is staged for the first time and appeals to his growing fan base.

The work explores the early life of the dramatist and features his family - his mother Mary Shakespeare and his brothers John and Gilbert Shakespeare.

His leading actor Richard Burbage also features alongside Shakespeare’s wealthy patron Lord Southampton as a character, as well as Queen Elizabeth.

William Shakespeare was the son of a local glover in Stratford-upon-Avon, who eventually became the chief magistrate of the town council before falling on hard times.

Shakespeare received a grammar school education.

After his hasty marriage to Anne Hathaway and the birth of his children - a daughter Susanna and then Hamnet and his twin sister Judith -there is little information about his life until he becomes part of the London theatrical scene.

In fact, the period between 1585 (when his twin children were born) and 1592 (when the writer and playwright Robert Greene famously called him an "upstart crow") is known as Shakespeare's "lost years".

There is no evidence about what happened during these “missing” seven years. It is a mystery - however, what we do know is Shakespeare’s reputation as an actor and playwright was growing even before Greene’s insult.

Perhaps because there’s so little to go on, Shakespeare’s Early Days can take a few liberties with the life of the dramatist.

Characters such as Slyboots (Shylock?), and Doctor Orthodox and Drawl sound like part of Shakespeare’s comic chorus.

Then there are Shakespeare’s characters, Oberon and Titania, who are the King and Queen of the Fairies from A Midsummer Night’s Dream, a play which appropriately enough is about the power of the artistic imagination.

Here’s another production at the ‘Theatre, Stamford’ – this time a production of Shakespeare’s Hamlet in 1834.

In this advert for the play the managers of the theatre launch a defence of theatre-going – perhaps in the face of puritans campaigning against such an activity, which they might deem ‘lewd’ and unsavoury

He states reassuringly “the ingrediants required to form a religious and virtuous life, are not impaired by an occasional engagement with National Amusements.”

During the Restoration, Puritans campaigned against the licentiousness of the theatre, and castigated actresses as little more than prostitutes.

The targets were contemporary playwrights, as well as Shakespeare.

Even as late as 1835 resistance to the “lewd” world of the theatre may have persisted.

Whether the objections were on puritanical or religious grounds, here the author is working hard to counteract this view.

The choice of play is interesting too. Hamlet features a “play within the play” in which the prince has a speech where he instructs the actors on his view of theatre.

Although the playbill doesn’t give a location for the theatre in which Shakespeare’s Early Days was performed that night, the town itself still has historic buildings which exist today from the same period.

Also near Stamford there is the magnificent Burghley House, an Elizabethan mansion built by the first Lord Burghley, the Elizabethan statesman, Sir William Cecil (1520 –1598). His tomb is in St Martin's Church in Stamford.

Tolethorpe Hall is another historic house nearby that hosts outdoor theatre productions by the Stamford Shakespeare Company. So the love for Shakespeare performance continues today…