The Knight of the Burning Pestle, Sam Wanamaker Playhouse

In the second offering at the new Sam Wanamaker Playhouse, lovers of satire have the chance to go back to where it all began. Francis Beaumont’s hilarious, madcap play is believed to be the first whole parody to be written in English, starting a tradition of spoofs that the Brits have been chuckling at ever since.

Bearing some similarities to Don Quixote, The Knight of the Burning Pestle mercilessly pokes fun at the genre of chivalric romance, sending up popular Renaissance stories of knights, heroism and courtly love. Here, the knight of the title is played by a grocer’s apprentice and the romance is more bawdy than chivalric. Ambitiously constructing two plays within the play, the meta-fictional structure also takes satirical swipes at the drama of Beaumont’s time, the new middle class audiences he was writing for and the shifting social hierarchy of the early seventeenth century.

The Knight of the Burning Pestle was first performed in 1607 in the Blackfriars playhouse, which acted as one of the models for the Globe’s newly opened indoor theatre. This gorgeous performance space is all bare wood surfaces and dangling chandeliers, offering theatregoers the unique experience of watching shows by candlelight. Judging by the rapturous critical and audience response to the theatre’s opening production, The Duchess of Malfi, this unusual venue looks set to quickly become a staple of London’s off-West End theatre scene.

The Sam Wanamaker Playhouse’s production of Beaumont’s play boasts a cast led by Phil Daniels, familiar from television roles in the likes of EastEnders and New Tricks, and Father Ted’s Pauline McLynn. Given the popularity that the theatre has already enjoyed, we recommend booking your tickets as soon as possible.