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Article: THEATRE
- Article from:
- The Independent (London, England)
- Article date:
- July 7, 1994
- Author:
CopyrightCopyright 1994 The Independent - London. Provided by ProQuest LLC. (Hide copyright information)
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Though not much read these days, Fanny Burney's once popular
novels (Evelina, Cecilia etc) are still remembered, even if only as
a footnote to the works of Jane Austen which they influenced.
Burney the playwright, though, is an unknown quantity, and would
have been so to her contemporaries too.
Apart from the blank-verse tragedy Edwy Elgiva, whose first
night in 1795 swerved into farce through the actors' faulty
memories, none of her eight plays made it on to the stage. Or at
least this was the case until last September, when Show of Strength
mounted the first production of her Regency comedy, A Busy Day in a
pub theatre in Bristol. Having garnered some rapturous reviews and
an LWT Plays on ...