''The Fortune Hunters; Or, Two Fools Well Met'' is 1689

comedy play Comedy is a genre of dramatic performance having a light or humorous tone that depicts amusing incidents and in which the characters ultimately triumph over adversity. For ancient Greeks and Romans, a comedy was a stage-play with a happy endi ...

by James Carlile. It was originally staged by the

United Company The United Company was a London theatre company formed in 1682 with the merger of the King's Company and the Duke's Company. Both the Duke's and King's Companies suffered poor attendance during the turmoil of the Popish Plot period, 1678–8 ...

at the

Theatre Royal, Drury Lane The Theatre Royal, Drury Lane, commonly known as Drury Lane, is a West End theatre and listed building, Grade I listed building in Covent Garden, London, England. The building faces Catherine Street (earlier named Bridges or Brydges Street) an ...

in London. The original Drury Lane cast included

Anthony Leigh Anthony Leigh (died 1692) was a celebrated English comic actor. Life He was from a Northamptonshire family, and was not closely related to the actor John Leigh (18th-century actor), John Leigh (c.1689–1726?). He joined the Duke of York's comp ...

as Sir William Wealthy,

Edward Kynaston Edward Kynaston may refer to: *Edward Kynaston (actor) Edward Kynaston (c. 1640 – January 1706) was an English actor, one of the last Restoration "boy players", young male actors who played women's roles. Career Kynaston was good looking ...

as Tom Wealthy,

William Mountfort William Mountfort (c. 1664 – 10 December 1692), English actor and dramatic writer, was the son of a Staffordshire gentleman. He met his death at the hand of notorious brawler Charles Mohun, 4th Baron Mohun of Okehampton, who had just take ...

as Young Wealthy,

James Nokes James Nokes (Noke, Noak, Noakes) (died c.1692) was an English actor An actor (masculine/gender-neutral), or actress (feminine), is a person who portrays a character in a production. The actor performs "in the flesh" in the traditional medium ...

as Spruce, John Bowman as Littlegad,

Elinor Leigh Elinor Leigh was a British stage actor of the seventeenth century. Born Elinor Dixon, she was billed as Mrs Leigh or Mrs Lee after she married the actor Anthony Leigh in 1671. This has led to some difficulty distinguishing on playbills between he ...

as The Lady Sly,

Charlotte Butler Charlotte Butler was an English stage actress and singer of the seventeenth century. She may have joined the Duke's Company in the 1670s, but her first definite recorded performance was in Aphra Behn's '' The Revenge'' (1680) The anonymous ''A Sat ...

as Sophia,

Susanna Mountfort Susanna Mountfort (1690-1720) was a British stage actress. She was the daughter of the actors William Mountfort and his wife Susanna Mountfort. In 1692 her father was killed in a duel and her mother remarried and became known as Susanna Verbrug ...

as Maria and

Frances Maria Knight Frances is an English given name or last name of Latin origin. In Latin the meaning of the name Frances is 'from France' or 'the French.' The male version of the name in English is Francis. The original Franciscus, meaning "Frenchman", comes from ...

as Mrs Spruce.Van Lennep p.370 The work remained popular into the eighteenth century. It was revived at the Queen's Theatre, Haymarket in 1707 with a cast featuring William Bullock,

John Mills Sir John Mills (born Lewis Ernest Watts Mills; 22 February 190823 April 2005) was an English actor who appeared in more than 120 films in a career spanning seven decades. He excelled on camera as an appealing British everyman who often portray ...

Robert Wilks Robert Wilks (''c.'' 1665 – 27 September 1732) was a British actor and theatrical manager who was one of the leading managers of Theatre Royal, Drury Lane in its heyday of the 1710s. He was, with Colley Cibber and Thomas Doggett, one of the ...

, George Pack, Henry Norris,

Lucretia Bradshaw Lucretia Bradshaw (fl. 1714 - 1741) was an English actress. She was often billed as Mrs. Bradshaw. In Thomas Betterton's 1741 ''A History of the English Stage'', it is stated that: She declared herself to have learned from Elizabeth Barry: "t ...

Margaret Bicknell Margaret Bicknell ( 1695 – 1723) was a Scottish theatre actress and dancer. Early life and education She was sister of Elizabeth Younger, an actress, who survived her some years. Younger informed Mrs. Saunders, a well-known actress who had ...

and

Anne Oldfield Anne Oldfield (168323 October 1730) was an England, English actress and one of the highest paid actresses of her time. Early life and discovery She was born in London in 1683. Her father was a soldier, James Oldfield. Her mother was either Ann ...

. This led to further stagings at the Haymarket in 1708 and 1709, followed by Drury Lane in 1711 and

Lincoln's Inn Fields Lincoln's Inn Fields is located in Holborn and is the List of city squares by size, largest public square in London. It was laid out in the 1630s under the initiative of the speculative builder and contractor William Newton, "the first in a ...

in 1717 and 1728.

References

Bibliography

* Canfield, J. Douglas. ''Tricksters and Estates: On the Ideology of Restoration Comedy''. University Press of Kentucky, 2014. * Van Lennep, W. ''The London Stage, 1660–1800: Volume One, 1660–1700''. Southern Illinois University Press, 1960. 1689 plays West End plays Restoration comedy {{17thC-play-stub