The Lord Mayor's Show for 1621 and 2021: Reconstructing a Triumph

Abstract

In October 2021, the Beyond Shakespeare group performed the text of Thomas Middleton's Lord Mayor's Show of 1621, The Sun in Aries, at Bow Church in London's Cheapside. Lasting about half an hour, as opposed to the original all-day event, it featured music, child and adult performers, and minimal visual effects. The experiment showed that actors’ voices can be effective even in outdoor spaces (though less effective than music), but also that much of their language is unintelligible without its context. This, then, is what future experiments should attempt to provide.