Every Christmas, British theatres are taken over by a ‘usual suspects’ roster of pantomimes: Jack and the Beanstalk, Aladdin and Snow White being among the most common. But while many of these stories are based on fables or fairy tales, one much-loved production – Dick Whittington, the story of the boy who heads for London in search of streets paved with gold – draws a surprising portion of its narrative from real-life events.
The titular ‘Dick’ is based on Richard Whittington, the medieval mayor of London who, just like his panto counterpart, left his home in the countryside and made his fortune in the big smoke. But how much of the story, which has captivated theatre-goers for centuries, is drawn from reality? And how much is plucked from the realm of fantasy? And, perhaps most importantly, did Whittington really have a pet cat?
These are questions that have long fascinated Michael McCarthy, author of Citizen of London: Richard Whittington, The Boy Who Would Be Mayor, the first major study of Richard Whittington in several decades. The book sees McCarthy providing a detailed account of the real Whittington’s remarkable rise to the difficulties of piecing together aspects of Whittington’s early life.
“Whittington first arrived in London around 20 years after the Black Death, which had peaked in Europe in the mid-14th century,” says McCarthy. “However, the problem we have is that the pandemic killed around 50 per cent of England’s rural clergy, who were the main people responsible for the recording of births, marriages, deaths and other key events at this time. Due to the turbulence of the period, many of the records you would normally expect to find simply haven’t survived.”
هذه القصة مأخوذة من طبعة October 2023 من BBC History UK.
ابدأ النسخة التجريبية المجانية من Magzter GOLD لمدة 7 أيام للوصول إلى آلاف القصص المتميزة المنسقة وأكثر من 8500 مجلة وصحيفة.
بالفعل مشترك ? تسجيل الدخول
هذه القصة مأخوذة من طبعة October 2023 من BBC History UK.
ابدأ النسخة التجريبية المجانية من Magzter GOLD لمدة 7 أيام للوصول إلى آلاف القصص المتميزة المنسقة وأكثر من 8500 مجلة وصحيفة.
بالفعل مشترك? تسجيل الدخول
The Aztecs at war
RHIANNON DAVIES discovers why war was so important to the Mesoamerican people - and why they believed a badly cooked meal could prevent a soldier from shooting straight
Towering achievement
NATHEN AMIN explores a 13th-century stronghold that was built to subdue independent-minded Welsh people, yet has since become a symbol of courage in the face of overwhelming odds
Eighteenth-century mushroom ketchup
ELEANOR BARNETT shares her instructions for making a flavourful sauce with roots in south-east Asia
Goodbye to the gilded age
JOHN JACOB WOOLF is won over by an exploration of the Edwardian era, which looks beyond the golden-era cliché to find a nation beset by a sense of unease
The power of the few
Subhadra Das's first book catches two particular waves in current publishing.
The 'badass' icon
One of the problems with biography, if an author is not careful, is that it can quickly become hagiography.
Ghosts of Germany's past
KATJA HOYER is impressed by a study of a nation's attempts to grapple with the crimes it perpetrated during the Second World War
A window onto England's soul
SARAH FOOT has high praise for a book that traces the evolution of English Christianity over the course of 1400 years, through the lives of its greatest thinkers
"There was a general perception that Queen Victoria's mourning was neither normal nor acceptable”
JUDITH FLANDERS talks to Rebecca Franks about her new book, which delves into the customs surrounding dying, death and mourning in Victorian Britain
"Indigenous children were forcibly separated from their families"
HIDDEN HISTORIES... KAVITA PURI on the legacy of Canada's residential schools