By 1709, the year that Susanna Centlivre’s The Busy Body had its premiere and run of 13 performances, the fortunes of Restoration comedy had come, gone, and come again. The audience interest in comedic salaciousness and sexual intrigue that typified the…
CBT’s ‘The Busy Body’ – The Force of Necessity
Not entirely by accident, I recently stumbled upon an 1808 printing of Susanna Centlivre’s The Busy Body (1709) in a volume drawn from productions of that play by the Drury Lane and Covent Garden Theatres. The printing, coming roughly 100 years after the play was first produced in 1709, drew me in with scholarly fascination.