ALASDAIR BROWN   

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Plays by Alasdair Brown

ALASDAIR BROWN

Beauty Of Buttermere Or A Maid Betrayed, The

1st Produced:

Carnegie Theatre, Workington, Cumbria

1977

Company:

Workington Grammar School Dramatic Society

1st Published:

Heinemann, London, 1979

ISBN/ASIN:

-

Music:

-

doollee no

#4906

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Genre:

Melodrama

Parts:

Male

30

Female

10

Parts other:

Daffodills: 25

Notes:

Performed by professional and amateur groups all over the world and Arizona State University's entry for a national drama competition in 1985

Synopsis:

Based on a true story, the play tells of Mary Robinson, a late eighteenth century teenager, who helped her parents run the Fish Inn in Buttermere, Cumberland. She was 'discovered' by a travel writer, Joseph Budworth, who eulogised her beauty in magazines aimed at the growing number of people who liked to travel the length and breadth of England searching for pre-industrial rural Edens. As a result of Budworth's articles, Mary's fame grew and many celebrities, including Wordsworth and Coleridge, travelled to Buttermere to gaze at her. Eventually, John Hadfield , a con-man from Cheshire posing as an aristocrat, visited Buttermere, courted Mary and married her. Coleridge was suspicious and wrote scathingly of the marriage in a national newspaper. Hadfield was arrested and hanged for imposture and fraud at Carlisle. The story became a favourite subject for nineteenth century melodramas. This play uses the story to parody the Victorian Melodrama and to satirise certain aspects of the English Romanticism.

Further Reference:

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