The Hypocrite

by Richard Bean

A riotous new comedy from award-winning playwright Richard Bean, author of One Man, Two Guvnors.

April 1642. Sir John Hotham, Governor of Hull, is charged by Parliament to secure the arsenal at Hull and deny entry to King Charles I. If only it were that simple. With a Royalist siege outside the city walls and the rebellion of the mob within, Civil War seems inevitable and losing his head more than probable.

136 pages, Paperback

First published February 28, 2017

Reviews

[Clare · Rating 3 out of 5]

I saw the play and had found parts of it funny, but I felt at the time it tried too hard. I read the script and now, many of the jokes had me wincing with their cruelty or prejudice. It was a bead on the same thread as One Man, Two Guvnors and the classical tale of the clever servant and stupid master that parented it. It really is a curate's egg, although the use of Hull dialect was fun and some of the self-referential jokes about RSC audiences were entertaining

[Phillip · Rating 5 out of 5]

Bean is a great comic playwright, and this is a delightful comedy. It actually has much in common with his play One Man, Two Guvnors--an adaptations of Goldoni's The Servant of Two Masters. Except here the servant is Sir John Hotham, a nobleman commissioned by both Parliament and Charles Stuart to take the arsenal at Hull for them. He tries to play one side against the other, continually trying to align himself with the winning side--and his analogy of a see-saw is apt here--but never actually fully declaring himself one way or the other. Instead he declares himself for the King to monarchists and for Parliament to Roundheads. Add to that balancing act that he's got trouble with the people of Hull because he's holding the money he was supposed to pay them for quartering Parliamentary soldiers in private home, intending to use the cash as part of his daughter's dowry to Pelham, a Puritan favored by Parliament. But his daughter Frances doesn't want to marry Pelham, and she falls in love with the Duke of York, who, along with prince Rupert (who falls in love with Sir John's son Durand) has snuck into Hull to either capture or destroy the arsenal for the King.

[Wilde Sky · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book contains the transcript / stage direction for a play.

I found this book very amusing – the dialogue was witty / sharp and I could imagine the stage action being riotous.