Edward's Boys present: The Knight of the Burning Pestle
Doors open 4pm, performance 5pm, Friday 20 and Saturday 28 March 2026
Edward’s Boys return to the Charterhouse following last year’s sold-out performance.
The Knight of the Burning Pestle (Francis Beaumont, 1607) is an outrageous comedy that doesn’t just break the fourth wall, it tears it up into little pieces and jumps up and down on it. A mischievous parody and generous satire, this play both mocks theatre and revels in it. By encouraging audience collaboration and exploiting the undeniable power of popular song, rude vigour tramples all over literary sophistication. The result embraces the spirit of Carnival, the festive excess of popular celebration.
Unlike much of the Edward’s Boys repertoire, The Knight of the Burning Pestle has some performance history. Initially a failure when performed by the Children of the Queen’s Revels, then briefly revived in the 1630s, it pretty much disappeared from the stage until 1898. Thereafter, it has been occasionally revived by professionals, usually as a star-vehicle. However, for Knight fully to make sense it needs to be performed by a boys’ company.
Doors open at 4pm
Performance in the Great Chamber 5 - 7.15pm (with interval)
About Edward’s Boys:
An all-boy theatre company comprising students from King Edward VI School, Stratford-upon-Avon (“Shakespeare’s School”), Edward’s Boys have received critical praise and popular success as a result of their work exploring the repertoire of the boys’ companies from the early modern period.
In the words of Professor Emma Smith, Hertford College, Oxford, the Edward’s Boys Project “is the most sustained attempt to re-imagine what we think boy companies could do – and it will really re-write the academic theatre history books.”
“ For me as a Shakespeare director, with particular interest in the repertoire of his contemporaries, these productions have proved invaluable… I think the school is producing something rather miraculous, and I suspect it is too easy for that to go unsaid. So I am saying it.” Sir Gregory Doran, former Artistic Director, Royal Shakespeare Company
Ticket options
Doors open 4pm, performance 5pm, Friday 20 and Saturday 28 March 2026
Edward’s Boys return to the Charterhouse following last year’s sold-out performance.
The Knight of the Burning Pestle (Francis Beaumont, 1607) is an outrageous comedy that doesn’t just break the fourth wall, it tears it up into little pieces and jumps up and down on it. A mischievous parody and generous satire, this play both mocks theatre and revels in it. By encouraging audience collaboration and exploiting the undeniable power of popular song, rude vigour tramples all over literary sophistication. The result embraces the spirit of Carnival, the festive excess of popular celebration.
Unlike much of the Edward’s Boys repertoire, The Knight of the Burning Pestle has some performance history. Initially a failure when performed by the Children of the Queen’s Revels, then briefly revived in the 1630s, it pretty much disappeared from the stage until 1898. Thereafter, it has been occasionally revived by professionals, usually as a star-vehicle. However, for Knight fully to make sense it needs to be performed by a boys’ company.
Doors open at 4pm
Performance in the Great Chamber 5 - 7.15pm (with interval)
About Edward’s Boys:
An all-boy theatre company comprising students from King Edward VI School, Stratford-upon-Avon (“Shakespeare’s School”), Edward’s Boys have received critical praise and popular success as a result of their work exploring the repertoire of the boys’ companies from the early modern period.
In the words of Professor Emma Smith, Hertford College, Oxford, the Edward’s Boys Project “is the most sustained attempt to re-imagine what we think boy companies could do – and it will really re-write the academic theatre history books.”
“ For me as a Shakespeare director, with particular interest in the repertoire of his contemporaries, these productions have proved invaluable… I think the school is producing something rather miraculous, and I suspect it is too easy for that to go unsaid. So I am saying it.” Sir Gregory Doran, former Artistic Director, Royal Shakespeare Company
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