The Art Of Success
by Nick Dear
Nick Dear - The Art Of Success
BBC Radio 3
Broadcast: Sunday 21st July 1991 @ 9:30 p.m.
"The Art of Success" is Nick Dear's award-winning drama that traces the scabrous times and scatalogical imagination of 18th century
artist William Hogarth as he mingles with playwrights, peers, prostitutes, a prime minister and a condemned murderess.
Dear seizes on a larger-than-life Hogarth, a man who also lived on the cusp of great social change, to examine issues that are very
much with us: inequalities of wealth and status, the position of women, and the place of art in society. Dear raises the dramatic
temperature by cramming the artist's slow ascent to fame into a single, action-filled night. From Newgate Prison to Queen Caroline's
bedroom, from London's pleasure gardens to its brothels and taverns, Hogarth tries to make sense of--and money from--the chaos that
surrounds him.
First presented in 1986 by the Royal Shakespeare Company in The Other Place Theatre, Stratford-upon-Avon.
With Michael Kitchen [William Hogarth], Robin Weaver [Jane Hogarth], Penny Downie [Sarah Sprackling], Linus Roache [Henry
Fielding], Simon Russell Beale [Oliver], Irene Sutcliffe [Mrs. Needham], Sally Dexter [Louisa], Ronald Herdman [Sir Robert Walpole],
Brett Usher [Frank / The Jailer], Ann Windsor [Queen Caroline of Anspach], and Jane Whittenshaw [The Drummer Girl].
Directed by Richard Wortley.
Re-broadcast on Sunday 29th November 1992 @ 9:20 p.m.
115 min.
There's an interesting article about this play from a few years ago, by Roger Lewis, who directed it on stage, on the 'Questors' website.
See also 1991 plays page .
Compiled by Jim
