{"id":469,"date":"2016-06-01T09:37:52","date_gmt":"2016-06-01T09:37:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/community.dur.ac.uk\/theatrum.mundi\/?page_id=469"},"modified":"2016-06-01T09:37:52","modified_gmt":"2016-06-01T09:37:52","slug":"the-oldest-play-from-britain","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/reed-ne.webspace.durham.ac.uk\/?page_id=469","title":{"rendered":"The Oldest Play from Britain"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"The

The Harrowing of Hell, by a follower of Hieronymus Bosch (circa 1450\u20131516) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons<\/a>.<\/p><\/div>The North East has produced some fabulous modern dramatists, such as Lee Hall (creator of Billy Elliot<\/em>)\u00a0or Alan Plater. However, the region may also lay claim to have produced the\u00a0‘oldest play from Britain.’\u00a0Many early plays were really part of Christian worship (liturgy) rather than independent\u00a0dramas, so we cannot be sure about dates. However, a\u00a0Latin fragment of one play, The Harrowing of Hell<\/em> survives in the ninth-century Book of Cerne, and was probably composed in the eighth century, possibly at Lindisfarne<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The action, based on the apocryphal Gospel of Nicodemus,\u00a0tells how, after his death on the Cross, Christ descended to Hell to redeem the virtuous souls\u00a0who had lived and died before his time. The play is in Latin and incomplete, but luckily a more\u00a0complete version survives in Old English, featuring a lively prologue in which the devils lament\u00a0Christ\u2019s arrival in Hell.<\/p>\n

In July 2016, there will be a unique opportunity to see a live production of the Harrowing of Hell<\/em> as part of Theatrum Mundi<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The North East has produced some fabulous modern dramatists, such as Lee Hall (creator of Billy Elliot)\u00a0or Alan Plater. However, the region may also lay claim to have produced the\u00a0‘oldest play from Britain.’\u00a0Many early plays were really part of Christian worship (liturgy) rather than independent\u00a0dramas, so we cannot be sure about dates. However, a\u00a0Latin fragment […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"parent":458,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"page-fullwidth.php","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-469","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/P67HiV-7z","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/reed-ne.webspace.durham.ac.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/469","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/reed-ne.webspace.durham.ac.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/reed-ne.webspace.durham.ac.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/reed-ne.webspace.durham.ac.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/reed-ne.webspace.durham.ac.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=469"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/reed-ne.webspace.durham.ac.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/469\/revisions"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/reed-ne.webspace.durham.ac.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/458"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/reed-ne.webspace.durham.ac.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=469"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}