Richard Dutton has brought together an impressive number of scholars to provide an authoritative survey of current knowledge of the Elizabethan, Jacobean and Caroline theatre. Although plays and dramatists are frequently referred to throughout, and there is a chapter on issues of authorship, the emphasis is on theatre, not dramatic literature. The introduction provides a critical examination of the past, present and possible future emphases in theatre history, and the five-part structure of the body of the book is particularly helpful, commencing as it does with a section consisting of six detailed chronologically arranged studies of the adult companies and two examining the progress of the early and later boy companies. This is a helpful organization in that it charts the development of the troupes and their characteristic repertories in their various playhouses from the mid- and late sixteenth century through to the 1642 closure, providing a broad context for the later sections which focus on four specific areas, namely the ‘London Playhouses’, ‘Other Playing Spaces’, ‘Social Practices’ and ‘Evidence of Theatrical Practices’. These sections embrace topics as various as household entertainments and royal progresses, touring, court theatre, Revels control, the role of the City of London, women in the theatre, early modern acting, actors’ parts, stage directions, lighting, music, sound and properties.

There are a few areas where one would have liked rather more information, but where knowledge may be limited or with which recent scholarship has perhaps been less engaged. For example, in the chapter ‘Plays, Livery Companies, Apprentices’, examining the apprenticeship entry system, more comment on the social provenance, educational level and motives of entrants would have been welcome. The social position of the generality of players is also somewhat elusive. Court performances, elite patronage and gentry attendance at the theatres, matters which bulk large here and serve to enhance the standing of actors, can perhaps be deceptive, as indicated by a detail in the chapter covering theatre at the Inns of Court which cites a highly suggestive contemporary reference to what must have been the Lord Chamberlain's Men, with Shakespeare among them, as ‘a Company of base and common Fellows’ (p. 285). One would have liked more too on the activities of itinerant street, square and hall performers, and the relations between them and the professional players in acting companies with whom they sometimes shared theatres and performance places. With the possible exception of minstrels, these performers are not much touched on here; the chapter on London street theatre concentrates on ‘the Midsummer Watch, the Lord Mayor's Show and the royal entry’ (p. 323). Yet again, while due attention is given to one obvious foreign borrowing, the Italianate staging approaches introduced by Inigo Jones to court theatre, foreign influences and activities are allowed only occasional mention. The Italian professional players in England, for example, receive passing note, but some comment on them in the context of mountebank activities might help to account for the apparent contradiction between the paucity of references to their presence and yet the evident knowledge of their work shown by dramatists and audiences alike.