Event Comment: At Cushing's Booth, facing the King's Head, Smithfield. The tragedy contains the barbarous contrivances of King John against his nephew Prince Arthur; his method of persuading Hubert to undertake the cruel murder of that youth; the sufferings of Arthur in his confinement, where Hubert attempts to put out eyes with a red-hot iron, til moved to compassion by the tender entreating of the young prince, he quits his horrid purpose. The manner of Arthur's leaping from the battlements of the tower where he was imprisoned, when by attempting to escape his severe treatment he loses his life. The terrors that attended the villainous Uncle King John, and at length his dreadful death, who is poisoned in the midst of all his glory, and in terrible anguish and distraction, pays his nephew's blood with the price of his own. The comic contains the exquisite drolleries of Sir Lubberly and his man, their whimsical journey from Cumberland, and no less whimsical exploits in London; the odd reception they met with from their three faithful friends, Tom Rash the Porter, Jeffrey Holdfast the Constable, and Moll Tatter the Beggar Woman, the one getting a wife, the other a bastard
Performances
Mainpiece Title: The Life And Death Of King John
Afterpiece Title: The Adventures of Sir Lubberly Lackbrains and His Man
Blunderbuss
Performance Comment: Sir Thomas Rash-Malone; Ramble-Singleton; Merry-Jenkins; Tom Rash-Beckham; Jeffery Holdfast-Middleton; Moll-Mrs Beckham; Blunderbuss-Costollo; Sir Luberrly-Cushing (from the Theatre Royal in Covent Garden); Christina-Mrs Peters; Pert-Mrs Simon.