The Busybody

The Busybody is comedy by Mrs Susanna Centlivre (1667?-1723).

The original text
Originally entitled The Busie Body, this work became one of the most successful comedies of intrigue to be performed during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. The play originally opened at the Drury Lane Theatre in London on May 12, 1709, but became particularly popular in England and its colonies, from the middle of the eighteenth century to the early the nineteenth century, and in America in the nineteenth century. By 1800 the play had been performed more than 450 times, and by 1884 had been published in 40 editions.

South African performances
1826: Performed in Simonstown by the Naval Amateur Company, consisting of officers from the HMS Owen Glendower, on Saturday 14 January, with Miss in her Teens (Garrick).

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