King John

King John is a history play by William Shakespeare (1564–1616)[1].

The original text

Thought to have been written in the mid-1590s but was only published in the First Folio [2] of 1623.

See Wikipedia [3] for a brief synopsis of the play.

1864: A reading of the play performed by Thomas Brazier, as one of his series of Dramatic Readings held every alternate Monday in the Cape Town City Hall between 4 July and 7 November. (Other plays in the series of seven works read were Knowles's The Hunchback, Bulwer-Lytton's The Lady of Lyons and five plays by Shakespeare: Hamlet, The Merchant of Venice, Romeo and Juliet and Much Ado about Nothing.)

1868: Scenes from the play were performed as part of a "Musical and Dramatic Entertainment" by the Le Roy and Duret company in the Commercial Exchange, Cape Town on 27 January. The evening was under the patronage Governor Wodehouse, and the programme also included songs, dances, and scenes read and performed from The Lady of Lyons (Bulwer-Lytton), Romeo and Juliet (Shakespeare), The Hunchback (Knowles) and A Rough Diamond (Buckstone).

1870: Scenes from the play were performed - as replacement for the advertised A Moving Tale (Lemon) - in the Royal Lyceum Theatre, Cape Town, on 5 July, as afterpiece to All that Glitters is not Gold (Morton and Morton), by the Young Men's Institute and Club Dramatic Company, in association with the company of R. Webster. The performers included R. Webster, T. Brazier, Mrs Brazier, Mr Devere and James Leffler, who all appeared in the main play and probably in the Shakespeare excerpts as well. The young Fred Brazier, son of the Braziers, appeared as "Prince Arthur". The evening was a bit of a fiasco however, since a Mr Illford, who was make his Cape Town debut by playing the lead, had not turned up and Leffler had to take on two roles.