The popular actor Edmund Kean replaced Kemble as the darling of the London stage after making his Drury Lane
debut as Shylock in The Merchant of Venice in 1814. The critic William Hazlitt wrote of this performance:
“For voice, eye, action and expression no actor has come out for many years at all equal to him. The applause from the
first scene to the last was general loud and uninterrupted.”
Kean was one of the few actors who could fill the vast Drury Lane theatre to its capacity of 3,000. His natural
passion and fiery spirit suited a melodramatic style of acting but he made his name playing in Shakespeare, particularly as Macbeth, Iago and Richard III. He was said
to be at his best in death scenes
and scenes that required intensity of feeling or violent transitions from one mood to another. Another famed role was as Sir Giles Overreach
in A New Way to Pay Old
Debts.
Kean’s private life was full of scandal and heavy drinking. He was the father of actor-manager Charles Kean and
died shortly after they had appeared together on stage as Othello (Edmund) and Iago (Charles) in 1833.
Introduction
The Old Price Riots
