Every Man In His Humour

When Ben Jonson's comic masterpiece premiered in 1598, it featured an extraordinary cast member: a young actor named William Shakespeare, playing the role of the concerned father Knowell. Four centuries later, the play remains a dazzling specimen of Elizabethan wit, a furiously energetic comedy where every character is undone by their own obsession. Old Knowell stalks his supposedly wayward son through the streets of London, certain the boy is ruinous. Meanwhile, the merchant Kitely torments himself so relentlessly about cuckoldry that he becomes the architect of his own jealousy. Around them swirls a troupe of boasting soldiers, quick-witted servants in disguise, and lovers trading insults that sound like courtship. Jonson's genius lies in his 'humours' theory of personality: each character embodies a dominant passion that blinds them to their own absurdity. The result is a play that moves at breakneck speed through mistaken identities, drunken debates, and social climbers unmasked. It is both a period piece and a timeless portrait of human self-delusion, proving that we have always found spectacularly creative ways to make fools of ourselves.