Cutting Dick

Thomas Heywood (additions by) (1602)

Historical Records

Payments to Playwrights (Henslowe's Diary)

F. 116 (Greg, I.181)

pd vnto Thomas hewode the 20 of septmber

for the new a dicyons of cuttyngdicke some of ..... xx^s

Theatrical Provenance

Heywood was writing for both the Admiral's men and Worcester's men in the fall of 1602. The additions to "Cutting Dick" were done for Worcester's men, who were currently at the Rose. Herbert Berry located Worcester's men at the Boar's Head playhouse "late in the summer or early in the autumn of 1601" (51). He called the company "a strong one formed by the union of the earl of Worcester's and the ear of Oxford's men" and suggested that the repertory contained "among other things, the melodramatic work of Heywood" (51).

Probable Genre(s)

Harbage labeled "Cutting Dick" a "Topical play" (71); obviously, it was also a crime drama. Just how topical Cutting Dick was in 1602 is evident in a letter from Dudley Carleton to John Chamberlain dated 29 December 1601. In that letter (calendared in State Papers, Domestic, document reference SP 12/283 f.140), Carlton tells Chamberlain that "Evans, known as Cutting Dick, a notable robber in Wiltshire, is taken, and like to be hanged" (CCLXXXIII, 136).

Possible Narrative and Dramatic Sources or Analogues

g The story of "Cutting Dick" must have relied to a large extent on the career of the criminal who carried that nickname, but sources identified to date only hint at his escapades.

References to the Play

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Critical Commentary

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For What It's Worth

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Works Cited

Berry, Herbert. The Boar's Head Playhouse. Illustrations by C. Walter Hodges. Washington, DC: Folger Shakespeare Library, 1986.

Calendar of State Papers, Domestic Series, of the Reign of Elizabeth, 1601-1603. Edited by Mary Anne Everett Green. Vol. 6. London: HMSO, 1870

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Site created and maintained by Roslyn L. Knutson, Professor Emerita, University of Arkansas at Little Rock; updated 4 March 2015.