The Knight of the Burning Pestle

or The London Merchant

Written by Francis Beaumont
Performed in Russian with surtitles
Running time 1 hour 40 minutes, no interval
Premiered in 2019

In this 2019 production, Cheek by Jowl and Moscow Pushkin Drama Theatre reunited to present Francis Beaumont’s subversive and darkly funny play within a play. The Knight of the Burning Pestle is a breath-taking comedy, hilarious and terrifying in its relevance to a post-expert world where everyone can be famous and anyone can write the story.

‘The London Merchant’ begins, a thoughtful drama about dysfunctional families. But suddenly, from the audience, a grocer and his wife clamber onto the stage and politely explain to the astonished actors that they are a little bit bored and wouldn’t it be better to cheer the evening up with exotic locations and a Knight – indeed their apprentice grocer Rafe is just the man for the job.

Rafe is duly arrayed as the Knight of the Burning Pestle and his chivalric adventures are played out while the domestic drama of the London Merchant struggles towards its conclusion, chronically interrupted by the grocer and his wife who surprisingly get highly involved with its gritty, unpredictable narrative.

Beaumont’s subversive meta-drama burst onto the stage in 1607, at a critical moment when theatre was threatened by a popular movement increasingly hostile to art and culture. A disturbing comedy centuries ahead of its time, it subtly asks questions all the more relevant today: what is art for? Who is art for?

Produced by Cheek by Jowl and Moscow Pushkin Drama Theatre in a co-production with the Barbican, London; Les Gémeaux/Sceaux/Scène Nationale; Centro Dramático Nacional, Madrid (INAEM).

“A blaze of life and theatre”
Télérama

Cast and creative team

Cast

Name	Character
Alexander Feklistov	Grocer
Agrippina Steklova	Grocer’s wife
Nazar Safonov	Rafe
Sergei Miller	Venturewell
Anna Vardevanian	Luce
Kirill Chernyshenko	Jasper
Andrei Kuzichev	Humphrey
Alexei Rakhmanov	Mr Merrythought
Anna Karmakova	Mrs Merrythought
Danila Kazakov	Michael
Kirill Sbitnev	Tim

Creative Team

Role	Name
Director	Declan Donnellan
Designer	Nick Ormerod
Lighting designer	Alexander Sivaev
Composer	Pavel Akimkin
Choreographer	Irina Kashuba
Assistant director	Igor Teplov

International Tour

Previous Performances

Date	Location
20 August 2021	Worldwide, Livestream from Sibiu International Theatre Festival, Romania
20-21 August 2021	Sibiu, Sibiu International Theatre Festival, Romania
26-27 September 2020	Voronezh, Platonov Arts Festival, Russia
24 September 2020	Samara, Samara Drama Theatre, Russia
24-26 September 2019	Toulouse, Théâtre de la Cité, France
4 August 2019	Gdańsk, Gdański Teatr Szekspirowski, Poland
16 January–2 February 2019	Sceaux, Les Gémeaux, Paris, France
24-28 April 2019	Madrid, Centro Dramático Nacional, Spain
5-8 June 2019	London, Barbican, UK

Performances in Repertory

Previous Performances

Date	Location
26 December 2021	Moscow, Pushkin Drama Theatre, Russia
21 November 2021
22 October 2021
6 June 2021
18 April 2021
27 March 2021
21 February 2021
13 January 2021
13 December 2020
19 September 2020
31 January 2020
9-10 November 2019
18-19 October 2019
27 June 2019
21–22 May 2019
30 March 2019
13–15 March 2019

Awards and reviews

Awards

Best Show of the Season 2019
Moskovskiy Komsomoletc Newspaper

Best Production 2019
Crystal Turandot Awards

Reviews

France

“Simple and wild direction… Diabolical tempo… Radical…A blaze of life and theatre.”
Télérama Read the full review

“Irresistible…A whirlwind anthem to theatre and why we need it now”
Le Figaro Read the full review

“Exhilarating”
Les Inrockuptibles Read the full review

“Virtuoso cast”
Les Echos

Russia

“Witty, joyous, never before have we seen such a collision of traditional and modern art!”
MK

“Donnellan grasps something in Russia that we, being inside, just don’t notice – this is why, as always, he hits the nail right on the head”
Rossiyskaya Gazeta