Show! Show! Show! Show! Show!
Show! Show! Show! Show! Show! This was the cry of a seventeenth -century city crowd, as recorded in Ned Ward's London Spy.
There were indeed many shows to be seen on the London streets, but the greatest fair of all was held at Smithfield.
It was known as Bartholomew's Fair.Smithfield itself began as a simple trading area,
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for cloth in one place and cattle in another, but its history has
always been one of turbulence and spectacle. Great jousts and tournaments were held there in the fourteenth century;
it was the ritual place for duels and ordeal by battle; it was the home of the gallows and the stake. That festive
nature was also evident in less forbidding ways. Football matches and wrestling contests were commonly staged and
the appropriately named Cock Lane, just beyond the open ground, was the haunt of prostitutes. Miracle plays were also
part of its entertainment.
The trading market for cloth had become outmoded by the middle of the sixteenth century but `the privileges of the
fair' were still retained by the city corporation. So, instead of a three-day market, it was transformed into a
fourteen-day festival which resounds through the plays and novels of succeeding centuries with the cry of `What do
you lack? What is it you buy?' From the beginning of its fame there were puppet-shows and street performers, human
freaks and games of dice and thimble, canvas tents for dancing or for drinking, eating-houses which specialised in
roast pork.
This was the fair which Jonson celebrated in his play of the same name. He notes the sound of rattles, drums and
fiddles. Here on the wooden stalls were laid out mousetraps and gingerbread, purses and pouches. There were booths
and toyshops. Displayed `at the sign of the Shoe and Slap' was `THE WONDER OF NATURE, a girl about sixteen years of
age, born in Cheshire, and not above eighteen inches long ... Reads very well, whistles, and all very pleasant to hear.'
Close by was exhibited `a Man with one Head and two distinct Bodies', as well as a `Giant Man' and `Little Fairy Woman'
performing among the other freak shows and theatrical booths. There were puppies, whistling birds and horses for sale;
there were ballads cried out, with bottled ale and tobacco being constantly consumed. Cunning men cast nativities, and
prostitutes plied their trade. Jonson himself noted small details, too, and watched as the cores of apples were gathered
up for the bears. As one of his characters puts it, `Bless me! deliver me, help, hold me! the Fair!'
It continued, curiously enough, during the Puritan Commonwealth, no doubt with the primary motive of venting the steam
of the more unruly citizens, but flourished after the Restoration of 1660 when liberty and licence came back into
fashion. One versifier of the period notes masquerades dramatising `The Woman of Babylon, The Devil and The Pope',
as well as shows of dancing bears and acrobats. Some acts came year after year: there was the `Tall Dutchwoman'
who made annual appearances for at least seventeen years, together with the `Horse and no Horse, whose tail
stands where his head should do'. And there were always rope-walkers, among them the famous Scaramouch
`dancing on the rope, with a wheelbarrow before him with two children and a dog in it, and with a duck on his head',
and the notable rope -dancer Jacob Hall `that can jump it, jump it'. Perhaps the most celebrated of all the acts,
however, was that of Joseph Clark, `the English Posture Master' or `Posture Clark' as he was known. It seems that he
could `put out of joynt almost any Bone or Vertebra of his Body, and to re-place it again'; he could so contort himself
that he became unrecognisable even to his closest friends.
And so the fair went on, as all fairs do. There was even a Ferris wheel, known then as a `Whirligig'
(later an `Up and Down') where, according to Ned Ward in The London Spy (1709), `Children lock'd up in Flying Coaches
who insensibly climb'd upwards . . . being once Elevated to a certain height come down again according to the Circular
Motion of the Sphere they move in'.
The general noise and clamour, together with the inevitable crowd of pickpockets, finally proved too much for the city
authorities. In 1708 the fortnight of the fair was reduced to three days at the end of August. But if it became less
riotous, it was no less festive. Contemporary accounts dwell upon the drollery of `merry Andrews', otherwise known as
Jack Puddings or Pickled Herrings; they wore a costume with donkey's ears, and accompanied other performers with their
fiddles. One of the more famous fools was a seller of gingerbread nuts in Covent Garden; since he was paid one guinea
a day for his work at Bartholomew Fair, `he was at pains never to cheapen himself by laughing, or by noticing a joke,
during the other 362 days of the year'.
Extract from “LONDON The Biography”, by Peter Ackroyd. Published by Vintage, 2001.
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