Medieval theatre

Early Medieval theatre stemmed from the Church where plays would be put on to portray the Bibles stories in a more clear way, especially as the Bible was yet to be written into English and so the townspeople who went to Church would have been able to understand the Bible stories far better once they had been acted out. This period of theatre spanned 1,000 years and genres such as Mystery or Miracle plays which are the previously mentioned Bible plays as well as Morality plays which were predominantly dramatized historical plays plus other genres such as Farces (comedies).   One of the most famous plays from this era is the play Everyman which is still widely popular and discussed today. Everyman follows the conversation a man has with God as well as goodness and death as he reflects on his life and what he has done with his life. The Church used this play in order to convinced people to do good and follow the morals and rules of God in order to not end up like the "Everyman".

However, during the Late Medieval period in England, Oliver Cromwell the man who ruled England during the mid 17th Century. Cromwell was a Puritan which to put simply meant he hated any form of fun such as partying and Christmas. On top of being a fun sponge he also strongly disagreed with the art of Theatre and promptly banned plays being performed in public. Ways that theatre companies got around this was they would perform plays in small groups inside peoples living rooms for example but more commonly they performed in churches as Cromwell could not place a ban on that. Still, the ban on theatre lasted 18 years and to put that into perspective the average lifespan in England during the 17th Century was 36, meaning many people would have gone half their life never seeing any theatre.