Eastward Ho! (New Mermaids)

This collaborative masterpiece of hilarious city comedy was performedby the Children of the Revels at the Blackfriars playhouse in 1605. Thestory is of an allegorical simplicity that lends itself to satire ofcivic mores and traditions as well as to parody of the sentimental,idealising London comedy presented at the amphitheatres in the suburbs:Goldsmith Touchstone, an upright London citizen, has one modest and oneambitious daughter, one righteous and one disreputable apprentice;virtue is rewarded, ruthlessness comes to grief - and receives adrenching in the muddy Thames. The introduction to this editiondiscusses various methods of establishing authorship and highlights theirony of the collaborators' comic vision of contemporary London life.