John Hippisley

John Hippisley (14 January 1696 – 12 February 1748) was an English comic actor and playwright. He appeared at Lincoln's Inn Fields and Covent Garden in London, and was the original Peachum in The Beggar's Opera. He opened a theatre in Bristol, the Jacobs Well Theatre, where he and his daughter Elizabeth Hippisley appeared. Life Hippisley was born near Wookey Hole in Somerset. Hippisley's first recorded appearance took place at Lincoln's Inn Fields in November 1722, as Fondlewife in William Congreve's The Old Bachelor; he is announced in the bills as never having appeared on that stage before. This was followed in the same season by Sir Hugh Evans in Shakespeare's The Merry Wives of Windsor, Gomez in John Dryden's The Spanish Friar, Polonius in Hamlet, Pandarus in Troilus and Cressida, and other comic parts. He remained at Lincoln's Inn Fields until the season of 1732–3, playing among many other characters Sir Francis Gripe in Susanna Centlivre's The Busie Body, Sir William Wisewood in Colley Cibber's Love's Last Shift, Corbaccio in Ben Jonson's Volpone, Old Woman in John Fletcher's Rule a Wife and Have a Wife, Obadiah in Robert Howard's The Committee, and Calianax in Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher's The Maid's Tragedy, and originating one or two characters, the most important of which was Peachum in John Gay's The Beggar's Opera in January 1728. As playwright and theatre owner In August 1728 he performed in Bristol his play The English Thief, or The Welsh Lawyer; later that year he leased land in Bristol and built a small theatre, Jacobs Well Theatre, which opened on 23 June 1729 with Congreve's Love for Love. The building was so small that actors who left from one set of wings had to walk around the building if their entrance was from the opposing side of the stage. At one point he had to borrow a large sum to keep it going. He took a company to the theatre during the summer from 1741 to 1747; his daughter Elizabeth appeared there. it was his plan in 1747 to open a larger theatre in Bath but he died before this could be done.