A Jovial Crew, or the Merry Beggars is a Caroline era stage play, a comedy written by Richard Brome.
In his dedication to Stanley in the 1652 quarto, Brome states that A Jovial Crew "had the luck to tumble last of all in the epidemical ruin of the scene" — which has been interpreted to mean that the play was the last work acted before the Puritan authorities closed the London theatres on 2 September 1642, at the start of the English Civil War.
[6] The play was staged by the Royal Shakespeare Company in the Swan Theatre at Stratford-upon-Avon in 1992, in a modern adaptation by playwright Stephen Jeffries.
[9] Brome's contribution to this literature has attracted the attention of specialist scholars, for its songs and for its preservation of the particular linguistic forms of the Caroline underclass.
Oldrents is a generous and warmhearted countryman, who represents the best of the traditional order of England; but he is depressed and pre-occupied with a fortune-teller's prediction, that his two daughters will become beggars.
Hearty, a younger and temperamentally more phlegmatic man, works to cheer up his neighbour, and Oldrents tries to adopt a lighter demeanor.
Oldrent's steward Springlove enters, to present the bookkeeping accounts and the keys of the estate, and to request leave to follow the beggars about the countryside for the spring and summer.
Oldrents is unhappy about this: he wants his young steward to behave more conventionally, more like a gentleman — and offers to furnish him with funds and a servant ("Take horse, and man, and money") for respectable travelling.
As Oldrent's steward, Springlove has been a friend to the local beggars, feeding them generously and furnishing their needs; and once he joins them it turns out that he is something of a leader among them.
Vincent proposes "a fling to London" to take in the races at Hyde Park, "and see the Adamites run naked afore the Ladies" — but the young women are determined to go in the opposite direction, and join the "stark, errant, downright beggars."
They challenge their suitors to join them, and the young men can hardly refuse; they link up with Springlove's band, and enjoy his protection and guidance.
Their initial efforts at the vagabond life are uneven, however; sleeping rough in the straw of a barn is less comfortable than a bed at home.
They have disguised themselves in the clothing of the common people, and travelled toward Hearty's country estate – though they are pursued by Clack's son Oliver and by beadles and other officers.
The beggars' playlet reveals that Oldrents' grandfather had taken advantage of a neighbour named Wrought-on, acquiring his land and reducing the man the beggary.
While Brome's A Jovial Crew had links with the theatre and literature of its period, the play also drew upon actual events and the social realities of its era.
His "rule" is "to punish before I examine," by the mere facial expressions of the unfortunates brought before him — Yet Brome goes farther in A Jovial Crew than most dramatists of his era ever dared.