[1] He started out as a boy player filling female roles; during the period of the English Civil War and the Interregnum (1642–1660) when the theatres were closed and actors out of work, Gough became involved in the publication of plays.
Like some other sons of actors (Theophilus Bird; Robert Pallant), Gough started acting as a boy – in his case, with his father's company.
During this period, Alexander Gough reportedly functioned as what was then called a "jackal" – he helped to gather audiences for these clandestine performances.
Most notably, Gough wrote an introduction to Humphrey Moseley's 1652 first edition of The Widow; his preface "To the Reader" re-iterated the title-page attribution of that play to John Fletcher, Ben Jonson, and Thomas Middleton.
Modern scholars and critics have strongly rejected the attribution to Fletcher and Jonson, and recognize The Widow as a solo work by Middleton.