A Nine Daies Wonder

On By Mick CanningIn Folk traditions, history, morris dancing, Will Kemp

In February 1600 Will Kemp Morris-danced his way from London to Norwich, a distance of approximately a hundred miles.

Kemp (or Kempe), born around 1560 and died, probably of the plague. in 1603, was an actor, dancer and all-round clown. A member of Shakespeare’s company, Chamberlain’s Men, he regularly played the role of the clown in Shakespeare’s plays. He undertook his famous dance after some sort of disagreement within Shakespeare’s company as a result of which Kemp took his shares and left. Although we don’t know what form this disagreement took, it is widely assumed Kemp was very much a scene-stealer who was apt to improvise during a performance – possibly Shakespeare was alluding to Kemp when he has Hamlet declare ‘let those that play your clowns speak no more than is set down for them’. Kemp also had a tendency to dance jigs at the end of a performance that critics declared ruined the mood of a tragic performance.

Afterwards he described his dance as a ‘nine daies wonder’ in a booklet he published, although it actually took him twenty eight days to accomplish as he rested up for a while between each day dancing,

By the time he had joined Chamberlain’s Men, he was already famous for his acting and dancing. He had toured the Low Countries (now referred to as Benelux) and Denmark 1585-86 as a performer with the Earl of Leicester’s Men, performed frequently as a solo dancer and actor – usually performing clownish parts – and his improvised jigs were renowned for being frequently both ridiculous and lewd, which might go some way to explaining the rift with Shakespeare’s company, who by then were attempting to attract a more refined audience.

The dance from London to Norwich was performed as a publicity stunt and also as a way for Kemp to raise money by betting on himself to complete the journey. He was accompanied by a Thomas Slye, who played both the tabor (a small drum) and a fife to accompany the dance steps, and George Spratt who acted as overseer to the spectacle. Kemp wore a feathered cap, a slashed doublet with streamers attached to the shoulders, slashed breeches, and with clusters of jingle bells around his ankles and calves. A large crowd assembled to watch him set off from London at seven in the morning on February 10th 1600, and he continued to attract great crowds the length of his journey, which he completed on March 9th. He wrote the booklet later, as a riposte to those who doubted he had completed the journey.

This isn’t the origin of the phrase nine days wonder, incidentally, that goes back to at least the early thirteen hundreds.

The tune Kemp’s Jig appears in John Playford’s The English Dancing Master of 1651 and is attributed to John Dowland, but it is known that Kemp himself composed some jigs – four examples survive today. Whether Dowland (if it were he) wrote the jig to honour this journey, however, or whether it was a more generic tribute, we don’t know.

The journey, though, was quite an achievement.

I know this is all a bit niche, but having bought myself a sweatshirt featuring the image, I decided to learn a bit more about Mr Kemp and this is the result of that. I already knew about his dancing from London to Norwich, but I knew little about him beyond that.

24 thoughts on “A Nine Daies Wonder”

    2. This is fascinating. I could just picture Kemp dancing to the tabor and fife, in his slashed doublet and feathered cap , all the way from London to Norwich. And the Shakespeare connection makes it even more interesting reading. That’s a great sweatshirt too.

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      1. I saw the sweatshirt and couldn’t resist it! Having watched Morris dancers just performing their normal routines, I’m extremely impressed with the thought of him dancing over ten miles each day. It must feel more like walking three times that distance.

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  7. Am now following as I find lots of gems within your vast oevre of posts!
    As a musician – classically trained guitarist – I drank in this info written in such a ‘readable’ way! Thank you! In music school, this is what we were basically told when learning/playing this piece:
    “He (Kemp) was an actor in Shakespeare’s theater, famous for his dancing, and this is an hommage to him by an anonymous lutenist.” nice short quote by the musician in the video below.

    I figured you are familiar with Julian Bream since you two are Brits, so I opted for this vid which shows the lute being played. I’m sure you know the lute was what it was written for and that subsequent cg recordings of it are from transcription…and that what was actually written back in the day had the understanding that improv was a given during any performance…fun connections to your post content.

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    1. Good to see you here, Laura. Yes, I’m familiar with Bream’s playing of Kemp’s Jip – I used to have it on vinyl, although that was a long time ago. I played very amateurish classical guitar then, too, and listened to a lot of Renaissance music. Nowadays I seem to have rediscovered folk music which is what I tend to listen to mostly. That’s the problem with life; there is so much in the world that is interesting and so little time to get to grips with more than just a little of it.

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