The Red Dot Players are excited to present a new comedy
about the medical hoax that scandalized eighteenth-century England.
about the medical hoax that scandalized eighteenth-century England.
by Jeremy Beaulne
March 2022
Okanagan College, Kelowna, BC
Okanagan College, Kelowna, BC
In 1726, Mary Toft, an illiterate peasant from the village of Godalming, England, became the talk of London when she convinced several prominent physicians—including Nathanael St. André, anatomist to the Royal Household—that she had given birth to seventeen rabbits. When Toft’s hoax was exposed, the doctors she had fooled were satirized in the popular press, and several reputations were ruined. Toft herself was denounced as an “Abominable Cheat & Imposture” and incarcerated in Bridewell Prison for four months. There has been much speculation about what might have motivated Toft’s hoax and how much agency she had in the deception…
Wonder of the Age, the Red Dot Players’ Spring 2022 production, is a fictionalization account of the story of Mary Toft, set in the fashionable Westminster bagnio where Toft was held while all of London debated the veracity of her claim—and waited for her to give birth to another rabbit!
Wonder of the Age, the Red Dot Players’ Spring 2022 production, is a fictionalization account of the story of Mary Toft, set in the fashionable Westminster bagnio where Toft was held while all of London debated the veracity of her claim—and waited for her to give birth to another rabbit!
2011
|
2012
|
2013
|
2014
|
2015
|
2016
|
2017
|
2018
|
2019
|
2020
|
2021
|
All posters designed by Okanagan College Writing and Publishing students.
