WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:02.600 You know, when you hear the phrase gig economy, 00:00:03.180 --> 00:00:05.179 you probably picture someone driving for a rideshare 00:00:05.179 --> 00:00:08.060 app. Right. Or, you know, a freelance graphic 00:00:08.060 --> 00:00:10.199 designer constantly hustling on a laptop at a 00:00:10.199 --> 00:00:12.679 coffee shop. Yeah, exactly. Just juggling five 00:00:12.679 --> 00:00:15.099 different clients just to make rent. It feels 00:00:15.099 --> 00:00:18.079 like a very modern, very 21st century kind of 00:00:18.079 --> 00:00:20.760 exhaustion. It does. It's really easy to think 00:00:20.760 --> 00:00:23.899 of the side hustle as like an invention of the 00:00:23.899 --> 00:00:26.440 smartphone era. But the truth is, the mechanics 00:00:26.440 --> 00:00:29.719 of surviving gig to gig are centuries old. The 00:00:29.719 --> 00:00:32.759 tools change, but the hustle remains exactly 00:00:32.759 --> 00:00:35.240 the same. Completely the same. Which is why today, 00:00:35.299 --> 00:00:37.659 for this deep dive, we're looking at a stack 00:00:37.659 --> 00:00:40.619 of notes and research centered on a single really 00:00:40.619 --> 00:00:44.200 fascinating Wikipedia article. It's about a man 00:00:44.200 --> 00:00:47.420 who might just be the ultimate original gig worker. 00:00:47.759 --> 00:00:51.079 We are diving into the life of an 18th century 00:00:51.079 --> 00:00:54.219 English, or well, possibly Anglo -Irish figure 00:00:54.219 --> 00:00:57.259 named William Rufus Chetwood. Such a great name, 00:00:57.280 --> 00:01:00.240 by the way. It really is. And the mission for 00:01:00.240 --> 00:01:03.500 this deep dive is to explore how this one man 00:01:03.500 --> 00:01:05.959 who was constantly hustling at the absolute center 00:01:05.959 --> 00:01:09.599 of literary and theatrical London actually shaped 00:01:09.599 --> 00:01:12.120 the pop culture we still consume today. Yeah, 00:01:12.120 --> 00:01:15.420 he really did. But, you know, his life also serves 00:01:15.420 --> 00:01:17.719 as a fairly brutal cautionary tale about the 00:01:17.719 --> 00:01:20.900 harsh economics of the creative world. Okay, 00:01:20.980 --> 00:01:24.200 let's unpack this, because his resume defies 00:01:24.200 --> 00:01:27.340 any normal career path. It's absurd, honestly. 00:01:27.439 --> 00:01:29.560 We are talking about a guy who is simultaneously 00:01:29.560 --> 00:01:32.420 a publisher, a bookseller, a theatrical prompter, 00:01:32.560 --> 00:01:35.569 a playwright, a novelist, and a historian. And 00:01:35.569 --> 00:01:37.969 that inability to be categorized, that's exactly 00:01:37.969 --> 00:01:40.609 why you should care about him. Chetwood is essentially 00:01:40.609 --> 00:01:44.590 the invisible glue of the 1700s entertainment 00:01:44.590 --> 00:01:46.769 industry. Invisible glue. I like that. Yeah, 00:01:46.769 --> 00:01:48.489 because when you understand his life, you are 00:01:48.489 --> 00:01:50.890 getting a backstage pass to how pop culture was 00:01:50.890 --> 00:01:53.629 actually manufactured, packaged and sold three 00:01:53.629 --> 00:01:55.510 centuries ago. He's the man behind the curtain. 00:01:55.750 --> 00:01:58.250 Exactly. Pulling all the levers of this rapidly 00:01:58.250 --> 00:02:00.269 growing entertainment machine. So let's start 00:02:00.269 --> 00:02:02.560 at the beginning. Or I mean, at least. what we 00:02:02.560 --> 00:02:05.459 know of it, because chronologically, his origins 00:02:05.459 --> 00:02:08.039 are totally opaque. Very murky. Right. We don't 00:02:08.039 --> 00:02:09.939 have a definitive birth year. We barely have 00:02:09.939 --> 00:02:12.360 a background, though there are strong hints he 00:02:12.360 --> 00:02:14.340 might have spent an extended period of time at 00:02:14.340 --> 00:02:16.479 sea early on. Which comes back to play a big 00:02:16.479 --> 00:02:19.199 part later. Oh, absolutely. But he just sort 00:02:19.199 --> 00:02:23.539 of washes ashore in the historical record. By 00:02:23.539 --> 00:02:26.889 1714, he surfaces in Dublin. working as an assistant 00:02:26.889 --> 00:02:28.889 manager to Joseph Ashbury's theater company. 00:02:28.969 --> 00:02:31.930 Just jumping right into theater management. Right. 00:02:32.210 --> 00:02:34.750 And then by 1715, he publishes a work called 00:02:34.750 --> 00:02:37.610 The Life of Lady Jane Grey. But then in June 00:02:37.610 --> 00:02:41.530 of 1715, he lands what becomes his real anchor 00:02:41.530 --> 00:02:44.310 gig. The big one. Yeah. He becomes the prompter 00:02:44.310 --> 00:02:47.460 at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane in London. And 00:02:47.460 --> 00:02:50.139 he holds that job for nearly 20 years. Which, 00:02:50.300 --> 00:02:52.280 I have to point out, holding any position in 00:02:52.280 --> 00:02:54.740 the 18th century theater world for two decades 00:02:54.740 --> 00:02:57.580 is an incredible feat of survival. In a notoriously 00:02:57.580 --> 00:02:59.939 volatile industry. Highly volatile. I was actually 00:02:59.939 --> 00:03:03.240 trying to visualize what a 1715 theater prompter 00:03:03.240 --> 00:03:05.979 actually does. Because today, if we hear prompter, 00:03:06.039 --> 00:03:08.860 we think of like a teleprompter. Right, or someone 00:03:08.860 --> 00:03:10.659 sitting in a box just whispering a forgotten 00:03:10.659 --> 00:03:14.599 line to an actor. Exactly. But based on the research, 00:03:15.039 --> 00:03:18.379 this feels much closer to a modern -day live 00:03:18.379 --> 00:03:22.120 TV showrunner. Or maybe, um, like an air traffic 00:03:22.120 --> 00:03:24.520 controller. Oh, the air traffic controller analogy 00:03:24.520 --> 00:03:27.240 is spot on. They aren't the stars wearing the 00:03:27.240 --> 00:03:29.740 fancy costumes, but they are holding the entire 00:03:29.740 --> 00:03:31.840 chaotic production together from the shadows. 00:03:32.139 --> 00:03:34.360 What's fascinating here is, when you consider 00:03:34.360 --> 00:03:36.780 the physical mechanics of an 18th century theater, 00:03:37.199 --> 00:03:39.860 there were no headsets. There were no digital 00:03:39.860 --> 00:03:43.860 displays. As the prompter at Drury Lane, Chetwood 00:03:43.860 --> 00:03:46.319 held the master copy of the script. In fact, 00:03:46.479 --> 00:03:48.740 he often held the only complete copy of the script. 00:03:48.900 --> 00:03:51.909 Wait, really? The only copy? Yeah. Actors were 00:03:51.909 --> 00:03:54.349 typically only given their specific lines and 00:03:54.349 --> 00:03:56.650 their cues, not the whole play. Wait, so the 00:03:56.650 --> 00:03:58.509 actors didn't even know the full story they were 00:03:58.509 --> 00:04:00.889 performing? Often, no. They just knew, you know, 00:04:00.909 --> 00:04:02.150 what they were supposed to say and when they 00:04:02.150 --> 00:04:04.210 were supposed to walk on. That sounds like a 00:04:04.210 --> 00:04:07.330 recipe for disaster. It could be. Which is why 00:04:07.330 --> 00:04:09.870 Chetwood was so important. He was the one person 00:04:09.870 --> 00:04:12.830 who saw the entire board. He organized the rehearsals. 00:04:12.990 --> 00:04:15.990 He managed the entrances and exits. Wow. This 00:04:15.990 --> 00:04:19.930 meant he had unparalleled intimate access. to 00:04:19.930 --> 00:04:22.509 every single script that came through the doors, 00:04:23.069 --> 00:04:26.129 every actor who walked on stage, and every major 00:04:26.129 --> 00:04:29.209 playwright of the era. So he is sitting at the 00:04:29.209 --> 00:04:32.089 absolute center of the cultural zeitgeist. Daily. 00:04:32.310 --> 00:04:34.610 I mean, he is watching the crowd from the shadows 00:04:34.610 --> 00:04:37.310 every single night. Zording it all. Exactly. 00:04:37.589 --> 00:04:39.970 He sees which jokes make the audience roar with 00:04:39.970 --> 00:04:42.629 laughter and which dramatic monologues just completely 00:04:42.629 --> 00:04:45.730 put them to sleep. So he's getting a real time. 00:04:46.500 --> 00:04:49.959 nightly education in consumer demand. Yes. A 00:04:49.959 --> 00:04:52.019 master class in what the public actually wants. 00:04:52.220 --> 00:04:54.779 Which explains his next move perfectly. Because 00:04:54.779 --> 00:04:56.800 when you spend every night holding the master 00:04:56.800 --> 00:04:59.139 script and watching the audience react, you are 00:04:59.139 --> 00:05:01.259 going to recognize the commercial value of the 00:05:01.259 --> 00:05:03.420 written word. It's inevitable. Right. It's a 00:05:03.420 --> 00:05:06.139 logical leap for Chetwood to realize he can monetize 00:05:06.139 --> 00:05:09.720 that access. Because he has his hands on literally 00:05:09.720 --> 00:05:13.579 every new play, he starts moonlighting as a publisher 00:05:13.579 --> 00:05:17.000 and a bookseller. the ultimate 18th century side 00:05:17.000 --> 00:05:19.680 hustle. Exactly. He takes his inside knowledge 00:05:19.680 --> 00:05:22.540 from the prompter's chair and leverages it. It's 00:05:22.540 --> 00:05:25.139 a brilliant pivot, honestly. He uses the physical 00:05:25.139 --> 00:05:28.600 access of his day job to fuel his own independent 00:05:28.600 --> 00:05:30.399 enterprise. And it was the perfect time for it, 00:05:30.420 --> 00:05:32.240 wasn't it? It was. You have to understand the 00:05:32.240 --> 00:05:35.100 mechanics of the print market at this time. Literacy 00:05:35.100 --> 00:05:37.480 rates were rapidly rising. Right. More people 00:05:37.480 --> 00:05:39.160 could read than ever before. Exactly. You had 00:05:39.160 --> 00:05:41.740 this brand new middle class with disposable income 00:05:41.740 --> 00:05:44.220 and just an absolute hunger for reading material. 00:05:44.410 --> 00:05:46.750 and Chetwood steps right in to feed them. Even 00:05:46.750 --> 00:05:49.629 before he got to Drury Lane back in 1713, he 00:05:49.629 --> 00:05:53.089 shows up as the publisher of a piece called A 00:05:53.089 --> 00:05:55.389 Poem on the Memorable Fall of Chloe's P .S. Pot. 00:05:55.670 --> 00:05:58.410 Which is quite the title. It is. And it's attributed 00:05:58.410 --> 00:06:01.790 to Jonathan Swift. A huge name. Huge. But once 00:06:01.790 --> 00:06:04.589 he's established a Drury Lane, he really scales 00:06:04.589 --> 00:06:07.009 up. He starts partnering with the heavyweights 00:06:07.009 --> 00:06:10.300 of the publishing world. Men like Barty B. Bernard 00:06:10.300 --> 00:06:13.079 -Lintott, John Watts, William Mears, and James 00:06:13.079 --> 00:06:15.720 Roberts. The big players at the time. Yeah, and 00:06:15.720 --> 00:06:18.360 together they published several Shakespeare plays. 00:06:18.959 --> 00:06:21.220 They published almost every new London play that 00:06:21.220 --> 00:06:25.540 hits the stage between 1719 and 1722. That's 00:06:25.540 --> 00:06:28.430 a massive market share. It's wild. And he even 00:06:28.430 --> 00:06:30.689 publishes works by major novelists like Daniel 00:06:30.689 --> 00:06:34.129 Defoe. Specifically, he puts out Moll Flanders 00:06:34.129 --> 00:06:36.910 and Colonel Jack, as well as Eliza Haywood's 00:06:36.910 --> 00:06:39.910 incredibly popular novel, Love in Excess. And 00:06:39.910 --> 00:06:42.769 works by Theophilus Sibber, Thomas Durfey, Thomas 00:06:42.769 --> 00:06:45.350 Doggett, and Richard Savage's memoirs too. He 00:06:45.350 --> 00:06:47.870 is literally printing the foundation of the English 00:06:47.870 --> 00:06:50.569 novel and modern theater. But okay, here's where 00:06:50.569 --> 00:06:52.250 it gets really interesting. I want to challenge 00:06:52.250 --> 00:06:54.470 the narrative here. Go for it. Looking at this 00:06:54.470 --> 00:06:57.579 list. putting out a crude poem about a chamber 00:06:57.579 --> 00:07:00.139 pot one day, and then publishing a foundational 00:07:00.139 --> 00:07:02.740 novel like Mulflanders the Next. Was Chetwood 00:07:02.740 --> 00:07:05.759 actually a visionary tastemaker who, you know... 00:07:05.529 --> 00:07:08.730 discover these literary giants? Or was he just 00:07:08.730 --> 00:07:11.750 a guy who happened to own a printing press, throwing 00:07:11.750 --> 00:07:13.790 everything at the wall to see what's stuck in 00:07:13.790 --> 00:07:16.449 a new consumer market? That is the crucial distinction 00:07:16.449 --> 00:07:19.230 to make. Chetwood was definitely not a visionary 00:07:19.230 --> 00:07:22.029 literary curator sitting in a mahogany office 00:07:22.029 --> 00:07:25.689 trying to elevate high art. OK, so more of the 00:07:25.689 --> 00:07:28.009 spaghetti on the wall approach. Totally. He was 00:07:28.009 --> 00:07:31.589 a highly pragmatic opportunist in the best sense. 00:07:32.060 --> 00:07:35.000 the 18th century print market was the Wild West. 00:07:35.319 --> 00:07:36.980 Because there were no real copyright laws, right? 00:07:37.220 --> 00:07:39.740 Copyright laws, as we think of them today, were 00:07:39.740 --> 00:07:42.720 barely in their infancy and incredibly porous. 00:07:42.860 --> 00:07:45.040 So it was just a free for all grab for content. 00:07:45.199 --> 00:07:47.899 Exactly. He didn't draw a hard line between high 00:07:47.899 --> 00:07:50.120 art and pulp fiction because the market didn't. 00:07:50.500 --> 00:07:53.160 He published what would sell. And he knew it 00:07:53.160 --> 00:07:54.860 would sell because he watched the Jewelry Lane 00:07:54.860 --> 00:07:57.759 audiences every night. Yes. He understood that 00:07:57.759 --> 00:08:00.019 people wanted scandal. They wanted adventure. 00:08:00.139 --> 00:08:01.970 They wanted romance. And they wanted cheaply 00:08:01.970 --> 00:08:04.829 and quickly. Exactly. He was taking the mass 00:08:04.829 --> 00:08:07.350 market appeal he saw in the theater and applying 00:08:07.350 --> 00:08:10.410 it directly to the printing press. Culturally 00:08:10.410 --> 00:08:13.110 speaking, he was helping invent the concept of 00:08:13.110 --> 00:08:15.889 the mass market paperback. Just giving the people 00:08:15.889 --> 00:08:17.910 what they want. Yeah. But you know, the problem 00:08:17.910 --> 00:08:20.810 with running a side hustle at that scale is the 00:08:20.810 --> 00:08:23.430 sheer exhaustion of it. Oh, absolutely. He is 00:08:23.430 --> 00:08:26.269 reading, prompting, publishing other people's 00:08:26.269 --> 00:08:28.689 hits, and dealing with other people's flops. 00:08:28.970 --> 00:08:31.949 After years of fixing other people's rough drafts, 00:08:32.049 --> 00:08:33.750 it's inevitable that Chetwood would look at the 00:08:33.750 --> 00:08:36.419 material crossing his desk and think, I can do 00:08:36.419 --> 00:08:38.559 this myself. Why am I just publishing this when 00:08:38.559 --> 00:08:41.860 I can write it? Exactly. And that brings us to 00:08:41.860 --> 00:08:44.899 his transition into an original creator. He decides 00:08:44.899 --> 00:08:46.879 to cross the footlights, which is always a dangerous 00:08:46.879 --> 00:08:49.340 transition. Being a great editor or a great producer 00:08:49.340 --> 00:08:51.340 does not automatically make you a great writer. 00:08:51.580 --> 00:08:54.320 It reminds me of like a modern podcast audio 00:08:54.320 --> 00:08:57.000 engineer, someone who spends a decade mixing 00:08:57.000 --> 00:08:59.299 other people's tracks and cutting out their mistakes. 00:08:59.360 --> 00:09:01.279 Right. And then they finally decide to drop their 00:09:01.279 --> 00:09:04.120 own indie album or write their own novel. So 00:09:04.120 --> 00:09:06.509 Chetwood starts writing his own And how did that 00:09:06.509 --> 00:09:10.990 go for him? Well, his early attempts. They fail. 00:09:11.250 --> 00:09:14.110 Ouch. Yeah, it works like South Sea or The Biter 00:09:14.110 --> 00:09:17.870 Bit. And the stock drivers get published, but 00:09:17.870 --> 00:09:20.590 they remain completely unperformed. The irony. 00:09:20.950 --> 00:09:23.269 Right? The theater world, the very world he helped 00:09:23.269 --> 00:09:26.330 run, rejected his original scripts. If we connect 00:09:26.330 --> 00:09:28.830 this to the bigger picture, notice what he does 00:09:28.830 --> 00:09:32.120 next. He doesn't stubbornly keep writing unstageable 00:09:32.120 --> 00:09:34.460 plays. No, he reads the room. He adapts to the 00:09:34.460 --> 00:09:37.519 market. He pivots completely. He leans into those 00:09:37.519 --> 00:09:39.480 rumors we mentioned about his early life at sea, 00:09:39.799 --> 00:09:41.639 and he starts writing adventure novels instead. 00:09:41.779 --> 00:09:43.639 Using what he knows, or at least what people 00:09:43.639 --> 00:09:46.460 think he knows. Exactly. He writes the voyages, 00:09:46.919 --> 00:09:49.460 dangerous adventures, and imminent escapes of 00:09:49.460 --> 00:09:52.860 Captain R. Falconer. And then he strikes gold. 00:09:52.960 --> 00:09:55.399 The big hit. Yeah, he writes a massive hit. The 00:09:55.399 --> 00:09:58.799 1726 novel, Voyages and Adventures of Captain 00:09:58.799 --> 00:10:01.639 Robert Boyle. This book was so popular, it stayed 00:10:01.639 --> 00:10:04.340 in print until at least the mid -19th century. 00:10:04.379 --> 00:10:06.360 That's incredible. We even have records of an 00:10:06.360 --> 00:10:09.000 1850 edition from Massachusetts. More than a 00:10:09.000 --> 00:10:11.080 hundred years of relevance. For a guy throwing 00:10:11.080 --> 00:10:13.480 spaghetti at the wall, that's a huge win. But 00:10:13.480 --> 00:10:16.019 he never gives up on the sage. Eventually, he 00:10:16.019 --> 00:10:20.659 cracks that code too. In 1729, he puts on The 00:10:20.659 --> 00:10:24.159 Lover's Opera. Ah, yes. And this is where his 00:10:24.159 --> 00:10:27.220 genius for recycling comes in. Because it wasn't 00:10:27.220 --> 00:10:29.720 a wholly original idea, it was an adaptation 00:10:29.720 --> 00:10:33.940 of an older 1718 play by Susanna St. Love called 00:10:33.940 --> 00:10:37.879 A Bold Stroke for a Wife. He essentially repackaged 00:10:37.879 --> 00:10:40.299 it into a new format. She did. It went through 00:10:40.299 --> 00:10:42.100 at least three published editions and played 00:10:42.100 --> 00:10:45.600 in Dublin. The format he chose is key here. He 00:10:45.600 --> 00:10:48.500 adapted it into a ballad opera. I was actually 00:10:48.500 --> 00:10:50.159 going to ask you about that, because the research 00:10:50.159 --> 00:10:53.000 mentions ballad operas a few times. What actually 00:10:53.000 --> 00:10:54.899 makes something a ballad opera, as opposed to 00:10:54.899 --> 00:10:58.080 just a regular play with some music in it? So 00:10:58.080 --> 00:11:01.139 a ballad opera was a wildly popular 18th century 00:11:01.139 --> 00:11:03.360 format, where the playwright would take pre -existing 00:11:03.360 --> 00:11:06.059 popular folk tunes. Like songs the audience already 00:11:06.059 --> 00:11:08.759 knew. Exactly. Broadside ballads, stuff they 00:11:08.759 --> 00:11:11.159 knew by heart. And they would write new satirical 00:11:11.159 --> 00:11:13.240 lyrics for them, mixing those songs into the 00:11:13.240 --> 00:11:15.679 spoken dialogue. Oh, that's clever. It was. It 00:11:15.679 --> 00:11:18.899 was a direct reaction against the highbrow, elite 00:11:18.899 --> 00:11:21.700 Italian operas that were so popular with the 00:11:21.700 --> 00:11:23.679 aristocracy at the time. It's like pop music 00:11:23.679 --> 00:11:26.820 theater. Very much so. The trend exploded in 00:11:26.820 --> 00:11:29.679 1728 with a massive hit called The Beggar's Opera. 00:11:29.980 --> 00:11:32.480 So Chetwood sees The Beggar's Opera making a 00:11:32.480 --> 00:11:35.659 fortune and says, I can do that. Yep. He grabs 00:11:35.659 --> 00:11:39.519 an older play by Susanna St. Leave, slaps some 00:11:39.519 --> 00:11:42.620 popular tunes into it, and just rides the wave. 00:11:42.840 --> 00:11:45.419 Precisely. He was a master recycler of cultural 00:11:45.419 --> 00:11:47.460 trends. After The Lover's Opera, he followed 00:11:47.460 --> 00:11:49.759 it up with The Stitch Coach Opera, The Generous 00:11:49.759 --> 00:11:52.799 Freemason, and The Mock Mason in the 1730s. Just 00:11:52.799 --> 00:11:55.000 churning them out. Oh, and an unpublished one 00:11:55.000 --> 00:11:57.519 called The Emperor of China. He even drops another 00:11:57.519 --> 00:12:00.659 novel in 1736, Captain W .O .G. Vaughan. His 00:12:00.659 --> 00:12:02.919 output is relentless. Because he knows how to 00:12:02.919 --> 00:12:05.480 adapt to exactly what the consumer wants at any 00:12:05.480 --> 00:12:07.500 given moment. But, you know, despite being this 00:12:07.500 --> 00:12:10.679 incredibly prolific guy, a prompter for two decades, 00:12:11.220 --> 00:12:13.600 a publisher of major works like Malfoy... a hit 00:12:13.600 --> 00:12:16.320 novelist and adaptive playwright, his story takes 00:12:16.320 --> 00:12:19.279 a severe, really dark turn. It does. Because 00:12:19.279 --> 00:12:22.080 the brutal reality of the 18th century gig economy 00:12:22.080 --> 00:12:25.840 is that there were absolutely zero financial 00:12:25.840 --> 00:12:28.759 safety nets. None at all. No residuals for plays 00:12:28.759 --> 00:12:31.919 performed by other companies, no 401ks, no health 00:12:31.919 --> 00:12:35.009 insurance. If you stopped working... You stopped 00:12:35.009 --> 00:12:37.529 eating. It's terrifying, honestly. And a shift 00:12:37.529 --> 00:12:40.409 in his personal life quickly catalyzed a massive 00:12:40.409 --> 00:12:43.070 financial downward spiral. A house of cards built 00:12:43.070 --> 00:12:45.730 on constant hustle collapses very quickly when 00:12:45.730 --> 00:12:47.669 the hustler falters. Yeah, let's look at how 00:12:47.669 --> 00:12:50.110 that collapse started. He had a first marriage 00:12:50.110 --> 00:12:52.809 that produced a daughter, Richabella. She actually 00:12:52.809 --> 00:12:54.830 followed him into the theater business and became 00:12:54.830 --> 00:12:58.889 an actress. Married the Irish actor Tobias Gamaia, 00:12:59.009 --> 00:13:02.409 right? Yes, exactly. But then Chetwood has a 00:13:02.409 --> 00:13:05.870 fateful second marriage. On June 15, 1738, at 00:13:05.870 --> 00:13:08.389 St. Benett's, he marries an actress named Anne 00:13:08.389 --> 00:13:10.549 Brett. And Anne had some serious theater connections. 00:13:10.629 --> 00:13:12.809 She did. She was the granddaughter of Collie 00:13:12.809 --> 00:13:15.129 Sibber, who was essentially theater royalty at 00:13:15.129 --> 00:13:18.370 the time, a massive actor, manager, and poet 00:13:18.370 --> 00:13:19.909 laureate. So this should have been a great match 00:13:19.909 --> 00:13:21.809 for him. It should have. They have two daughters 00:13:21.809 --> 00:13:24.559 together. But tragically, Both of those little 00:13:24.559 --> 00:13:27.419 girls die in early childhood in the 1740s. That 00:13:27.419 --> 00:13:30.480 is just a profound personal tragedy. It completely 00:13:30.480 --> 00:13:33.139 derailed him. The historical record indicates 00:13:33.139 --> 00:13:35.779 this second marriage and the subsequent family 00:13:35.779 --> 00:13:38.779 tragedies heavily contributed to his severe financial 00:13:38.779 --> 00:13:41.320 difficulties. You can't just keep hustling through 00:13:41.320 --> 00:13:43.840 grief like that. No, you can't. And the ruin 00:13:43.840 --> 00:13:47.440 is incredibly swissed. By 1741, Chetwood is completely 00:13:47.440 --> 00:13:49.899 broke. He is surviving solely because Covent 00:13:49.899 --> 00:13:53.059 Garden threw him a benefit performance of William 00:13:53.059 --> 00:13:55.659 Congreve's play, The Old Bachelor. We should 00:13:55.659 --> 00:13:58.100 probably clarify what a benefit performance meant 00:13:58.100 --> 00:14:00.899 in this context. Yeah, please do. Because was 00:14:00.899 --> 00:14:04.379 it like a modern charity gala? Sort of, but much 00:14:04.379 --> 00:14:07.100 more direct. It really highlights just how desperate 00:14:07.100 --> 00:14:10.200 his situation was. In the 18th century theater, 00:14:10.419 --> 00:14:12.440 a benefit performance meant that the proceeds 00:14:12.440 --> 00:14:14.840 for that specific night after the basic house 00:14:14.840 --> 00:14:18.240 expenses were deducted went entirely to one individual. 00:14:18.379 --> 00:14:20.580 Oh, wow. It was usually a way to give an actor 00:14:20.580 --> 00:14:23.100 a bonus at the end of a season. But in Chatwood's 00:14:23.100 --> 00:14:25.419 case, it was a lifeline. It was the theatrical 00:14:25.419 --> 00:14:28.620 community literally passing the hat so their 00:14:28.620 --> 00:14:30.600 former prompter could afford to eat. And avoid 00:14:30.600 --> 00:14:33.019 prison. To go from running the floor at Drury 00:14:33.019 --> 00:14:37.100 Lane and publishing Defoe to relying on a single 00:14:37.100 --> 00:14:40.879 night's charity. That is a staggering fall from 00:14:40.879 --> 00:14:43.179 grace. It's heartbreaking. And from that point 00:14:43.179 --> 00:14:46.299 on, he spends his final decades just scrambling. 00:14:46.879 --> 00:14:49.840 In 1741, he publishes a collection called Five 00:14:49.840 --> 00:14:52.779 New Novels. He leaves London entirely. Looking 00:14:52.779 --> 00:14:54.820 for work wherever he can find it. Right. We see 00:14:54.820 --> 00:14:57.840 him working in Dublin in 41 and 44 and up in 00:14:57.840 --> 00:15:00.639 Belfast with his surviving daughter in 53. He 00:15:00.639 --> 00:15:03.139 is writing anything he can sell. Anything. He 00:15:03.139 --> 00:15:04.940 co -writes a tour through Ireland with Philip 00:15:04.940 --> 00:15:08.059 Luckham. He writes a poem called Kilkenny. In 00:15:08.059 --> 00:15:10.759 1750, he publishes a book called British Theatre. 00:15:11.120 --> 00:15:13.840 And that 1750 book contains a really fascinating 00:15:13.840 --> 00:15:17.039 detail about his desperation. The book notoriously 00:15:17.039 --> 00:15:19.700 included a list of Shakespeare quartos, several 00:15:19.700 --> 00:15:21.940 of which were completely spurious. OK, I need 00:15:21.940 --> 00:15:24.279 you to translate that. What is a quarto? And 00:15:24.279 --> 00:15:27.000 why does it matter if it's spurious? So a quarto 00:15:27.000 --> 00:15:29.399 is simply a way of printing a book. You take 00:15:29.399 --> 00:15:32.120 a large sheet of paper, fold it twice to create 00:15:32.120 --> 00:15:35.879 four leaves or eight pages. OK. It was the standard, 00:15:36.220 --> 00:15:38.399 relatively cheap format for printing single plays 00:15:38.399 --> 00:15:41.580 in Shakespeare's time. Collectors in the 18th 00:15:41.580 --> 00:15:44.700 century were already obsessed with finding early 00:15:44.700 --> 00:15:48.019 original quartos of Shakespeare's work. Ah, so 00:15:48.019 --> 00:15:50.940 when you say Chetwood included spurious quartos. 00:15:51.039 --> 00:15:53.470 He faked the historical record. Wait, really? 00:15:53.669 --> 00:15:56.570 Yes. He listed editions of Shakespeare plays 00:15:56.570 --> 00:15:58.769 that never actually existed. Why would he do 00:15:58.769 --> 00:16:01.149 that? Likely to pad out his book, make it seem 00:16:01.149 --> 00:16:03.769 more comprehensive, and drive up sales. He was 00:16:03.769 --> 00:16:05.889 inventing history to make a quick book. Wow. 00:16:06.090 --> 00:16:08.490 He is literally faking it to survive. But even 00:16:08.490 --> 00:16:11.429 that doesn't save him. No. After a lifetime of 00:16:11.429 --> 00:16:15.750 relentless work, he dies on March 3, 1766, likely 00:16:15.750 --> 00:16:17.690 in the Marshall C. Detter's prison in Dublin. 00:16:17.840 --> 00:16:20.460 Which is a horrific way to end. It is. Because 00:16:20.460 --> 00:16:22.259 a debtor's prison wasn't just a place where you 00:16:22.259 --> 00:16:24.639 sat out your sentence. You were locked up until 00:16:24.639 --> 00:16:26.740 your debts were paid off by family or friends. 00:16:27.179 --> 00:16:30.279 And the cruelest irony of a debtor's prison was 00:16:30.279 --> 00:16:32.759 that you were charged by the jailers for your 00:16:32.759 --> 00:16:35.299 own room and board while inside. Exactly. If 00:16:35.299 --> 00:16:37.179 you couldn't pay your debts outside, you certainly 00:16:37.179 --> 00:16:39.480 couldn't afford to live inside. It was a financial 00:16:39.480 --> 00:16:43.389 death spiral. So what does this all mean? How 00:16:43.389 --> 00:16:46.750 does a man who published Maul Flanders ran the 00:16:46.750 --> 00:16:50.009 stage at Drury Lane for 20 years and wrote sea 00:16:50.009 --> 00:16:52.529 novels that stayed in print for a century end 00:16:52.529 --> 00:16:55.370 up dying in a financial death spiral in Dublin? 00:16:55.590 --> 00:16:58.230 Well, his immense personal output simply couldn't 00:16:58.230 --> 00:17:01.090 outpace the brutal economics of his era. But 00:17:01.090 --> 00:17:03.669 the ultimate tragic irony of Chetwood's life 00:17:03.669 --> 00:17:07.250 culminates in his final major work. The 1749 00:17:07.250 --> 00:17:10.500 one? Yes. During his absolute darkest financial 00:17:10.500 --> 00:17:13.240 days, right at the end of the 1740s, Chet Wood 00:17:13.240 --> 00:17:15.380 wrote a book called A General History of the 00:17:15.380 --> 00:17:17.000 Stage. And he wrote it out of pure desperation, 00:17:17.160 --> 00:17:19.000 right? Totally. Just trying to generate enough 00:17:19.000 --> 00:17:21.119 capital to stay out of the Marshall Sea. A gig 00:17:21.119 --> 00:17:23.660 worker taking on one last gig to pay the rent. 00:17:24.160 --> 00:17:26.720 Exactly. But today, historians consider that 00:17:26.720 --> 00:17:29.500 book to be a highly valuable primary account 00:17:29.500 --> 00:17:32.039 of contemporary London and Dublin theater. Because 00:17:32.039 --> 00:17:34.319 he was there. Because he had been the prompter. 00:17:34.509 --> 00:17:37.150 Because he had held the master script for 20 00:17:37.150 --> 00:17:39.650 years, he knew where all the bodies were buried. 00:17:39.910 --> 00:17:42.109 He knew how the business actually operated. He 00:17:42.109 --> 00:17:44.609 died broke, locked in a cell because he couldn't 00:17:44.609 --> 00:17:47.849 pay his bills. But his desperate hustle to survive 00:17:47.849 --> 00:17:50.829 ended up preserving the very history of the stage 00:17:50.829 --> 00:17:53.230 that he had helped build. He wrote the history 00:17:53.230 --> 00:17:55.730 book because he needed the cash. And in doing 00:17:55.730 --> 00:17:59.549 so, he made sure we remembered his era. Yeah. 00:18:00.000 --> 00:18:03.140 That is a sobering reality check. Think about 00:18:03.140 --> 00:18:05.759 the journey we just went on. William Rufus Chetwood 00:18:05.759 --> 00:18:08.039 was the ultimate connective tissue of his time. 00:18:08.240 --> 00:18:10.539 He really was. His fingerprints are literally 00:18:10.539 --> 00:18:13.460 all over Jonathan Swift, Daniel Defoe, Shakespeare 00:18:13.460 --> 00:18:15.940 reprints, and the daily chaotic operations of 00:18:15.940 --> 00:18:17.980 the greatest theater in London. He was everywhere. 00:18:18.099 --> 00:18:20.750 He was everywhere. But his life proves... In 00:18:20.750 --> 00:18:23.750 the starkest terms, the proximity to greatness 00:18:23.750 --> 00:18:27.150 and even immense personal creative output does 00:18:27.150 --> 00:18:29.869 not guarantee a happy ending when you are a worker 00:18:29.869 --> 00:18:32.630 in a system with no safety nets. He built the 00:18:32.630 --> 00:18:35.829 very stage he couldn't afford to live on. His 00:18:35.829 --> 00:18:37.529 life is a testament to the fact that the people 00:18:37.529 --> 00:18:40.269 who manufacture pop culture rarely get to keep 00:18:40.269 --> 00:18:42.670 the profits it generates. Which leaves us with 00:18:42.670 --> 00:18:44.930 a final thought to mull over as we wrap up this 00:18:44.930 --> 00:18:47.769 deep dive. I want you to think about the invisible 00:18:47.769 --> 00:18:51.589 Chet Woods. of our current digital era. Think 00:18:51.589 --> 00:18:54.450 about the unseen algorithm tweakers, the ghost 00:18:54.450 --> 00:18:57.509 writers padding out influencer blogs, the assistant 00:18:57.509 --> 00:19:00.509 podcast producers, the gig workers keeping the 00:19:00.509 --> 00:19:03.269 digital content machine churning 24 -7 without 00:19:03.269 --> 00:19:06.289 health insurance or job security. If someone 00:19:06.289 --> 00:19:08.650 were to write a definitive history of our modern 00:19:08.650 --> 00:19:12.390 digital stage 200 years from now, it would be 00:19:12.390 --> 00:19:14.849 written by the famous influencers you see smiling 00:19:14.849 --> 00:19:17.400 on your screen. Probably not. Or would it be 00:19:17.400 --> 00:19:19.839 written by the broke, exhausted behind -the -scenes 00:19:19.839 --> 00:19:21.700 gig worker who is actually pushing the buttons 00:19:21.700 --> 00:19:24.480 to publish it all? Think about who is really 00:19:24.480 --> 00:19:25.799 holding the master script.