1. The General Editors of the Revels Plays Companion Library state that the aim of their series is 'to provide students of the Elizabethan and Jacobean drama with a fuller sense of its background and context', notably by offering 'new collections of documentary evidence' and 'modern critical interpretation'. Chris Meads's book certainly marshals an impressive range of evidence in its reference to a total of ninety-nine plays, all of which, in some form or another, contain a banqueting scene or scenes. If it does not satisfactorily provide a modern critical analysis of its material, it is, I suspect, because this was never Meads's intention.

2. In the Renaissance, he tells us, the banquet could be defined either as 'a feast', 'a slight repast between meals', or 'a course of sweetmeats, fruit, and wine' (8). It is this last definition which seems most to concern him as he plots the progression of the banquet motif in the drama. The regular use of such scenes, he suggests, 'coincided with the beginning of the Shakespearean period and continued up to the closure of the theatres' (1). Initially influenced not only by 'contemporary social practice', but by 'Classical, Biblical, and Renaissance' precedents, banqueting scenes on the English stage soon provided playwrights with 'a distinctively English legacy', combining the motifs of 'food, sex, and revenge; food, drink, and violent disorder; food, harmony, and reconciliation; food, flattery, and self-fashioning' (1).

3. Meads is at his best in his earlier chapters, discussing contextual material such as the Portuguese spice trade (11) and the nature and preparation of banqueting fare (15-19). His investigation of the literary precedents of the English banqueting motif contrasts nicely with his opening chapter on Tudor and Stuart banqueting practice and is, in turn, complemented by an engaging consideration of staging conventions and banqueting props. For a student of the drama, this sort of contextual historical material is illuminating, and it certainly supports Meads's case that banqueting scenes developed between the years 1585-1642 out of a complex web of social and cultural stimuli.

4. The second half of the book (chapters 5-9) presents a chronological catalogue of banqueting scenes in plays from The Spanish Tragedy to James Shirley's The Court Secret, written but not performed before the closure of the theatres in 1642. If this work is intended to be a survey of all the extant material (and Meads himself uses this term on page 209), then it covers the necessary ground. Brief plot summaries are provided for each play, together with a more detailed description of the action of the important scene. Meads' writing style is engaging and lively, as witnessed by his description of the courtesan Messalina, in Nathaniel Richards' play of the same name, who impresses with her 'incredible stamina' and her 'ability to tackle twenty-five clients before noon' (208). Other reviewers have found it worth noting that Meads 'is happier touching on scores of minor plays' rather than 'engaging with masterpieces' (Berry 2002, 522), or that he curtails discussion of 'major plays . . . to accommodate itemized lists of second-rate materials' (McCabe 2003, 409). However, I feel his approach opens up a range of writing more commonly overlooked, and that it therefore speaks appropriately to the Revels' goal of providing background and context for students of the drama.

5. Nonetheless, in one respect, the book does suffer from Meads's desire for full coverage of his subject. His tendency to catalogue everything is apparent in the earlier chapters in phrases such as: 'Of the table furniture listed in this example, only the salt and the two lights are left to be dealt with . . .' (55). In the later chapters, this habit becomes intrusive. The formula, 'remains to be dealt with', occurs again on pages 98 and 224, and is combined with other, similar phrases such as: 'Another playwright using the banqueting scene . . . was . . .' (95); or, 'The final two tragedies of the period under review . . . are . . . ' (210). His insistence on an exhaustive survey does mean that all the plays are given similar treatment, and that some obscure and little-read works get a mention. Nonetheless, it also means that the book can read like a list, and that there is not much room for any sort of critical comparison or analysis.

6. Richard McCabe has pointed out that only rarely 'do the footnotes cite critical discussions later than 1985' (McCabe 2003, 410). His observation is pertinent. I was most surprised, in particular, to find no reference at all to Patricia Fumerton's excellent Cultural Aesthetics (1991), one fifth of which is dedicated to analysing and theorizing banqueting practice, and which considers notions of self-construction, historical context, and theatre that also concern Meads. Most frustrating for a student of Caroline drama, moreover, are the comments about the 'decline in quality and invention' of the later plays (6), which offer no evidence to support the assertion and take no heed of the excellent work currently being done in this area. Meads does concede that such plays' banqueting scenes 'are far from hackneyed stereotypes', yet the Caroline playwrights seem to be judged adversely for taking their inspiration from earlier English plays, rather than from classical or other sources. If Meads' intention is to explore the development of a motif within English drama, then it seems unfair to blame playwrights for borrowing from their peers.

7. Most surprisingly of all, this book has no conclusion, ending its discussion of Shirley abruptly with the observation that the banqueting scene in The Court Secret is 'a heartening finale to the sequence of banquet scenes' which shows 'a pragmatic, perhaps deferential, desire on Shirley's part to make use of what had proved a valuable asset to the stagecraft of so many of his fellow playwrights' (238). A heartening finale to the sequence of banqueting scenes it might be, but it does not provide a satisfactory conclusion to this book. I was left in desperate need of more direction to help me make sense of the plethora of banqueting examples with which I had been served up. One short, concluding chapter would have gone a long way to resolving this confusion. Nonetheless, Meads's book does contain valuable information that will be of long-lasting assistance to anyone interested in the subject, and bears witness to an admirable amount of reading and research.

List of Works Cited

Berry, Ralph. 2002. 'Review of Banquets Set Forth.' Notes and Queries 49: 521-3.

McCabe, Richard. 2003. 'Review of Banquets Set Forth.' Review of English Studies 54: 409-10.

KAREN BRITLAND
UNIVERSITY OF KEELE