Richard Brinsley Sheridan - Adaptations and Cultural References

Adaptations and Cultural References

• In The Duchess (2008) film, a biography of Georgiana Cavendish, Duchess of Devonshire, Sheridan is played by Aidan McArdle and The School for Scandal is performed in the movie. Sheridan is played by Barry Stanton in the Madness of King George (1994)
• In the Yes, Prime Minister episode 'The Patron of the Arts', two of Sheridan's plays are named as ones the prime minister could not see: 'The Rivals', "there were too many cabinet ministers after his job", and 'The School for Scandal', "well, not after the education secretary had been found in bed with a married primary school headmistress". Later, the same prime minister being asked to name a famous English playwright other than Shakespeare says "Sheridan, Oscar Wilde, George Bernard Shaw" and is told, "they were all Irish"
• In the Blackadder III episode 'Amy and Amiability', Blackadder, dressed in a black mask and cape, is asked if he intends to become a highwayman and replies sarcastically "No, I'm auditioning for the part of Arnold the Bat in Sheridan's new comedy."
• The very first sentence of Jules Verne's "Around the World in Eighty Days" is "Mr. Phileas Fogg lived, in 1872, at No. 7, Saville Row, Burlington Gardens, the house in which Sheridan died in 1814" (s:Around the World in Eighty Days/I) - which includes two factual mistakes: Sheridan actually lived in No. 14 and died in 1816. Evidently, Verne assumed as a matter of course that a French readership more than half a century later would know who Sheridan was and would need no further explanation.
• Chris Humphreys has used the character of Jack Absolute from The Rivals as a basis for his books The Blooding of Jack Absolute, Absolute Honour and Jack Absolute. These are published under the name C. C. Humphreys.