For reasons of familiarity to tourists and usefulness for exam students, Shakespeare’s plays are unequally performed. In 2023, there was a Macbeth most months, but Pericles, a 1608 late romance, was last staged by the RSC 18 years ago.
The main reason is various doubts about the text. Pericles was omitted from the canon-defining 1623 First Folio of Shakespeare’s plays. And, while the RSC still loyally gives its house dramatist solo credit, at least the first two acts of the play are by scholarly consensus attributed to George Wilkins, a minor writer and major inn-keeper. (Some say his business was a brothel, which may make Shakespeare’s setting of the fourth act in a bawdy house an in-joke.)
