Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Restoration spectacular

of those few articles Wikipedia is lucky to have. I did make one or two "helpful" additions to this masterpiece, but Bishonen has reverted them all, so I can vote with a clear conscience. This page is Bishonen's masterpiece, giving details of the behind the scenes side of restoration theatre, plus heaps of other fascinating information, which I for one had never really thought about before - special effects it seems are not a phenomenum of our own era. Interesting to even those normally disinterested in historical drama and literature Giano | talk 08:00, 31 July 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Question, are there any categories this article should be in?--nixie 13:59, 31 July 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, indeed. I went to put it in Category:Restoration drama and Category:British drama last night before nominating it (I think I originally created those), but it turns out Restoration drama doesn't exist any more, and British drama has been abandoned by its mother Category:Drama. (This may be part of some abandoned large-scale cat scheme by User:Pcpcpc.) I've provisionally re-parented British drama to Drama, but I hope somebody reverts if that was a bad idea. I haven't really got my bearings in the wole cat jungle. Nixie, could you please check if you think the present cats are appropriate? Bishonen | talk 16:01, 31 July 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Support from the start. It's not only good, but it's a great skeleton key for unlocking a big, secret type of drama and theater history. If there were room, I'd like to see Dryden's smiling face staring back at D'Avenant's damaged nose and amblyopia, but that's too trifling for words. (Confession: I have been talking to Bishonen about the article, but not writing in it, from an early point. I believe that the only edits I ever are long gone, so my conscience is clear as well.) Geogre 14:14, 31 July 2005 (UTC)[reply]
Support- well-written article. Flcelloguy | A note? | Desk 18:54, 31 July 2005 (UTC)[reply]
Strong support. Very interesting! A mouse-rolling page! -- Jerry Crimson Mann 20:35, 1 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]
Support. Well outside my area of familiarity, but looks very well written and researched. I'd prefer more citations for any particularly important or contentious points though. - Taxman ^Talk 21:03, August 2, 2005 (UTC)

Just for whatever it's worth, there aren't many Restoration/18th century editors on the project, and I won't make any autobiographical references, but, in my opinion as a person who researches this stuff, there really aren't any speculative or contentious parts in Bishonen's article. What she has done is present in a coherent narrative a subject that is very, very rarely discussed in the scholarly literature, and her facts that do not come from primary sources come from the 3-4 serious theater historians of the period who are not pursuing a narrow point of view. (By that I mean the historians who are just trying to be "flat" in their history, as opposed to those who write books like Sexual Underworlds in the Restoration Stage (which is an excellent book) or Women and Transgression in the Theatre -- the historians attempting to survey the whole of the theater of the period rather than to examine a particular generic or critical point of view.) I was just thinking, in fact, that her article is one of the ones where we not only surpass Britanica, but most scholarly encyclopedias, as well. Geogre 21:34, 3 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

I'll second that. Giano | talk 23:10, 3 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Support I've never even heard of this before, and this has been very informative. Looks professional, well researched, and comprehensive. Neat. Fieari 03:43, August 4, 2005 (UTC)