With Tara Ghoshal Wallace’s 1984 edition,

was the first of Burney’s plays to be published. It reached a yet wider audience in 1993 when it was given its premiere at the Hen and Chicken, Bristol, by the Show of Strength theatre company, after actor and director Alan Coveney discovered Wallace’s text in a local bookshop (Sabor I: xi). In 2000 Coveney brought out his own edition of the play which he describes as an adapted version suitable for use “by actors and directors in the rehearsal room as well as [... for] general readers” (Coveney, 11).

Joyce Hemlow described A Busy Day as “a comedy of manners”, and more than this a “devastating and comprehensive satire on the bad manners of high and low alike”. She observed that of all Burney’s plays A Busy Day was

2104 words

Citation: Crouch, Eleanor. "A Busy Day; or, An Arrival from India". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 23 February 2012 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=23809, accessed 23 November 2024.]