Francis Flute (right) playing Thisbe in a 1978 Riverside Shakespeare Company production
Francis Flute is a character in William Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream.[1] His occupation is a bellows-mender. He is forced to play the female role of Thisbe in "Pyramus and Thisbe", a play-within-the-play which is performed for Theseus' marriage celebration.[1]
In the play Flute (Thisbe) speaks through the wall (played by Tom Snout) to Pyramus (Nick Bottom).[1]
Flute is a old, excited actor who is disappointed when he finds he is meant to play a women (Thisbe) in their interlude before the duke and the duchess.[2] He generally is portrayed using a falsetto voice.[citation needed] He is an unsure actor who asks many questions.[citation needed]
Flute is often portrayed as the lowest in status of the Mechanicals, but his performance at the wedding of Theseus and Hippolyta arguably wins them favour at the court of the duke and duchess.[citation needed]
Flute's name, like that of the other mechanicals, is metonymical and derives from his craft: "Flute" references a church organ, an instrument prominently featuring the bellows a bellows-mender might be called upon to repair.[3]
In Jean-Louis and Jules Supervielle's French adaptation, Le Songe d'une nuit d'été (1959), Flute is renamed to Tubulure, where Georges Neveux's 1945 adaptation used the English names.[4]
On the Elizabethan stage, the role of Flute and the other Mechanicals was intended to be doubled with Titania's four fairy escorts: Moth (also spelled Mote), Mustardseed, Cobweb, and Peaseblossom.[5]
FrancisFlute is a character in William Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream. His occupation is a bellows-mender. He is forced to play the female role...
The flute is a member of a family of musical instruments in the woodwind group. Like all woodwinds, flutes are aerophones, producing sound with a vibrating...
Nick Bottom in A Midsummer Night's Dream alongside Joe E. Brown as FrancisFlute and Mickey Rooney as Puck. Cagney's last movie in 1935 was Ceiling Zero...
bumbling actor in the science fiction parody Galaxy Quest (1999), as FrancisFlute in the Shakespeare adaptation A Midsummer Night's Dream (1999), and...
Collector, and toured the US with the Royal Shakespeare Company, as FrancisFlute in A Midsummer Night's Dream. He played 'Bernie Dodd' in The Country...
Celebrity Brandon Darrow's Entourage 1999 A Midsummer Night's Dream FrancisFlute The Green Mile William "Wild Bill" Wharton Galaxy Quest Guy Fleegman...
Newyorkers Hair Margaret Mead SantaLand Diaries A Midsummer Night's Dream FrancisFlute Public Theater (Shakespeare in the Park) The Complete Works of William...
2016, he appeared in BBC One's Poldark, playing Ross Poldark's cousin, Francis and in The Hollow Crown, in the role of Clifford. He starred as an expert...
Policeman Open Air Theatre, Regent's Park. A Midsummer Night's Dream FrancisFlute Open Air Theatre, Regent's Park. 2006 Measure for Measure Provost Complicite/National...
instruments places this group under the heading "Flutes with duct or duct flutes." The label "fipple flute" is frequently applied to members of the subgroup...
The subcontrabass flute is a member of the Western concert flute family. With the length of tubing ranging from 15 feet (4.6 m) (when in G) to 18 feet...
Richard III Second Murderer Cort Theater 1980 A Midsummer Night's Dream FrancisFlute American Repertory Theater Happy End Bob Marker American Repertory Theater...
Shakespeare's comedies include instances of overt cross-dressing, such as FrancisFlute in A Midsummer Night's Dream. The movie A Funny Thing Happened on the...
Dream FrancisFlute Ron Daniels Royal Shakespeare Theatre 1982 Henry IV, Part 1 Peto Trevor Nunn Barbican Theatre Henry IV, Part 2 Peto / Francis Feeble...
The bamboo flute, especially the bone flute, is one of the oldest musical instruments known. Examples of Paleolithic bone flutes have survived for more...
badly done until the final monologues of Nick Bottom, as Pyramus and FrancisFlute, as Thisbe. The theme of forbidden love is also present in A Midsummer...
(1999)—Drugger The Tempest (1999)—Ariel A Midsummer Night's Dream (1999)—FrancisFlute The Miser (1998)—Cleante Much Ado About Nothing (1998)—George Seacole...
Year Production Role Venue Ref. 1978 A Midsummer Night's Dream FrancisFlute Equity Library Theatre, Off-Broadway 1982 Present Laughter Roland Maule Circle...
with the Arts Theatre in Cambridge. In 1962 he made his London debut as Flute in Tony Richardson's production of A Midsummer Night's Dream at the Royal...
Kantate von Wald und Au Telemann Millicent Silver (harpsichord); John Francis (flute) George Roth (cello) London: Maida Vale 15:12:1949 Recording of BBC...
begin in less than an hour, all the other actors are yet to arrive. FrancisFlute does arrive, but one of the actors, Tom Snout, is nowhere to be found...
Global Information