page_title: William Kempe
section_title: Final years
hierarchical_section_title: William Kempe / Final years
caption_attribution_description: English: Kemp's Men, Chapelfield Gardens. By local woodcarver Mark Goldsworthy&#160;: http://www.woodcarver.co.uk/casestudies/archive/kemps.htm For more on the story of Will Kemp and his epic Morris Dance (the original 'Nine days wonder') see http://www.foxearth.org.uk/blog/2005/01/original-nine-days-wonder.html
context_page_description: William Kempe, commonly referred to as Will Kemp, was an English actor and dancer specialising in comic roles and best known for having been one of the original players in early dramas by William Shakespeare. Roles associated with his name may include the great comic creation, Falstaff, and his contemporaries considered him the successor to the great clown of the previous generation, Richard Tarlton.
  Kempe's success and influence was such that in December 1598 he was one of a core of five actor-shareholders in the Lord Chamberlain's Men alongside Shakespeare and Richard Burbage, but in a short time he parted company with the group. Despite his fame as a performer and subsequent intent to continue his career, he appears to have died unregarded and in poverty circa 1603.
context_section_description: After his departure from the Chamberlain's Men in early 1599, Kempe continued to pursue his career as a performer. In February and March 1600, he undertook what he would later call his "Nine Days Wonder", in which he morris danced from London to Norwich (a distance of about 110 miles or 177 km) in a journey which took him nine days spread over several weeks, often amid cheering crowds. Later that year he published a description of the event to prove to doubters that it was true. However, his activities after this famous stunt are as obscure as his origins. On evidence from The Travels of the Three English Brothers, he is assumed to have made another European tour, perhaps reaching Italy, but by 1601 he was borrowing money from Philip Henslowe and had joined Worcester's Men. The last undoubted mention of him occurs in Henslowe's diary in late 1602.
  Parish records record the death of "Kempe, a man" in St. Saviour, Southwark, late in 1603. While this is not necessarily the comedian, the record fits his departure from the documentary record.
caption: Wood carving of Kempe in Chapelfield Gardens, Norwich
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