Walter Clun

Who was Walter Clun?

Walter Clun was a noted English actor of the seventeenth century. His career spanned the difficult period when the theatres were closed during the English Civil War and the Interregnum, from 1642 to 1660.

According to James Wright's Historia Histrionica, Clun and Charles Hart were boy players together with the King's Men in the years prior to the theatre closure. Clun was a member of a group of English actors who performed on the Continent, mainly in The Hague and Paris, between 1644 and 1646; he was also one of the former King's Men who tried to restart the company in December of 1648, despite the Commonwealth regime's hostility to theatre.

In the Restoration era, Clun gained particular notice as the Iago to Nicholas Burt's Othello in the earliest Restoration production of Shakespeare's play in 1660. Clun was among the thirteen actors who were initial sharers in the newly organized King's Company in 1661. In addition to Iago, Clun was strongly associated with the roles of Falstaff, Bessus in Beaumont and Fletcher's A King and No King, Smug in The Merry Devil of Edmonton, and Subtle in Jonson's The Alchemist. He also played Cacafogo in Fletcher's Rule a Wife and Have a Wife.