Word: takers
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...THIEF-TAKER GENERAL, THE RISE AND FALL OF JONATHAN WILD by Gerald Howson. 338 pages. St. Martin's Press...
...nation in jail or out. Wild perfected England's first coherent system for detecting and arresting criminals. Yet his success at organizing crime detection was due to the fact that he took great care to organize the crime in the first place. He not only became the "Thief-Taker General of Great Britain and Ireland," as he took to calling himself; he was also the realm's principal thief...
...scurrilous and inane. This particular version of the Sheppard legend has the hero start out as a relatively innocent carpenter's apprentice and slowly immerse himself in the ways of thievetry, lechery, and general debauchery-only partially against his will. He is extorted by Jonathan Wiold, the Thief-Taker General (Peachum in Gay's play), ends up in Newgate Prison, escapes, is recaptured, hanged, then torn to pieces by souvenir hunters. Campbell's play is episodic, fast-moving, and filled with murky black dialogue. Senelick has expanded upon the episodic format of the text, so that time and the fairly...
POPE BROCK as Jack Sheppard is excellent. He is self-assured and at the same time suitably wide-eved and innocent. David Gullette as the Thief-Taker General scowls meanly and reads his lines with precise meter and intonation. Senelick is good at developing expert character actors; Dribbling Wilf ("a criminal mastermind of the first water"), played by E. Mackenzie, has remarkable facial control and an admirable ability to salivate. The Incredible Porty McFigg (Lawrence F. Uhl) cats glass, strangles rats with his teeth, roars and grunts and pounds in his pornography-painted chest, all with considerable glee...
...apply some intelligence to the question of where a robber would be likely to flee. Even with speed and intelligence, the overwhelming majority of these searches will be in vain, and so there may be a tendency after a while to regard your role as that of a report-taker and nothing more...