Wikipedia:Peer review/William Parsons (actor)/archive1

William Parsons (actor)

I've listed this article for peer review because… I want to know what specific things need to be done to it so that it can be a B class article. Thank you.

Thanks, JC7V-constructive zone 18:41, 27 September 2018 (UTC)

1: The lead paragraph needs greater specificity: what does one of the more prominent British actors mean? What about various types of roles from original roles to character driven roles? Almost any actor could be described that way.

2: The following paragraphs read like a laundry list of roles. They're also often unsatisfyingly vague: Parsons acted in the play Agis amongst other roles at the Theatre Royale Edinburgh in 1757-8. Why is Agis worth naming and the others not? After a few more plays like Othello [...] Why bring them up at all if there's absolutely nothing specific said about them?

3: The 1770s and Later career sections seem better to me because they also include some analysis of the changes in Parsons' roles over the different periods of his life.

4: The first sentence of the personal life and death section should be edited to remove the parenthetical about his debut or incorporate its contents more smoothly into the sentence. The text of his epitaph might be included in this section.

5: Overall: I don't think it's necessary to include every role he ever played, in every production — or if they have to be all included, they should go in a table or list. The more important thing is to consider more generally the types of productions he performed in, and the types of role he played. Were a lot of the plays tragedies? Did he often play villains? Did he begin to take on larger roles, as he gained in reputation or experience? Were his roles in the final years of his life those of older men? The article mentions 'original roles', 'military-court roles', and 'character-driven roles', but doesn't adequately define these or relate them to the specifics of the characters he played.

Cheers, Genericusername57 (talk) 01:04, 14 October 2018 (UTC)

Comments from Tim riley

I agree with all the comments above. Some more pointers:

• To expand the point about the lead, in a biography it should give the reader all the essentials of the subject's life and works; it must not contain anything that isn't mentioned in more detail in the main text.
• Unlink "British". See the Manual of Style.
• As the information is readily available, why not mention his family background, for instance that his parents were William and Elizabeth Parsons, and that his father was a carpenter in Bow Lane, Cheapside, in the City of London?
• For the details of his first appearance you should italicise the title of the play (ditto for all play titles), and you ought to give the full name of the author and link to Henry Jones. Have a look at an existing featured biography of an actor such as Vivien Leigh to see examples of best practice.
• "Beggar's Opera" – italics not bold and add link.
• You can't just say "Drury" – you need to call it either Drury Lane or give it its full title. In the next sentence "the Drury" is even wronger.
• "Mrs Griffiths" – she was Elizabeth Griffith and should be linked thus.
• appearing as Gobbo in The Merchant of Venice – which Gobbo? Old or Launcelot?
• "In 1767, Parsons played his most substantial role in the play Polonius" – I can't find any mention of this in your cited source. Am I overlooking it?
• From a stylistic point of view, you could examine your prose and remove some of the duplications: the word "role" occurs three or four times in several paragraphs. You could standardise on BrE "theatre" rather than "theater", and avoid clunky false titles like "painter Richard Wilson" and "actress Mrs Price" (acceptable in America I understand, and used in British tabloid papers, but not suitable for formal English prose.)
• You might mention that Mrs Price's given name was Mary.
• She Stoops to Conquer is most certainly not a "prequel" to Tony Lumpkin in Town. The former is a classic play to which the latter was a sequel. A prequel, by definition, depicts events that precede those of an already existing work.
• "paintings of first masters at brokers shops" – this doesn't appear to be in English.

That will do for now. I hope these points are helpful. – Tim riley talk 11:14, 14 October 2018 (UTC)