British Pantomime Performance

British Pantomime Performance PDF Author: Millie Taylor
Publisher: Intellect (UK)
ISBN:
Category : Chrismas plays
Languages : en
Pages : 212

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Book Description
"This original anlaysis of contemporary British pantomime addresses the question of how pantomime creates a unique interactive relationship with, and potentially transformative experience for, its audiences." --book cover.

British Pantomime Performance

British Pantomime Performance PDF Author: Millie Taylor
Publisher: Intellect (UK)
ISBN:
Category : Chrismas plays
Languages : en
Pages : 212

Get Book

Book Description
"This original anlaysis of contemporary British pantomime addresses the question of how pantomime creates a unique interactive relationship with, and potentially transformative experience for, its audiences." --book cover.

Harlequin Britain

Harlequin Britain PDF Author: John O'Brien
Publisher: JHU Press
ISBN: 9780801879104
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 310

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Book Description
In the fall of 1723, two London theaters staged, almost simultaneously, pantomime performances of the Faust story. Unlike traditional five-act plays, pantomime—a bawdy hybrid of dance, music, spectacle, and commedia dell'arte featuring the familiar figure of the harlequin at its center—was a theatrical experience of unprecedented accessibility. The immediate popularity of this new genre drew theater apprentices to the cities to learn the new style, and pantomime became the subject of lively debate within British society. Alexander Pope and Henry Fielding bitterly opposed the intrusion into legitimate literary culture of what they regarded as fairground amusements that appealed to sensation and passion over reason and judgment. In Harlequin Britain, literary scholar John O'Brien examines this new form of entertainment and the effect it had on British culture. Why did pantomime become so popular so quickly? Why was it perceived as culturally threatening and socially destabilizing? O’Brien finds that pantomime’s socially subversive commentary cut through the dampened spirit of debate created by Robert Walpole's one-party rule. At the same time, pantomime appealed to the abstracted taste of the mass audience. Its extraordinary popularity underscores the continuing centrality of live performance in a culture that is most typically seen as having shifted its attention to the written text—in particular, to the novel. Written in a lively style rich with anecdotes, Harlequin Britain establishes the emergence of eighteenth-century English pantomime, with its promiscuous blending of genres and subjects, as a key moment in the development of modern entertainment culture.

Staging Fairyland

Staging Fairyland PDF Author: Jennifer Schacker
Publisher: Wayne State University Press
ISBN: 0814345921
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 306

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Book Description
In nineteenth-century Britain, the spectacular and highly profitable theatrical form known as "pantomime" was part of a shared cultural repertoire and a significant medium for the transmission of stories. Rowdy, comedic, and slightly risqué, pantomime productions were situated in dynamic relationship with various forms of print and material culture. Popular fairy-tale theater also informed the production and reception of folklore research in ways that are often overlooked. In Staging Fairyland: Folklore, Children’s Entertainment, and Nineteenth-Century Pantomime, Jennifer Schacker reclaims the place of theatrical performance in this history, developing a model for the intermedial and cross-disciplinary study of narrative cultures. The case studies that punctuate each chapter move between the realms of print and performance, scholarship and popular culture. Schacker examines pantomime productions of such well-known tales as "Cinderella," "Little Red Riding Hood," and "Jack and the Beanstalk," as well as others whose popularity has waned—such as, "Daniel O’Rourke" and "The Yellow Dwarf." These productions resonate with traditions of impersonation, cross-dressing, literary imposture, masquerade, and the social practice of "fancy dress." Schacker also traces the complex histories of Mother Goose and Mother Bunch, who were often cast as the embodiments of both tale-telling and stage magic and who move through various genres of narrative and forms of print culture. These examinations push at the limits of prevailing approaches to the fairy tale across media. They also demonstrate the degree to which perspectives on the fairy tale as children's entertainment often obscure the complex histories and ideological underpinnings of specific tales. Mapping the histories of tales requires a fundamental reconfiguration of our thinking about early folklore study and about "fairy tales": their bearing on questions of genre and ideology but also their signifying possibilities—past, present, and future. Readers interested in folklore, fairy-tale studies, children’s literature, and performance studies will embrace this informative monograph.

Popular Performance

Popular Performance PDF Author: Adam Ainsworth
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN: 1474247350
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 304

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Book Description
There is no fourth wall in popular performance. The show is firmly rooted in the here and now, and the performers address the audience directly, while the audience answer back with laughter, applause or heckling. Performer and role are interlaced, so that we are left uncertain about just how the persona we see onstage might relate to the private person who presents it to us. Popular Performance defines and surveys varieties of performance where the main purpose is to entertain, and where there is no shame in being trivial, frivolous or nonsensical as long as people go home happy at the end of the show. Contributions by new and established scholars focus particularly on how it is made, explaining the techniques of performance and production that make it so appealing to audiences. With sections examining how popular performance works in a range of historical and contemporary examples, readers will gain insights into: * performance forms associated with the variety tradition: music hall, vaudeville, cabaret, variety * performance forms associated with circus: wild west shows, clowning * issues relating to the identity of the performer in relation to magic, burlesque, pantomime in contemporary performance * issues relating to venue and audience in relation to contemporary street theatre, stand-up, and live sketch comedy.

The Politics of the Pantomime

The Politics of the Pantomime PDF Author: Jill Sullivan
Publisher: Univ of Hertfordshire Press
ISBN: 1907396225
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 351

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Book Description
Focuses on the variety and independence of pantomime in the provinces, especially Nottingham, Birmingham, and Manchester. Explores official and local censorship and the relationships between local theaters, managers, authors and audiences.

A Pacifist's Guide to the War on Cancer

A Pacifist's Guide to the War on Cancer PDF Author: Bryony Kimmings
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN: 1786820617
Category : Drama
Languages : en
Pages : 75

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Book Description
An all-singing, all-dancing celebration of ordinary life and death. Single mum Emma confronts the highs and lows of life with a cancer diagnosis; that of her son and of the real people she encounters in the daily hospital grind. Groundbreaking performance artist Bryony Kimmings creates fearless theatre to provoke social change, looking behind the poster campaigns and pink ribbons at the experience of serious illness.

The Routledge Pantomime Reader

The Routledge Pantomime Reader PDF Author: Jennifer Schacker
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1000401227
Category : Drama
Languages : en
Pages : 516

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Book Description
The Routledge Pantomime Reader is the first anthology to document this entertainment genre—one of the most distinctive and ubiquitous in nineteenth-century Britain. Across ten different shows, readers witness pantomime’s development from a highly improvisational venue for clowning, dance, and musical parody to a complex amalgamation of physical and topical comedy, stage wizardry, scenic spectacle, satire, and magical mayhem. Combining well-known tales such as "Cinderella", "Aladdin", and "Jack and the Beanstalk" with the lesser-known plotlines of "Peter Wilkins" and "The Prince of Happy Land", the book demonstrates not only how popular narratives were adapted to the current moment, but also how this blend of high and low entertainment addressed a whole range of social and cultural anxieties. Along with carefully annotated scripts, readers will find detailed introductions to all of the collected pantomimes and supplementary materials such as reviews, reminiscences, and a host of visual materials that bring these neglected entertainments to life. The plays collected here provide a remarkable perspective on the history of sexuality, class, and race during a period of vast imperial expansion and important social upheaval in Britain itself—essential reading for students and scholars of theatre history and popular performance.

Victorian Pantomime

Victorian Pantomime PDF Author: J. Davis
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 0230291783
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 230

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Book Description
Featuring contributions by new and established nineteenth-century theatre scholars, this collection of critical essays is the first of its kind devoted solely to Victorian pantomime. It takes us through the various manifestations of British pantomime in the Victorian period and its ambivalent relationship with Victorian values.

An Illustrated History of British Theatre and Performance

An Illustrated History of British Theatre and Performance PDF Author: Robert Leach
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 0429873336
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 848

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Book Description
An Illustrated History of British Theatre and Performance chronicles the history and development of theatre from the Roman era to the present day. As the most public of arts, theatre constantly interacted with changing social, political and intellectual movements and ideas, and Robert Leach’s masterful work restores to the foreground of this evolution the contributions of women, gay people and ethnic minorities, as well as the theatres of the English regions, and of Wales and Scotland. Highly illustrated chapters trace the development of theatre through major plays from each period; evaluations of playwrights; contemporary dramatic theory; acting and acting companies; dance and music; the theatre buildings themselves; and the audience, while also highlighting enduring features of British theatre, from comic gags to the use of props. Continuing on from the Enlightenment, Volume Two of An Illustrated History of British Theatre and Performance leads its readers from the drama and performances of the Industrial Revolution to the latest digital theatre. Moving from Punch and Judy, castle spectres and penny showmen to Modernism and Postdramatic Theatre, Leach’s second volume triumphantly completes a collated account of all the British Theatre History knowledge anyone could ever need.

Adult Responses to Popular Music and Intergenerational Relations in Britain, c. 19551975

Adult Responses to Popular Music and Intergenerational Relations in Britain, c. 19551975 PDF Author: Gillian A. M. Mitchell
Publisher: Anthem Press
ISBN: 1783089024
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 384

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Book Description
‘Adult Reactions to Popular Music and Inter-generational Relations in Britain, 1955–1975’ challenges stereotypes concerning a post-war ‘generation gap’, exacerbated by rebellion-inducing popular music styles, by demonstrating the considerable variety which frequently characterized adult responses to the music, whilst also highlighting that the impact of the music on inter-generational relations was more complex than is often assumed. [NP] Utilizing extensive primary evidence, from first-person accounts to newspapers, television programmes, surveys and archive collections, the book adopts a thematic approach, identifying three key arenas of British society in which adult responses to popular music, and the impact of such reactions upon relations between generations, seem particularly revealing and significant. The book examines in detail the place of popular music within family life and Christian churches and their engagement with popular music, particularly within youth clubs. It also explores ‘encounters’ between the worlds of traditional Variety entertainment and popular music while providing broader perspectives on this most dynamic and turbulent of periods.