All roads lead to London - and to the West End theatre. This book presents a new history of the beginnings of the modern world of London entertainment. Putting female-centred, gender-challenging managements and styles at the centre, it redraws the map of performance history in the Victorian capital of the world. Bratton argues for the importance in Victorian culture of venues like the little Strand Theatre and the Gallery of Illustration in Regent Street in the experience of mid-century London, and of plays drawn from the work of Charles Dickens as well as burlesques by the early writers of Punch. Discovering a much more dynamic and often woman-led entertainment industry at the heart of the British Empire, this book seeks a new understanding of the work of women including Eliza Vestris, Mary Ann Keeley and Marie Wilton in creating the template for a magical new theatre of music, feeling and spectacle.
• Provides a new, untold history of the beginning of London's West End theatre • Challenges assumptions about Victorian middle-class leisure and respectable fears, presenting a more positive and relevant history of the modern entertainment world • Seeks out the women who contributed to the birth of modern performance culture in London, discovering that the entertainment industry was often woman-led
Contents
Introduction; Part I. Mapping: 1. Why the West End?; 2. The Era: hierarchies, seriousness and the organ of the profession; 3. Bohemian domesticity: the city of the mind; Part II. Making: 4. Performing the crisis; 5. The shaping of West End management; 6. Showtime; Conclusion; Bibliography.
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