Synopses & Reviews
This study sets out the political and cultural conditions regulating writing for the stage during an era of censorship, the monopolistic royal theatres, and an emerging plebeian public sphere of drama located in London's new playhouses and "spouting clubs." Using a range of neglected plays and manuscripts, it argues for the centrality of burletta, the theatrical locus of the attacks on the Cockney school of poetry and the disruptive vitality of the metropolitan dramatic scene.
Synopsis
This book sets out the political and cultural conditions regulating dramatic writing during an era of censorship and monopolistic royal theatres. Using a range of plays and manuscripts, it argues for the centrality of burletta, the theatrical locus of the attacks on the Cockney school of poetry and the vitality of the metropolitan dramatic scene.
About the Author
DAVID WORRALL is Professor of English at Nottingham Trent University, UK. He is the author of Theatric Revolution: Drama, Censorship and Romantic Period Subcultures, 1773-1832 (2006) and co-editor, with Steve Clark, of Historicizing Blake (1994), Blake in the Nineties (1999), and Blake, Nation and Empire (2006).
Table of Contents
Preface * Introduction * Busby, Burletta and Barnwell: Music, Stage and Audience * Dramatic Topicality: Robert Merry's
The Magician No Conjurer and the 1791 Birmingham Riots * Black Face and Black Mask:
The Benevolent Planters Versus Harlequin Mungo *
Belles Lettres to Burletta: William Henry Ireland as Fortune's Fool *
The Libertine Reclaimed: Burletta and the Cockney Presence * The Royal Amphitheatre and Olympic
Tom and Jerry Burlettas * Moncrieff's
Tom and Jerry and its Spin-Offs * Conclusion: The Canadian
Tom and Jerry Murder * Notes * Bibliography of Primary Sources * Index