Electronic reproduction. Basingstoke, England : Palgrave Macmillan, 2009. Mode of access:World Wide Web. System requirements: Web browser. Title from title screen (viewed on Mar. 3, 2009). Access may berestricted to users at subscribing institutions
This much-needed new study examines the emergence of a distinctive public sphere of drama largely set apart from the royal patent theatres of Covent Garden, Drury Lane and the Haymarket. London's theatrical spaces of the Olympic Theatre, Royal Coburg and Davis's Amphitheatre, alongside a range of urban private theatres on the edge of legality, provided a vibrant contemporary theatricality. The London bakers' apprentices, hackney scribes, shopmen and girls who took to the stage of the minorprivate theatre supplied the cultural context for the attacks on the Cockney school of poetry. Worrall's fascinating glimpse of this hidden world also includes an analysis of the East End Royalty Theatre, where black masked harlequins negotiated conciliatory representations of slavery to accomodatetheir racially diverse audience. A major contribution to our understanding of the theatre of the period, this timely book will be of interest to students and scholars of Romanticism and theatre studies
Includes bibliographical references (p. 211-256) and index
Introduction -- Busby, Burletta, and Barnwell: Music, Stage and Audience -- Dramatic topicality: Robert Merry's The Magician No Conjurer and the 1791 Birmingham Riots -- Blackface and black mask: The BenevolentPlanters versus Harlequin Mungo -- Belles Lettres to Burletta: WilliamHenry Irelandas 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
