Cultural Identity in British Musical Theatre, 1890–1939

1. Front Matter

   Pages i-xv

   PDF

2. The British Musical in Seven Stories

   • Ben Macpherson

   Pages 1-28

3. Domestic and Personal Identities

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 29-29

      PDF

   2. Nation: Modernity and Mythology

      • Ben Macpherson

      Pages 31-61

   3. Femininity: Cinderellas and Caretakers

      • Ben Macpherson

      Pages 63-90

   4. Manliness: Domesticity and Defence

      • Ben Macpherson

      Pages 91-117

4. Imperial and Ideological Identities

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 119-119

      PDF

   2. Empire: Ornamentalism and Orientalism

      • Ben Macpherson

      Pages 121-153

   3. Conflict: Continuity and Change

      • Ben Macpherson

      Pages 155-180

   4. Peace: Nostalgia and Nationhood

      • Ben Macpherson

      Pages 181-208

   5. The English Musical in Many Stories

      • Ben Macpherson

      Pages 209-214

5. Back Matter

   Pages 215-245

   PDF

This book examines the performance of ‘Britishness’ on the musical stage. Covering a tumultuous period in British history, it offers a fresh look at the vitality and centrality of the musical stage, as a global phenomenon in late-Victorian popular culture and beyond. Through a re-examination of over fifty archival play-scripts, the book comprises seven interconnected stories told in two parts. Part One focuses on domestic and personal identities of ‘Britishness’, and how implicit anxieties and contradictions of nationhood, class and gender were staged as part of the popular cultural condition. Broadening in scope, Part Two offers a revisionary reading of Empire and Otherness on the musical stage, and concludes with a consideration of the Great War and the interwar period, as musical theatre performed a nostalgia for a particular kind of ‘Britishness’, reflecting the anxieties of a nation in decline.

• Cultural identity
• British musical theatre
• Victorian popular culture
• Britishness
• Nationhood
• Class
• Gender

“A masterly analysis of the various aesthetic forms and the changing social, political and ethical concerns of musical theatre from the last years of the Victorian era to the start of WWII, the book provides a lucid explication of the interrelated nature of popular entertainment and its sociopolitical contexts. It is likely to become required reading for students and scholars of the British musical and of social history.” (Robert Gordon, Professor of Drama, Goldsmiths, University of London, UK)

• School of Media and Performing Arts, University of Portsmouth, Portsmouth, United Kingdom

  Ben Macpherson

​Ben Macpherson is Senior Lecturer in Musical Theatre in the School of Media and Performing Arts at the University of Portsmouth, UK. His publications include Voice Studies: Critical Approaches to Process, Performance and Experience (co-edited with Konstantinos Thomaidis, 2015) and he has written widely on both voice studies and British identity in musical theatre.

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