Nation and Race in West End Revue: 1910-1930

The London West End revue was a response to social, political, and cultural insecurities at the beginning of the twentieth century, combining satire, parody, social commentary, and critique with dance, music, design, theatre, and film to reflect and respond to the new lived experiences. It was acknowledged as a reflexive action and an evolving dynamic multidisciplinary performance model, highly influential across British culture.

Format: Hardback
Length: 202 pages
Publication date: 01 August 2021
Publisher: Springer Nature Switzerland AG

The London West End revue emerged as a unique response to the escalating social, political, and cultural uncertainties that plagued Britain at the dawn of the 20th century. These insecurities, particularly related to Britain's colonial rule, were further compounded by growing demands for social reform across the country. The call for women's emancipation, the expansion of labor and trade union movements, and the emergence of new lived experiences all contributed to a climate of mounting disillusionment.

Revue sought to capture the immediacy of this uncertain world through a fragmented vocabulary of performance, blending satire, parody, social commentary, and critique at its core. It gained popularity for its ability to reflect and respond to the diverse range of new experiences that people were encountering. Multidisciplinary in its creation and realization, revue incorporated dance, music, design, theatre, and film, drawing upon pre-modern theatre forms, techniques, and styles such as burlesque, music hall, pantomime, minstrelsy, and pierrot. Experimenting with narrative, expressions of speech, movement, design, and sound, revue presented ambivalent representations that reflected the social and cultural negotiations of previously essentialized identities in the modern world.

As part of a wide and diverse cultural landscape at the turn of the century, revue was recognized and celebrated by both the intellectual avant-garde and the workers' theatre movement. It was seen as both a reflexive action and an evolving dynamic multidisciplinary performance model, exerting significant influence across British culture. Revue displaced the romanticism of musical comedy by combining a satirical, listless detachment with a defiant sophistication that articulated a fading British hegemonic sensibility, a cultural expression of a fragile and changing social and political order.

Weight: 410g
Dimension: 157 x 217 x 20 (mm)
ISBN-13: 9783030752088
Edition number: 1st ed. 2021