Conclusion / 'It Feels Like a Group of Friends Messing Around Onstage': Pappy's and Live Sketch Comedy / Louise Peacock. From Domestic Song to Drawing Room Recitation: Dan Leno's Music Hall Repertoire / Caroline Radcliffe -- American Vaudeville / Leigh Woods -- It's 1922 and at the Munich Kammerspiele Karl Valentin and Liesl Karlstadt Perform Das Christbaumbrettl at Die rote Zibebe / Michael Wilson -- Packed from Pit to Ceiling: the Kingston Empire (1910-1955) and British Variety / Adam Ainsworth -- Grock: 'Genius Among Clowns' / Louise Peacock -- Something Wicked: the Theatre of Derren Brown / Michael Mangan -- Performing the Burlesque Body: The Explicit Female Body as Palimpsest / Lynn Sally -- 'Hiya Fans!': Celebrity Performance and Reception in Modern British Pantomime / Simon Sladen -- With Them, Not at Them / Bim Mason -- What's Special about Stand-Up Comedy? Josie Long's Lost Treasures of the Black Heart / Sophie Quirk -- 'It Feels Like a Group of Friends Messing Around Onstage': Pappy's and Live Sketch Comedy / Oliver Double -- Conclusion / Louise Peacock.
Summary:
There is no fourth wall in popular performance. The show is firmly rooted in the here and now, and the performers address the audience directly, while the audience answer back with laughter, applause or heckling. Performer and role are interlaced, so that we are left uncertain about just how the persona we see onstage might relate to the private person who presents it to us. 'Popular Performance' defines and surveys varieties of performance where the main purpose is to entertain, and where there is no shame in being trivial, frivolous or nonsensical as long as people go home happy at the end of the show. Contributions by new and established scholars focus particularly on how it is made, explaining the techniques of performance and production that make it so appealing to audiences.
This resource is supported by the Institute of Museum and Library Services under the provisions of the Library Services and Technology Act as administered by State Library of Iowa.