Ideals of ‘Britishness’ reproduced in the musical adaptation of David Walliams’s The Boy in the Dress at the Royal Shakespeare Company

2021 ◽  
Vol 15 (2) ◽  
pp. 75-87 ◽  
Author(s):  
Grace Barnes
Keyword(s):  
Middle Class ◽  
Predominantly White ◽  
Female Voice ◽  
Cultural Appropriation ◽  
Royal Shakespeare Company ◽  
National Theatre ◽  
Gender Fluidity ◽  
The United Kingdom ◽  
International Reputation ◽  
Theatre Company

This article examines the use and purpose of the nostalgic interventions in the latest Royal Shakespeare musical, The Boy in the Dress, and considers the implications of utilizing a mythologized, rose-tinted past on the creative production of national identity. It questions the meanings which are produced when a government subsidized, national theatre company with an international reputation eliminates the female voice from the stage and represents the United Kingdom as English, predominantly white and middle class. In addition, this article deconstructs the performances of gender fluidity depicted in the show and widens the acknowledged interpretation of cultural appropriation, when applied to race, to include gender.

Chekhov, Shakespeare, the Ensemble and the Company

1995 ◽  
Vol 11 (43) ◽  
pp. 203-210 ◽  
Author(s):  
Peter Hall
Keyword(s):  
Market Place ◽  
Twelfth Night ◽  
Royal Shakespeare Company ◽  
National Theatre ◽  
Peter Brook ◽  
Theatre Company ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Moscow Art Theatre ◽  
Russian Model

The visit to Britain in the spring of 1994 by the St Petersburg Maly Drama Theatre – described by Peter Brook as ‘the finest theatre ensemble in Europe’ – was warmly received by audiences and critics alike. Yet in Britain the idea of this kind of ‘permanent’ theatre company, so dear to earlier generations of actors and directors, seems not to have survived the climate of the 'eighties, and there is a sense that such remaining permanent companies as the Moscow Art Theatre and the Berliner Ensemble are dinosaurs from a more collectivist past. In an interview with Izvestiya, however, the Maly company's director, Lev Dodin, castigated western theatre for being ‘just a branch of the economy’ and having no permanent companies on what he called ‘the Russian model’. What is the truth about ensembles and permanent companies? In 1991, as part of research for an essay on Chekhov and the ‘company problem’ in British theatre, Patrick Miles interviewed Peter Hall on the subject of ensembles and companies. Peter Hall founded the Royal Shakespeare Company as a permanent ensemble in 1960, directed the National Theatre for fifteen years – but not as a permanent theatre company – and since 1988 has been running his own, impermanent company in the theatrical market-place. At the time of the interview, here edited for publication, Peter Hall was rehearsing Twelfth Night at the Playhouse Theatre, London. Patrick Miles's essay ‘Chekhov and the Company Problem in the British Theatre’ was included in Chekhov on the British Stage (Cambridge, 1993).

Joan Littlewood and Her Peculiar (Hi)story as Others Tell It

2001 ◽  
Vol 42 (2) ◽  
pp. 165-176
Author(s):  
Yael Zarhy-Levo
Keyword(s):  
Royal Shakespeare Company ◽  
National Theatre ◽  
The Past ◽  
Theatre Company ◽  
English Stage ◽  
The 1960S ◽  
Radical Theatre ◽  
Theatre Historiography ◽  
Theatrical Companies

The theatrical map in London during the 1960s consisted of four notable theatrical companies: the English Stage Company, the Royal Shakespeare Company, the National Theatre Company, and the Theatre Workshop. The first three companies, although somewhat transformed, fill major roles in British theatre to the present day. What happened to the fourth company, the Theatre Workshop? This question is all the more intriguing in light of the tribute current historical and critical accounts pay to the founder-director of this company, Joan Littlewood. Theatre critics and historians today view Littlewood as a major representative of radical theatre in the 1960s. Littlewood's position during her era, however, was quite a different story, and the tale of then versus the tale of now is a primer in theatre historiography. I will trace that tale in this essay by juxtaposing the diverse receptions she and her works have received during the past forty years.

scholarly journals Being European

2018 ◽  
Vol 25 (1) ◽  
pp. 22-33
Author(s):  
Magnus Thor Thorbergsson
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
National Identity ◽  
Middle Class ◽  
Cultural Nationalism ◽  
Late Nineteenth Century ◽  
National Theatre ◽  
Classical Drama ◽  
Theatre Company ◽  
Late Nineteenth ◽  
Important Site

During the campaign for Iceland’s independence in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, theatre was considered an important site for the representation of the nation. Emphasis was placed on producing and staging local plays dealing with the nation’s folklore, myths and history, thereby strengthening a sense of the roots of national identity. The article examines the longing for a representation of the nation in late nineteenth-century theatre as well as the attempts of the Reykjavik Theatre Company to stage the nation during theso-called ‘Icelandic Period’ (1907-20), before analyzing the distinctive changes in the company’s repertoire following the decision of the Icelandic parliament to build a national theatre in 1923. The staging of the nation, which had been dominated by nineteenth-century cultural nationalism, took a turn in the late 1920s towards representing the nation as a member of European metropolitan culture through an increased focus on international contemporary drama, bourgeois bedroom farce and classical drama. The image of the modern Icelanders, as represented on the stage in the 1920s, was that of the middle-class bourgeoisie.

‘I Let the Language Lead the Dance’: Politics, Musicality, and Voyeurism

2011 ◽  
Vol 27 (1) ◽  
pp. 3-13 ◽  
Author(s):  
David Greig
Keyword(s):  
National Identities ◽  
Royal Shakespeare Company ◽  
National Theatre ◽  
The Gaze ◽  
National Theatre Of Scotland ◽  
The World ◽  
Theatre Company ◽  
The University ◽  
Artistic Director ◽  
International Festival

David Greig is one of Britain's most versatile and exciting playwrights, whose awardwinning work – commissioned by, among others, Suspect Culture, the Royal Shakespeare Company, the National Theatre of Scotland, the Edinburgh International Festival, and the Traverse Theatre – has been performed all over the world. His personal voice is characterized by the sensitive musicality of his text, an individual sense of humour, and an acute awareness of the world around us. Whether his protagonists are Cambridge ornithologists, Scottish lords, or American pilots, Greig creates works of extreme visual beauty and emotional directness in lyrical soundscapes. In the interview which follows, completed in June 2010, he discusses the themes of politics and national identities; language, music, and experimental forms; directors, directing, and adaptations; and watching bodies on stage. Greig believes that theatre is a form of voyeurism, ‘a consensual exchange’ to ‘look at people and watch how they behave’. In his work, the act of watching thus acquires a new role surpassing the simple function of pleasure, and enabling the viewer to engage further with the theatre's mediation to comment, justify, explain, and promote a better understanding of the complexities of human nature – voyeurism in theatre being re-read as a new freedom of the gaze, and its fetishistic attributes re-evaluated as an emancipation of restrained energy, testing the boundaries of taboo. George Rodosthenous is Lecturer in Music Theatre at the School of Performance and Cultural Industries of the University of Leeds. He is Artistic Director of the Altitude North theatre company, and also works as a freelance composer for the theatre. He is currently working on the book Theatre as Voyeurism: the Pleasure(s) of Watching.

IV. J. S. Mill and the Irish Question: Reform, and the Integrity of the Empire, 1865–1870

1970 ◽  
Vol 13 (3) ◽  
pp. 419-450 ◽  
Author(s):  
E. D. Steele
Keyword(s):  
Political Economy ◽  
Middle Class ◽  
Land Reform ◽  
Complete Agreement ◽  
The United Kingdom ◽  
Social Basis ◽  
Great Famine ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Harsh Criticism ◽  
Irish Question

The first part of this study of Mill sought to show how much less radical he was on the subject of Irish land reform than is often supposed. In the earlier editions of the Principles of Political Economy from 1848 to 1857 there were passages which constituted a terrible indictment of landlordism, and insisted on the need for legislation to convert the tenant farmers into joint owners of their holdings: but in another passage this harsh criticism was substantially withdrawn, and the demand for fixity of tenure effectively retracted. Although they continued to reproduce the criticism and the call for a drastic measure, the editions of 1862 and 1865 were more moderate still in their conclusions on Irish land. With the progress of the changes in the economy and society set in motion by the Great Famine, Mill became more strongly convinced that the country should be left to evolve slowly under the existing law of tenure, only slightly amended. One cannot imagine Mill saying, ‘tenant-right…is equivalent to landlords' wrong’: but he and Palmerston were none the less in nearly complete agreement by 1865 on the degree of laissez-faire that was desirable in Ireland. For all his strictures upon aristocratic misgovernment and middle-class prejudice, Mill was too warm an admirer of British institutions to want to undermine their social basis over a wide area of the United Kingdom. The second part of this study deals with his action and his motives, in briefly advocating, without any reservations this time, the revolutionary land legislation from which he had always previously shrunk, despite his brave words written for the earlier editions of the Principles.

scholarly journals School pressures and child mental health in Afro-Asian countries

1996 ◽  
Vol 20 (5) ◽  
pp. 301-303
Author(s):  
L. B. Bartlet
Keyword(s):  
Mental Health ◽  
Developing Countries ◽  
Middle Class ◽  
Educational System ◽  
Child Mental Health ◽  
Educational Expectations ◽  
Asian Countries ◽  
Psychosomatic Symptoms ◽  
The United Kingdom ◽  
High Educational

Educational pressure on children is worldwide. In the United Kingdom this is seen in the growth of structured classes and courses for two- to four-year-olds such as ‘Making French Fun’ and ‘Musical Appreciation for Under Fours' (Matthews, 1995). Such programmes are of particular interest to aspiring middle-class parents but other groups also have high educational expectations. Some parents with a West Indian background, believing the British educational system to be superior to that in their country of origin, look for high attainments which often results in their children showing psychosomatic symptoms. In developing countries the signs of educational pressure are especially evident.

India’s Middle Class

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sanjay Joshi
Keyword(s):  
Middle Class ◽  
Social Mobility ◽  
Social Groups ◽  
The United States ◽  
Colonial India ◽  
The United Kingdom ◽  
Political Entrepreneurship ◽  
Upward Social Mobility ◽  
Ordinary Folk ◽  
Social Entities

The category “middle class” can refer to quite different social entities. In the United States, it is often used as a synonym for “ordinary folk.” In the United Kingdom it references an elite with economic and social privileges. In India, “the middle class” acquired its own valence through a history that encompasses colonialism, nationalism, and desire for upward social mobility. At one level the Indian middle class was evidently derivative. Indians who wished to emulate the achievements and standing of the British middle class adopted the category, “middle class” as a self-descriptor. Yet the Indian middle class was hardly a modular replica of a metropolitan “original.” The context of colonialism, indigenous hierarchies, and various local histories shaped the nature of the Indian middle class as much as any colonial model. Composed of people—often salaried professionals—who were reasonably well off but not among India’s richest, being middle class in colonial India was less a direct product of social and economic standing and more the result of endeavors of cultural and political entrepreneurship. These efforts gave the middle class its shape and its aspirations to cultural and political hegemony. The same history, in turn, shaped a variety of discourses about the nature of society, politics, culture, and morality in both colonial and post-independent India. Contradictions were inherent in the constitution of the middle class in colonial India, and continue to be apparent today. These contradictions become even more evident as newer, formerly subaltern social groups, seek to participate in a world created through middle class imaginations of society, culture, politics and economics.

scholarly journals Class, caring and disability: evidence from the British Retirement Survey

2002 ◽  
Vol 22 (3) ◽  
pp. 325-342 ◽  
Author(s):  
KAREN GLASER ◽  
EMILY GRUNDY
Keyword(s):  
Social Class ◽  
Middle Class ◽  
Later Life ◽  
Family Obligations ◽  
Class Differences ◽  
National Statistics ◽  
The United Kingdom ◽  
Resident Care ◽  
Middle Generation ◽  
Provision Of Care

There has been an increasing interest in the caring responsibilities of middle generation individuals as numerous studies have noted the continuing family obligations of people in later life. Employing data from the United Kingdom Office of National Statistics Retirement Survey of 1988/89, we examined social class differentials in the provision of care by 55–69 year olds. Our results show few social class differences in the provision of co-resident care to a parent (among those aged 55–69 in 1988/89 with at least one living parent), but significant social class differences in the provision of care to a spouse. Working class individuals were more likely to be caring for a spouse than their middle class counterparts because of the higher prevalence of disability among this group.

‘A Place Marked by Life’: Brook at the Bouffes du Nord

1985 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 39-74
Author(s):  
David Williams
Keyword(s):  
Descriptive Analysis ◽  
Community Theatre ◽  
Midsummer Night's Dream ◽  
Critical View ◽  
Royal Shakespeare Company ◽  
National Theatre ◽  
Peter Brook ◽  
East End ◽  
The University ◽  
Timon Of Athens

After his experimental work with the Royal Shakespeare Company, which bore fruit in the production of Marat/Sade in 1964 and culminated in the controversial Vietnam play US in 1966, Peter Brook returned to the classical repertoire in which he had made his name as ‘enfant terrible’ of British theatre, with Seneca's Oedipus for the National Theatre in 1968, and, two years later, A Midsummer Night's Dream for the RSC. But the very success of ‘Brook's Dream’ – the way in which its transformation into an ‘event’ required actors ‘to do their duty rather than what came from life’ – heightened Brook's sense that he could no longer work creatively under such conditions, and in 1970 he formed his Centre International de Recherche Théâtrale, which developed its early work for the Persepolis festivals and in the treks across Africa chronicled by John Heilpern in Conference of the Birds. Eventually the company settled in Paris at the Théâtre aux Bouffes du Nord in 1974: but while their work there has been widely acclaimed, it has been subjected to little detailed analysis in English. In the original series of TQ, Kenneth Tynan offered a highly critical view in TQ25. Here, David Williams – a graduate of the Drama Department of the University of Kent, currently working in community theatre at Hoxton Hall in London's East End – corrects the balance with a full descriptive analysis of Brook's major productions at the Bouffes – Timon of Athens. The Ik, a conflation of Jarry's Ubu plays, and a re-creation of the Conference of the Birds

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