A01=Andrew Horrall
Anglo world
Author_Andrew Horrall
blackface
blackface minstrelsy
British empire
Category=ATY
Category=JBCC1
Category=NHTB
colonialism
comedy
eq_art-fashion-photography
eq_bestseller
eq_history
eq_isMigrated=1
eq_isMigrated=2
eq_nobargain
eq_non-fiction
eq_society-politics
Harry Rickards
Marie Lloyd
Maurice E. Bandmann
music hall
musical comedy
parody
popular culture
popular music
popular theatre
racism
saloon entertainments
settler colonialism
settler societies
songs
theatrical touring
touring
variety entertainment
vaudeville
Product details
- ISBN 9781526188892
- Weight: 582g
- Dimensions: 156 x 234mm
- Publication Date: 28 Oct 2025
- Publisher: Manchester University Press
- Publication City/Country: GB
- Product Form: Hardback
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The stage entertainments known as music hall emerged in mid-Victorian London just as the British began colonising large parts of the world.Settlers recreated this metropolitan popular culture throughout the empire and in places under foreign control. They erected music halls resembling those at home, imported songs and sketches, performed inamateur shows and watched touring professionals. London originals were rewritten as commentaries on local conditions. This activity transformed music hall into a marker of an exclusionary British identity overseas and made colonies look and sound more like Britain. The result was that settlers separated by vast distances were linked by a shared popular culture. The touring circuits and cultural affinities the Victorians created endure to this day.
Andrew Horrall is senior archivist at Canada’s national archives and adjunct professor of History at Carleton University. He holds a PhD in History from the University of Cambridge.
