The Comedy and Legacy of Music-Hall Women 1880-1920

Brazen Impudence and Boisterous Vulgarity

verfasst von: Sam Beale

Verlag: Springer International Publishing

Buchreihe : Palgrave Studies in Comedy

Enthalten in: Springer Professional "Wirtschaft+Technik" , Springer Professional "Wirtschaft"

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Über dieses Buch

This book explores the comedy and legacy of women working as performers on the music-hall stage from 1880–1920, and examines the significance of their previously overlooked contributions to British comic traditions. Focusing on the under-researched female ‘serio-comic’, the study includes six micro-histories detailing the acts of Ada Lundberg, Bessie Bellwood, Maidie Scott, Vesta Victoria, Marie Lloyd and Nellie Wallace. Uniquely for women in the late-nineteenth and early-twentieth centuries, these pioneering performers had public voices. The extent to which their comedy challenged Victorian and Edwardian perceptions of women is revealed through explorations of how they connected with popular audiences while also avoiding censorship. Their use of techniques such as comic irony and stereotyping, self-deprecation, and comic innuendo are considered alongside the work of contemporary stand-up comedians and performance artists including Bridget Christie, Bryony Kimmings, Sara Pascoe, Shazia Mirza and Sarah Silverman.

Inhaltsverzeichnis

Frontmatter

Chapter 1. Introduction: Reweaving Women’s Comic Performance History

Abstract

This introductory chapter establishes the large number of women performing comedy on the music-hall stage 1880–1920 and considers why their joint contributions alongside men in the development of UK popular comic forms has been all but erased from performance history. The role of the female ‘serio-comic’ performer is foregrounded and definitions of the term examined. Some key comedy conventions and specific techniques are introduced including performed irony, ‘gagging’, self-deprecation and comic innuendo. The study’s comparative approach—examining music-hall acts in parallel with contemporary comedians is introduced as both a method of supporting analysis of historical performances and reflecting on how much has changed for women comics in terms of gendered public perceptions, censorship/self-censorship and their relationships with the press/media and audiences.

Sam Beale

Chapter 2. Sentiments Unwomanly and Unnatural: Moral Ambiguity, Censorship and Public Perceptions of the Serio-Comic Performer

Abstract

This chapter reflects on the historical context in which music-hall performers worked and considers the lyrics of comic songs as popular reflections on women’s lived experiences during this period. The term ‘serio-comic’ is further examined to determine the range of performances that were described using this under-researched soubriquet. These included serious issues being presented as comedy and potentially ‘unspeakable’ material being presented in ‘arch’ ironic ways to avoid censorship. Public perceptions of women comedians—particularly the reputation of the serio-comic—are examined in the context of the changing relationship of the music-hall industry to the press, moral reformers and the London County Council. A micro-history of serio-comic Ada Lundberg is included in this chapter.

Sam Beale

Chapter 3. I Must Tell You This: Intimacy, Gagging and Comic Licence in Performer-Audience Relationships

Abstract

This chapter examines the rapport between performers and their audiences in live comedy, identifying techniques used by music-hall performers that remain central in contemporary comedy. The evolution of the practice of ‘gagging’ or improvised interaction with audiences in nineteenth-century theatre and music hall is traced and its significance as a key element of popular forms examined. The work of practitioners, humour theorists and comedy studies scholars including Lawrence Mintz, John Morreall, Oliver Double and Ian Brodie are used to address the concept of comic licence and establish how, despite the regulatory constraints placed on their work, music-hall performers encouraged audiences to participate in the creation and enjoyment of sometimes challenging comic meanings. This chapter includes a micro-history of Bessie Bellwood.

Sam Beale

Chapter 4. A Comfort and Blessing to Man: Performed Irony and Comic Disruptions of Gender Stereotypes

Abstract

Drawing on a range of critical thinking, including Mary Douglas, 1975; Michael Pickering, 2001; (Simon Weaver, 2016; Linda Hutcheon, 1994, this chapter addresses ongoing debates about the possible uses and abuses of stereotypes and the potential critical challenges of ironic stereotyping in humour and comedy. Performances about courtship and marriage by music-hall artists including Lily Marney, Marie Loftus, Vesta Victoria and Maidie Scott are examined in parallel with contemporary examples to determine how women comedians made use of performed irony in their representations of gender stereotypes and continue to do so in the contemporary period. Given the frequently polysemic nature of comedy, this chapter considers how far these performances reinforced or disrupted Victorian gender stereotypes. The chapter includes a micro-history of Maidie Scott.

Sam Beale

Chapter 5. I’ve Only Got Myself to Blame: The Victims and Butts of Women’s Comic Self-Deprecation

Abstract

This chapter centres on women’s use of self-deprecation in their comic performances. This approach to comedy continues to be critically contentious and the work examined here taps into the ongoing debate surrounding comic representations of personal pain and tragedy. Self-deprecation as a means of audience misdirection and its potential as positive self-disclosure or comic consolation are examined in relation to the challenges surrounding its possible reinforcement of negative stereotypes of women. Examples of music-hall acts and modern autobiographical stand-up comedy are compared. The influence of a performer’s public persona on audience reception of comic material and on representations of the victims/butts of self-deprecatory jokes are considered with reference to performers including Hannah Gadsby and Sarah Silverman. A micro-history of Vesta Victoria is included in this chapter.

Sam Beale

Chapter 6. I Mustn’t Tell You What I Mean: Comic Innuendo as Performed Censorship

Abstract

This chapter examines the impacts of censorship on women’s music-hall performances and critical theories of individuals’ responses to censorship (including Butler, Excitable Speech: A Politics of the Performative. New York: Routledge, 1997; Failler, International Journal of Sexuality and Gender Studies, 6(1–2), 49–62, 2001; Cook and Heilmann, Political Studies, 61, 178–196, 2013) are applied to performance contexts. Judith Butler’s notion of censorship as potentially productive is extended and applied to comic approaches through an examination of material considered unacceptable by the London County Council, the music-hall regulator. Performances that made use of comic innuendo to hide coded meanings are considered as performed censorship. A micro-history of Marie Lloyd is included in this chapter.

Sam Beale

Chapter 7. Every Little Movement Has a Meaning of Its Own: The Comic Embodiment of Gender, Sexuality and the Grotesque

Abstract

This chapter makes use of recent shifts in feminist thinking about representations and readings of the female body in performance to consider how the body of the female comedian has been, and continues to be, perceived and received by audiences. It also considers what women comedians contribute to the discourse surrounding their comic interventions by creating performances that foreground social attitudes to gender, sexuality and the female body. Performers’ parodies of sexual appeal and ‘failed copies’ of feminine behaviour in music hall and contemporary performances are examined. Contemporary examples include Bridget Christie, Adrienne Truscott and Natalie Palamides. This chapter includes a micro-history of Nellie Wallace.

Sam Beale

Chapter 8. Serio-Comic Reflections and Projections

Abstract

This concluding chapter reflects on areas of comic practice shared by women music-hall performers and contemporary comedians. Current debates around censorship and self-censorship in comedy and the contentious impact of political correctness on the form are considered. Shifts in contemporary comedy are framed as a ‘serio-comic turn’; as performers increasingly combine comic and serious discourse, addressing challenging issues or traumatic experiences in comedy that blurs the boundaries between stand-up and other genres. This tendency, familiar to music-hall audiences, is becoming common in contemporary performance. This chapter examines the work of performers whose work tackles, for example, mental and physical illness, rape and abuse, grief, and religious fundamentalism including: Tig Notaro, Sakdiyah Ma’ruf, Cameron Esposito, Shazia Mirza, Cait Hogan, Margaret Cho and Maria Bamford.

Sam Beale

Backmatter

Titel: The Comedy and Legacy of Music-Hall Women 1880-1920
verfasst von: Sam Beale
Verlag: Springer International Publishing
Electronic ISBN: 978-3-030-47941-1
Print ISBN: 978-3-030-47940-4
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-47941-1