TY - JOUR

T1 - Male Impersonation in the Music Hall, The Case of Vesta Tilley

AU - Aston, Elaine

N1 - http://journals.cambridge.org/action/displayJournal?jid=NTQ The final, definitive version of this article has been published in the Journal, New Theatre Quarterly, 4 (15), pp 247-257 1988, © 1988 Cambridge University Press.

PY - 1988/8

Y1 - 1988/8

N2 - Music hall has only recently been treated to ‘serious’ as distinct from anecdotal study, and the ‘turns’ of its leading performers remain largely unexplored. Particularly revealing, perhaps, are the acts of the male impersonators – whose ancestry in ‘legit’ performance had been a long one, yet whose particular approach to cross-dressing had a special social and sexual significance during the ascendancy of music hall, with its curious mixture of working-class directness, commercial knowingness, and ‘pre-Freudian innocence’. The most successful of the male impersonators was Vesta Tilley, whose various disguises, the nature of their hidden appeal, and the ‘messages’ they delivered are here analyzed by Elaine Aston.

AB - Music hall has only recently been treated to ‘serious’ as distinct from anecdotal study, and the ‘turns’ of its leading performers remain largely unexplored. Particularly revealing, perhaps, are the acts of the male impersonators – whose ancestry in ‘legit’ performance had been a long one, yet whose particular approach to cross-dressing had a special social and sexual significance during the ascendancy of music hall, with its curious mixture of working-class directness, commercial knowingness, and ‘pre-Freudian innocence’. The most successful of the male impersonators was Vesta Tilley, whose various disguises, the nature of their hidden appeal, and the ‘messages’ they delivered are here analyzed by Elaine Aston.

U2 - 10.1017/S0266464X00002797

DO - 10.1017/S0266464X00002797

M3 - Journal article

VL - 4

SP - 247

EP - 257

JO - New Theatre Quarterly

JF - New Theatre Quarterly

SN - 0266-464X

IS - 15

ER -