This volume is a paean to the “Revue”, the “Fit-Up” and the fifty or more travelling roadshows which traversed the roads of Ireland during the heyday of the “fit-ups”, the decades prior to the Second World War. This book is a personal memoir of one of the “goddesses” of Irish repertory theatre―Vic (Victoria Loving)―the woman known as the “Sequin Queen”―as recounted by her granddaughter, one of the last of these travelling artistes. It is a celebration of Ireland’s “curtain up”, and the “five-and-nine”, the fairground barker and the circus tober. It is a hymn to the artist whose home was the road and whose stage-wing voices lie hidden in the boarded-up hall and the abandoned outhouse. Listen up!―for one last garish display of the paint-glow, one final tread of the magic footboard.

Flash Parade was the name that the legendary Vic Loving gave to her touring company which travelled the length and breadth of Ireland and parts of England from the 1920’s to the early 1960’s. She was also known as the ‘Sequin Queen’ for lavishly made costumes used by her dancers and actors in her productions. It was unusual for a woman to run her own business never mind a large company of musicians- actors and dancers in a country that was going through some dark times.... but as those who recalled her, she brought ‘colour- gaiety and glamour’ to an otherwise grey backdrop which was Ireland of that era.... This book is just a small selection of photos in a considerable collection of other theatrical memorabilia held by Vikki Jackson. Following on from Vikki’s first book ‘Gags and Greasepaint’ this book contains further reminiscences......

This book is a comprehensive study of comic women in performance as Irish Political Melodrama from 1890 to 1925. It maps out the performance contexts of the period, such as Irish “poor” theatre both reflecting and complicating narratives of Irish Identity under British Rule. The study investigates the melodramatic aesthetic within these contexts and goes on to analyse a selection of the melodramas by the playwrights J.W. Whitbread and P.J. Bourke. In doing so, the analyses makes plain the comic structures and intent that work across both character and action, foregrounding comic women at the centre of the discussion. Finally, the book applies a “practice as research” dimension to the study. Working through a series of workshops, rehearsals and a final performance, Colleary investigates comic identity and female performance through a feminist revisionist lens. She ultimately argues that the formulation of the Comic Everywoman as staged “Comic” identity can connect beyond the theatre to her “Everyday” self. This book is intended for those interested in theatre histories, comic women and in popular performance.

Classic comedy routines and individual gags have been around for many hundreds of years, probably thousands; the best of these ribticklers make their merry way through theater, circus, film and television. The challenge to comedians has always been to adapt familiar material in a way that emphasizes their personal style and outlook. The many routines and gags cited in this illustrated history are lovingly deconstructed to show how they have been shaped to suit different eras and performers. These tried and true laugh-provokers are indestructible. Through all the remakes, revivals, recycles and revamps, they have survived robustly to the present day. As these timeless comedy gems are traced to their beginnings and followed through the years, readers are taken on a mirthful journey from Keystone to Zombieland.

The music hall ...had no place for reticence; it was downright, it shouted, it made noise, it enjoyed itself and made the people enjoy themselves as well.' W.J. MACQUEEN POPE??Music Hall lies at the root of all modern popular entertainment. With stars such as Marie Lloyd, Harry Lauder and Dan Leno, it reached its glorious, brassy height between 1890 and the First World War. In the first book on this subject for many years, Richard Anthony Baker whisks us off on a colourful and nostalgic tour of the rise and fall of British music hall.??At the beginning of the nineteenth century people sang traditional songs in taverns for entertainment. This was so popular that rooms started to be added to inns for shows to be staged, and, before long, songs were being specially composed and purpose-built theatres were springing up everywhere. ??Britain's working class had, for the first time, its own form of public entertainment and its own breed of stars. The colour and vitality attracted serious writers and artists, as well as the future Edward VII, and music hall became simultaneously the haunt of the working classes and the avant-garde.??Including stories of a clergyman who wrote music-hall sketches, a hall in Glasgow where luckless entertainers were pulled off stage by a long hooked pole, and Cockney dictionaries that helped Americans understand touring British performers, this book is a hugely engaging slice of social history, rich in humour, tragedy and bathos.??As featured on BBC Radio Lincolnshire and in the Sunderland Echo.