Editorial: City, Space, and Spectacle in Nineteenth-Century Theatre and Performance

Most of the articles in this special issue are drawn from our conference, ‘City, Space, and Spectacle in Nineteenth-Century Theatre and Performance’, held at Warwick University’s conference venue, the Palazzo Pesaro-Papafava in Venice, 8–10 June 2018. In our call for papers, we invited proposals on all aspects of urban performance, from plays featuring metropolitan locations to extra-theatrical events such as street theatre, carnivals, rituals, and political demonstrations, as well as considerations of the city as a context for the performative interactions of everyday life. We had a very strong response to our call from a range of international scholars. The sixty-five papers selected covered topics from royal processions to the practice of dark tourism. The conference was dedicated to the eminent theatre historian Michael Booth, who had intended to give a paper at it, but sadly died in 2017. The event began with an address from his widow, Judy Booth, who spoke about Michael from a personal perspective. Nicholas Daly’s keynote presentation, ‘City on Fire: The Pleasures of Urban Catastrophe on the Nineteenth-Century Stage’ was followed by the Michael Booth memorial panel curated by Tracy C. Davis, who was joined by Aileen Robinson and David Mayer. Our second keynote speaker, Lynda Nead, was unfortunately unable to come to the conference owing to illness, but generously agreed for her paper ‘Dickens Noir: The Shadows of Victorianism in Post-War British Art and Culture c. 1945–55’ to be presented in her absence. Moving between photographs by Bill Brandt, such as The Antique Shop of 1948 and In Haworth Parsonage of 1951, David Lean’s adaptations of Dickens’ Oliver Twist and Great Expectations, and the ‘The Haunted Mirror’, part of Robert Hamer’s portmanteau horror film of 1945, The Dead of Night, Nead explored the material remains of the past and their uncanny power to unsettle the apparent optimism of the bright, modern, reconstructed cities of post-War Britain.