Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-g8jcs Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-25T16:52:59.207Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

ENTERTAINING THE EMPIRE: THEATRICAL TOURING COMPANIES AND AMATEUR DRAMATICS IN COLONIAL INDIA*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  14 August 2014

TOBIAS BECKER
TOBIAS BECKER*
Affiliation:
Freie Universität Berlin
*
Freie Universität Berlin, Friedrich-Meinecke-Institut, Koserstraße 20, 14195 Berlin, Germany[email protected]
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

This article argues that theatre in colonial India – both in the form of touring companies and amateur dramatics – offered much more than mere entertainment: first, it was an important social space where the British diaspora constituted itself as a community. Secondly, it served as a lifeline to the home country. By watching theatrical performances either brought to them straight from London or which they performed themselves, colonial Britons felt in touch with their homeland. Finally, theatre not only allowed colonial audiences to participate in the metropolitan culture; it inadvertently helped to unify the British empire. Whether living in London, the provinces, or a colonial city, all British subjects consumed the same popular culture, forming in effect one big taste community. Theatre, therefore, lends itself to a discussion of central issues of imperial history, as, for example, the relationship between the metropolitan centre and the imperial periphery, the colonial public sphere, social and racial hierarchies, the perception of the ‘Other’, and processes of cross-cultural exchange and appropriation.

Type
Articles
Information
The Historical Journal , Volume 57 , Issue 3 , September 2014 , pp. 699 - 725
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2014 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Footnotes

*

I am grateful to Kerstin Lange, Len Platt, and Andreas Weiß, as well as to the anonymous referees for their comments on earlier drafts

References

1 Maugham, William Somerset, ‘The Mirage’ (1929), in his Collected short stories, iv (London, 1978), pp. 289–306Google Scholar; he also included this story in his travelogue The gentleman in the parlour (1930) (London, 2001), pp. 185–207; it is first mentioned in On a Chinese screen (1922), (London, 2000), pp. 81–2.

2 Maugham, ‘The Mirage’, p. 301.

3 See MacQueen-Pope, Walter, Gaiety: theatre of enchantment (London, 1949), p. 440Google Scholar; Hyman, Alan, The Gaiety years (London, 1975)Google Scholar; Bailey, Peter, ‘Musical comedy and the rhetoric of the girl, 1892–1914’, in his Popular culture and performance in the Victorian city (Cambridge, 1998), pp. 175–93Google Scholar; Platt, Len, Musical comedy on the West End stage, 1890–1939 (Basingstoke, 2004)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

4 See Mukherjee, Sushil K., The story of the Calcutta theatres: 1753–1980 (Calcutta, 1982), pp. 1–7Google Scholar; Singh, Jyotsna G., Colonial narratives/cultural dialogues: ‘discoveries’ of India in the language of colonialism (London, 1996), p. 102Google Scholar.

5 Forster, E. M., A passage to India (1924), ed. Stallybrass, Oliver, with an introduction by Mishra, Pankaj (London, 2005), pp. 21–31Google Scholar.

6 See Solomon, Rakesh H., ‘Culture, imperialism, and nationalist resistance: performance in colonial India’, Theatre Journal, 46 (1994), 3, pp. 323–47CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Bhatia, Nandi, Acts of authority/acts of resistance: theatre and politics in colonial and postcolonial India (Oxford, 2004)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Chatterjee, Sudipto, The colonial staged: theatre in colonial Calcutta (London, 2007)Google Scholar; Singh, Lata, ed., Theatre in colonial India: play-house of power (Oxford, 2010)Google Scholar; Bratton, Jacqueline S., ed., Acts of supremacy: the British empire and the stage, 1790–1930 (Manchester, 1991)Google Scholar; Gainor, J. Ellen, ed., Imperialism and theatre: essays on world theatre, drama and performance (London, 1995)Google Scholar; Ziter, Edward, The Orient on the Victorian stage (Cambridge, 2003)Google Scholar; Platt, Musical comedy; Singleton, Brian, Oscar Asche, Orientalism, and British musical comedy (Westport, CT, 2004)Google Scholar; Gould, Marty, Nineteenth-century theatre and the imperial encounter (New York, NY, 2011)Google Scholar.

7 Harrop, Josephine, ‘Travelling theatres in the 1890s’, in Foulkes, Richard, ed., British theatre in the 1890s: essays on drama and the stage (Cambridge, 1992), pp. 192–200Google Scholar, at p. 192; see also her essay ‘The Holloways: a hundred years of travelling theatre history’, in Richard Foulkes, ed., Scenes from provincial stages: essays in honour of Kathleen Barker (London, 1994).

8 See Holloway, David, Playing the empire: the acts of the Holloway Touring Theatre Company (London, 1979)Google Scholar; Booth, Michael R., ‘Touring the empire’, Essays in Theatre, 6 (1987), 1, pp. 49–60Google Scholar; Frost, Christine Mangala, ‘30 rupees for Shakespeare: a consideration of imperial theatre in India’, Modern Drama 35 (1992), pp. 90–100Google Scholar; Kobayashi, Kaori, ‘Touring in Asia: the Miln Company's Shakespearean productions in Japan’, in Esche, Edward J., ed., Shakespeare and his contemporaries in performance (Aldershot, 2000), pp. 53–72Google Scholar; Foulkes, Richard, Performing Shakespeare in the age of empire (Cambridge, 2002)Google Scholar; Trivedi, Poonam, India's Shakespeare: translation, interpretation, and performance (Newark, DE, 2005)Google Scholar.

9 Lowerson, John, Amateur operatics: a social and cultural history (Manchester, 2005), pp. 208–17Google Scholar; see also Trivedi, Poonam, ‘Imperial Simla and the contest for performative space: the Gaiety and the Kali Bari theatres’, in Mandal, Somdatta, ed., The Indian imagiNation: colonial and postcolonial literature and culture (New Delhi, 2007), pp. 231–41Google Scholar; Forbes, Derek, ‘Simla: amateur theatre capital of the Raj’, Theatre Notebook, 62 (2008), pp. 77–120Google Scholar.

10 Bailey, ‘Musical comedy’; Platt, Musical comedy.

11 NODA Bulletin, 3 (1937), p. 3.

12 Orwell, George, Burmese days (1934) (London, 1986), p. 14Google Scholar.

13 Sinha, Mrinalini, ‘Britishness, clubbability, and the colonial public sphere: the genealogy of an imperial institution in colonial India’, in Journal of British Studies, 40 (2001), pp. 489–521CrossRefGoogle Scholar, at pp. 489, 490.

14 Harper, Tim N., ‘Globalism and the pursuit of authenticity: the making of a diasporic public sphere in Singapore’, Sojourn: Journal of Social Issues in Southeast Asia, 12 (1997), pp. 261–92CrossRefGoogle Scholar, at p. 272.

15 Mangan, J. A., ‘Prologue: Britain's chief spiritual export: imperial sport as moral metaphor, political symbol and cultural bond’, in his The cultural bond: sport, empire, society (London, 1992), pp. 1–10Google Scholar, at p. 1.

16 Harper, ‘Globalism’, p. 273.

17 Harrop, ‘Travelling theatres’, p. 192.

18 See Richards, Jeffrey, Sir Henry Irving: a Victorian actor and his world (London, 2005)Google Scholar; Davis, Tracy C., The economics of the British stage, 1800–1914 (Cambridge, 2000), pp. 213–30Google Scholar.

19 ‘Theatrical touring in the Far East: by one who tried it’, in The Stage Year Book 1917, p. 47.

20 See Rollins, Cyril, The D'Oyly Carte Opera Company in Gilbert and Sullivan operas (London, 1962)Google Scholar; Joseph, Tony, The D'Oyly Carte Opera Company, 1875–1982: an unofficial history (Bristol, 1994), pp. 86–92Google Scholar; Richards, Jeffrey, Imperialism and music: Britain, 1876–1953 (Manchester, 2001), p. 34Google Scholar.

21 See Davis, The economics of the British stage, p. 349.

22 See Bantock, Granville, Frederick George Aflalo, Round the world with ‘A gaiety girl’ (London, 1896)Google Scholar.

23 Victoria & Albert Museum, Theatre Collection (hereafter V&A), Gaiety royalties book, no. 2; I am using the contemporary names as they appear in the sources.

24 Ibid.

25 ‘Rehearsing a musical comedy on board ship’, Illustrated Sporting and Dramatic News, 3 July 1909, p. 767; for the day-to-day life of actors on a touring company, see also Lacy, Gertrude De, Some recollections of my tour with a musical comedy company in India & Java (London, 1910?)Google Scholar.

26 See Kobayashi, ‘Touring in Asia’, pp. 54–5.

27 Bandmann, Daniel E., An actor's tour or seventy thousand miles with Shakespeare, ed. Gisby, Barnard (Boston, MA, 1885)Google Scholar.

28 ‘Theatrical touring in the Far East.’

29 Campbell Henderson, ‘Touring in the Orient’, in The Stage Year Book 1920, pp. 87–8, at p. 87.

30 Ibid.

31 See Fraser, Maryna, ed., Johannesburg pioneer journals, 1888–1909 (Cape Town, 1986), p. 249Google Scholar; Fletcher, Jill, The story of theatre in South Africa: a guide to its history from 1780–1930 (Cape Town, 1994), pp. 111–15Google Scholar, 133; Holloway, Playing the empire; Harrop, ‘The Holloways’.

32 Leavitt, M. B., Fifty years in theatrical management (New York, NY, 1912), pp. 676, 671Google Scholar; see also ‘Death of Mr. Bandman’, Times of India, 13 Mar. 1922; Holloway, Playing the empire, p. 133.

33 V&A, Gaiety royalties book, no. 2.

34 See ‘Mr Maurice Bandman. His Enterprises in the East’, Weekly Sun, 30 Sept. 1911, p. 12; ‘The late Mr. M. E. Bandman’, Straits Times, 23 March 1922, p. 11.

35 Porter, Robert Percival, Japan, the new world-power: being a detailed account of the progress and rise of the Japanese empire (London, 1915), p. 556Google Scholar; see also Kobayashi, ‘Touring in Asia’.

36 ‘Death of Mr. Bandman’.

37 Leavitt, Fifty years, p. 671; see also ‘Mr Maurice Bandman’, p. 12.

38 ‘Death of Mr. Bandman’.

39 V&A, Gaiety royalties book, no. 2.

40 Macmillan, Allister, Seaports of the Far East: historical and descriptive commercial and industrial facts and figures, & resources (London, 1925), pp. 47–8Google Scholar.

41 Millin, Sarah Gertrude, The South Africans (London, 1927), p. 104Google Scholar.

42 Brown, A. Claude, The ordinary man's India (London, 1927), p. 100Google Scholar; Bolitho, Hector, Marie Tempest (London, 1936), p. 190Google Scholar; Reeve, Ada, Take it for a fact (London, 1954), pp. 165–86Google Scholar.

43 Leavitt, Fifty years, p. 671; see also Holloway, Playing the empire, p. 40.

44 ‘Theatrical touring in the Far East’, p. 43.

45 Ibid.

46 Simpson, , ‘Art in Afghanistan’, in Theatre, 4 (1881), pp. 140–3Google Scholar, at p. 141.

47 Hansen, Kathryn, Stages of life: Indian theatre autobiographies (London, 2011), p. 337Google Scholar.

48 See Leavitt, Fifty years, p. 671; Morris, Jan, Stones of empire: the buildings of the Raj (Oxford, 1983), p. 154Google Scholar.

49 Brown, The ordinary man's India, p. 100; Simpson, ‘Art in Afghanistan’, p. 140.

50 Gupta, Hemendra Nath Das, The Indian stage (2 vols., Calcutta, 1934), i, p. 277Google Scholar.

51 Ibid.

52 Guha-Thakurta, Prabhucharan, The Bengali drama: its origin and development (London, 1930), p. 50Google Scholar; see also Mukherjee, The story, pp. 1–7; Bharucha, Rustom, Rehearsals of revolution: the political theatre of Bengal (Honolulu, 1983), pp. 7–9Google Scholar.

53 Leavitt, Fifty years, p. 671.

54 Farrell, J. G., The Singapore grip (1978) (London, 1992), p. 94Google Scholar; see also Stier, Theodore, With Pavlova round the world (London, 1928), pp. 163–4Google Scholar.

55 Baden-Powell, Robert Stephens Smyth, Indian memories: recollections of soldiering, sport, etc. (London, 1915), p. 93Google Scholar.

56 Buck, Edward J., Simla, past and present (Calcutta, 1904), p. 133Google Scholar.

57 Ibid.

58 Baden-Powell, Indian memories, p. 93.

59 Simpson, ‘Art in Afghanistan’, p. 141; Newnham-Davis, Nathaniel, ‘Amateurs in foreign parts’, in Elliot, W. G., ed., Amateur clubs and actors, with illustrations by Newton, C. M. and from photographs (London, 1898), pp. 221–46Google Scholar, at pp. 221, 229.

60 See Elsmie, G. R., Thirty-five years in the Punjab, 1858–1893 (Edinburgh, 1908), pp. 94–5, pp. 121–3Google Scholar; Baden-Powell, Indian memories, pp. 93–5; Capper, Alfred, A rambler's recollections and reflections (New York, NY, 1925), p. 238Google Scholar; Lawrence, Walter Roper, The India we served, with an introductory letter by Kipling, Rudyard (London, 1928), pp. 80, 228Google Scholar; Austin, H. H., Some rambles of a sapper (London, 1928), pp. 145–6Google Scholar; Buck, Simla, pp. 133–52; Younghusband, Francis, The light of experience: a review of some men and events of my time (London, 1927), p. 8Google Scholar; Stotherd, Edward, Sabre & saddle (London, 1933), p. 101Google Scholar; Irvine, Andrew Alexander, Land of no regrets (Portsmouth, 1938), pp. 79, 121Google Scholar; Munro, David, It passed too quickly (London, 1941), p. 238Google Scholar; Sykes, Frederick, From many angles: an autobiography (London, 1942), pp. 54–5Google Scholar; Morris, Deborah, With scarlet majors (London, 1960), pp. 44–51Google Scholar; Butler, Iris, The viceroy's wife: letters of Alice, countess of Reading, from India, 1921–1925 (London, 1969), pp. 139–40Google Scholar; Corfield, Conrad, The princely India I knew: from Reading to Mountbatten, with a foreword by Trevelyan, Lord (Madras, 1975), p. 31Google Scholar; Allen, Charles, Plain tales from the Raj: images of British India in the twentieth century, ed. in association with Mason, Michael, introduction by Mason, Philip (London, 1987), pp. 158–9Google Scholar; Kaye, M. M., The sun in the morning: being the first part of Share of summer, the autobiography (London, 1992), pp. 108, 481–2Google Scholar.

61 Buck, Simla, pp. 78, 111, 144; on Town Hall and Gaiety Theatre, see also Morris, Stones of empire, p. 154; Kanwar, Pamela, Imperial Simla: the political culture of the Raj (Oxford, 2003), p. 61Google Scholar.

62 Newnham-Davis, ‘Amateurs in foreign parts’, p. 225; for a description see also Morris, With scarlet majors, p. 44; Kendal, Geoffrey, The Shakespeare wallah (London, 1986), p. 148Google Scholar.

63 Today the Gaiety Theatre is part of the Gaiety Heritage Cultural Complex, see www.gaiety.in/.

64 Newnham-Davis, ‘Amateurs in foreign parts’, p. 227; Amateur Dramatic Club Simla, Minutes cited in Kanwar, Imperial Simla, p. 78.

65 Bhasin, Raja, Simla, the summer capital of British India, foreword by Hamilton, M. M. K. (New Delhi, 1992), p. 139Google Scholar.

66 See Newnham-Davis, ‘Amateurs in foreign parts’, p. 223; Buck, Simla, pp. 142–51; Kanwar, Imperial Simla, p. 302.

67 See Buck, Simla, p. 139.

68 Denyer, P. H., The centenarian: being a summary of the history of Simla amateur theatricals during the past 100 years (Simla, 1937), p. 78Google Scholar.

69 Cited in Buck, Simla, p. 148.

70 Forster, A passage to India, p. 21; Koshla, G. D., Memory's gay chariot: an autobiographical narrative (New Dehli, 1985), p. 32Google Scholar; see also Lowerson, Amateur operatics, p. 211.

71 See Forbes, ‘Simla’, p. 99; the argument of class over-riding race was, of course, made in Cannadine, David, Ornamentalism: how the British saw their empire (London, 2001)Google Scholar.

72 See Kanwar, Imperial Simla, p. 171; Trivedi, ‘Imperial Simla’; Forbes, ‘Simla’, p. 99; on the craze for amateur theatricals in the Indian population see also Chaudhuri, Nirad C., The autobiography of an unknown Indian (London, 1951), p. 62Google Scholar.

73 Chatterjee, Sudipto, ‘Mise-en-(colonial-)scène: the theatre of the Bengal renaissance’, in Gainor, (ed.), Imperialism and theatre, pp. 19–37Google Scholar, 21; Singh, Colonial narratives, pp. 121–2.

74 Kanwar, Imperial Simla, p. 171.

75 Das, Durga, India from Curzon to Nehru & after, with a foreword by the president of India, Husain, Zakir (London, 1969), p. 87Google Scholar.

76 See Dunnicliff, H. B., ‘The Simla Amateur Dramatic Club’, Asiatic Review, 45 (1949), pp. 598–609Google Scholar, at pp. 605, 599.

77 Denyer, The centenarian, p. 15.

78 According to two newspaper articles, the Gaiety Dramatic Society, which currently runs the Gaiety Theatre, has acquired an archive of about 400 play scripts, some of them dating to colonial times. Unfortunately, this archive could not be accessed for this article. See Vishal Gulati, ‘With 400 scripts, Shimla's Gaiety Theatre recreates the past’, Thaindian News, 31 July 2012, www.thaindian.com/newsportal/feature/with-400-scripts-shimlas-gaiety-theatre-recreates-the-past-with-image_100634710.html; Dipanita Nath, ‘Plays of Gaiety’, Indian Express, 20 Aug. 2012, www.indianexpress.com/news/plays-of-gaiety/990377>.

79 See Summerfield, Penny, ‘Patriotism and empire: music hall entertainment, 1870–1914’, in MacKenzie, John M., ed., Imperialism and popular culture (Manchester, 1986)Google Scholar; Bratton, ed., Acts of supremacy; Gainor, ed., Imperialism and theatre; Richards, Imperialism and music, pp. 248–78; Ziter, The Orient on the Victorian stage; Platt, Musical comedy; Singleton, Oscar Asche; Gould, Nineteenth-century theatre.

80 See Cannadine, David, ‘Tradition: Gilbert and Sullivan as a “national institution”’, in his In Churchill's shadow: confronting the past in modern Britain (London, 2003), pp. 205–23Google Scholar; Lee, Josephine D., The Japan of pure invention: Gilbert and Sullivan's The Mikado (Minneapolis, MN, 2010)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Williams, Carolyn, Gilbert and Sullivan: gender, genre, parody (New York, 2011), pp. 255–73Google Scholar.

81 See Denyer, The centenarian, pp. 107–20; see also Newnham-Davis, ‘Amateurs in foreign parts’, p. 237; Buck, Simla, pp. 150–1.

82 See Gänzl, Kurt, The encyclopedia of the musical theatre (2 vols., Oxford, 1994), i, pp. 619–22Google Scholar; Richards, Imperialism and music, pp. 262–4: Platt, Musical comedy, pp. 65–7, 72–6; Hashimoto, Yorimitsu, ‘Japanese tea party: representations of Victorian paradise and playground in The Geisha (1896)’, in Walton, John K., ed., Histories of tourism: representation, identity and conflict (Clevedon, 2005), pp. 104–24Google Scholar.

83 See Hyam, Ronald, Empire and sexuality: the British experience (Manchester, 1992)Google Scholar.

84 British Library, London (BL), MSS 53600, The Geisha, Act 2.

85 Platt, Musical comedy, p. 75.

86 See Lee, The Japan of pure invention, p. xv, 43; Platt, Musical comedy, p. 78; on gender in the colonial context see also McClintock, Anne, Imperial leather: race, gender and sexuality in the colonial contest (New York, NY, 1995)Google Scholar; Sinha, Mrinalini, Colonial masculinity: the ‘manly Englishman’ and the ‘effeminate Bengali’ in the late nineteenth century (Manchester, 1995)Google Scholar.

87 BL, MSS A Pr. Br. Rep. 030–05–02 Nr. 372, The Geisha, Act 2. See also Buck, Simla, p. 150; Denyer, The centenarian, p. 11; Irvine, Land of no regrets, p. 79; Jeal, Tim, Baden-Powell: founder of the Boy Scouts (New Haven, CT, 2001), pp. 96–7Google Scholar; Hashimoto, ‘Japanese tea party’, p. 105.

88 BL, MSS LCP 1904/6, The Cingalee; see also Platt, Musical comedy, pp. 70, 79.

89 See Irvine, Land of no regrets, p. 80.

90 See, for example, Lahiri, Shompa, Indians in Britain: Anglo-Indian encounters, race and identity, 1880–1930 (Milton Park, 2010), p. 77Google Scholar.

91 Wingfield-Stratford, Barbara, India and the English (London, 1922), p. 40Google Scholar.

92 BL, MSS LCP 53535, A gaiety girl; see also Gänzl, The encyclopedia, i, pp. 509–10; Bailey, ‘Musical comedy’, pp. 176, 182, 190; Platt, Musical comedy.

93 See Gänzl, The encyclopedia, ii, pp. 1554–5; Bailey, ‘Musical comedy’, pp. 181–2; Rappaport, Erika D., Shopping for pleasure: women in the making of London's West End (Princeton, NJ, 2000), pp. 178–9, 206–12Google Scholar; Platt, Musical comedy.

94 BL, MSS LCP 53535, A gaiety girl, Act 1.

95 See Herbert, Christopher, War of no pity: the Indian mutiny and Victorian trauma (Princeton, NJ, 2008)Google Scholar; Chakravarty, Gautam, The Indian mutiny and the British imagination (Cambridge, 2005)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Chatterjee, Partha, The nation and its fragments: colonial and postcolonial histories (Princeton, NJ, 1999), pp. 19–24Google Scholar; Green, Dominic, Three empires on the Nile: the Victorian jihad, 1869–1899 (New York, NY, 2007)Google Scholar. More specifically, the phrase ‘India's coral strand’ harks back to Reginald Herber's hymn ‘From Greenland's icy mountain’, written in 1819. See Richards, Imperialism and music, p. 386.

96 Coffin, Hayden, Hayden Coffin's book: packed with acts and facts (London, 1930), pp. 100–6Google Scholar, 121–3.

97 Hicks, Granville, Figures of transition: a study of British literature at the end of the nineteenth century (New York, NY, 1939), p. 301Google Scholar.

98 See Summerfield, ‘Patriotism and empire’, pp. 37–8; Richards, Imperialism and music, pp. 267–70.

99 See Geppert, Alexander C. T., Fleeting cities: imperial expositions in fin-de-siècle Europe (Basingstoke, 2010), pp. 101–33CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

100 See Bailey, ‘Musical comedy’; Platt, Musical comedy.

101 Forster, A passage to India, p. 36; the play in question is Cousin Kate, a romantic comedy by Hubert Henry Davies which was performed by the Simla ADC in 1903. See Denyer, The centenarian, pp. 107–20.

102 Forster, A passage to India, p. 21.

103 Lawrence, The India we served, p. 80; interestingly, Denyer uses the exact same phrase, Denyer, The centenarian, p. 10.

104 Heinrich, Anselm, Entertainment, propaganda, education: regional theatre in Germany and Britain between 1918 and 1945 (Hatfield, 2007), p. 139Google Scholar.

105 ‘Theatrical touring in the Far East’, p. 47; Simpson, ‘Art in Afghanistan’, p. 140.

106 See, for instance, Kirk-Greene, Anthony, Briton's colonial administrators, 1858–1966 (Basingstoke and London, 2000)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

107 Singh, Colonial narratives, p. 122.

108 Ibid.

109 Morley, Henry, The journal of a London playgoer (1866) (Leicester, 1974), p. 14Google Scholar.

110 Hollingshead, John, ‘Good Old Gaiety’: an historiette and remembrance (London, 1903), p. 25Google Scholar.

111 See Patil, Anand, Western influence on Marathi drama: a case study (Panaji, 1993), p. 112Google Scholar; Lee, The Japan of pure invention, p. 217; Fraser, Johannesburg pioneer journals, pp. 199, 232–51; Kobayashi, ‘Touring in Asia’, pp. 55–7; Thorne, Ross, Theatre buildings in Australia to 1905, from the time of the first settlement to arrival of cinema (2 vols., Sydney, 1971), ii, pp. 128, 158–9, 194–221Google Scholar.

112 See Leavitt, Fifty years, p. 671; on the London Empire, see Donohue, Joseph W., Fantasies of empire: the Empire Theatre of Varieties and the licensing controversy of 1894 (Iowa City, IA, 2005)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Walkowitz, Judith R., Nights out: life in cosmopolitan London (New Haven, CT, 2012), pp. 44–63Google Scholar.

113 Davis, The economics of the British stage, p. 353.

114 Platt, Musical comedy, p. 78.

115 Bloom, Ursula, Curtain call for the Guv'nor: a biography of George Edwardes (London, 1954), p. 103Google Scholar.

116 ‘Sir George Alexander on the British empire’, Era, 25 May 1912, p. 15.

117 Hobson, John Atkinson, The psychology of jingoism (London, 1901), p. 3Google Scholar; see also Summerfield, ‘Patriotism and empire’.

118 Guha-Thakurta, The Bengali drama, pp. 37, 83.

119 Yājñika, Ramanalāla Ke, The Indian theatre: its origins and its later developments under European influence. With special reference to Western India (London, 1933), p. 254Google Scholar, on Western influence see also pp. 217–39; on Yajnik see Solomon, Rakesh H., ‘From Orientalist to postcolonial representations: a critique of Indian theatre historiography from 1827 to the present’, Theatre Research International, 29 (2004), 2, pp. 111–27CrossRefGoogle Scholar, at pp. 108–10.

120 See Balme, Christoper, Decolonizing the stage: theatrical syncretism and post-colonial drama (Oxford, 1999), p. 18CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

121 See Singh, Colonial narratives, p. 124.

122 Trivedi, ‘Imperial Simla’, 232.

123 Solomon, ‘Culture, imperialism, and nationalist resistance’; Bhatia, Acts of authority; Chatterjee, The colonial staged; Trivedi, ‘Imperial Simla’; see also Lata Singh's introduction to Theatre in colonial India.

124 Craik, Henry, Impressions of India (London, 1908), p. 115Google Scholar.

125 See Vinnels, David, Bollywood showplaces: cinema theatres in India (Cambridge, 2002)Google Scholar.