Biddall's Walk: Travelling Life and the imprint of early cinema. (original) (raw)
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The European Journal of Life Writing, 2020
The article provides insight into the as yet not consistently documented history of travelling showpeople (owners of funfair rides which are operated by them at temporary fairs) in Upper Austria from the end of the nineteenth century to the present. Its focus is on three aspects: (1) the interrelation between technological developments and the popular entertainment medium that is the fairground, which is reflected in its technical equipment and aesthetic manifestations, and (2) the economic conditions to which travelling showpeople are subject. It is also going to discuss the question of how travelling, the movement that determines this profession, shapes the biographies and life concepts of travelling showpeople. (3) a reflection on the transformation of their trade taking one of their ancestors, Johannes Meyerott (1840–1909), as a point of reference.
In the Belly of the Beast: The Itinerant British Showman and the Definition of 'Seer Performance'
This article explores the potential for embodied performance practice to interrogate contemporary social relations in public space and time: this is particularly pertinent as the public realm becomes increasingly controlled and defined. It is my assertion that there is a mode of itinerant showman performance which uses historical tropes of popular entertainment in fabric, form and text, operating in unstratified public spaces, to deliver radical commentary upon contemporary socioeconomic circumstances: this I have coined 'Seer Performance'. The performativity of itinerant British showmen has evaded cultural analysis for centuries, but in this article I examine how this style of delivery can provide contemporary opportunities to challenge the hegemonic orthodoxy of the streets. Seer performance occupies a liminal space between heritage performance and contemporary practice and is demonstrated by my research into the historical practice of fairground sideshows, flea circuses and peepshows, combined with my autoethnographic performance. Seer performance is not a new form, but rather a new term through which to understand a performance function that has existed as long as there has been storytelling and showmanship. Tony Lidington is a scholar-practitioner associated with the Department of Drama, University of Exeter.
Peepshows for All: Performing Words and the Travelling Showman
Zeitschrift für Anglistik und Amerikanistik, 2015
The ‘peepshow’ was one of the commonest and cheapest forms of optical entertainment for most of the nineteenth century: however, it has received relatively little scholarly attention. This essay explores the heyday of the peepshow through a detailed exploration of its exhibition spaces, performance practices, and audience experiences, as well as its relationship with other popular forms such as theatre, lecturing, and illustrated journalism. In particular, the essay argues that the peepshow should not be seen as predominantly a ‘visual’ show, but, rather, that the oral performance of the peep showman was crucial to the appeal and organisation of the exhibition. The visual tableaux were subservient to his narrative, and the showman needs to be seen as part of the growth of illustrated lecturing during the period.
Reel to Rattling Reel': Telling stories about rural cinema-going in Scotland
2019
As Annette Kuhn explains in relation to her pioneering research on cinema culture in 1930s Britain, ‘how people remember is as much a text to be deciphered as what they remember’ (2002: 6). This article, drawing from research conducted as part of a three-year AHRCfunded project looking at the history of the Highlands and Islands Film Guild (The Major Minor Cinema Project: Highlands and Islands Film Guild 1946-71, University of Glasgow and University of Stirling), 1 will examine the ways in which cinema memories are narrativised. The article will focus in particular on the creative writing strand of the project, which was inspired by the surprising discovery of the project’s pilot study that some cinema-goers from the period of research had been inspired to write poems or stories in response to their experience of going to the Film Guild screenings. Through a consideration of the project’s oral history interviews, alongside correspondence with respondents and other written accounts, ...
Fusing fact and fiction: Placemaking through film tours in Edinburgh
European Journal of Cultural Studies, 2020
The current article focuses on the cultural practice of four film tours in Edinburgh, Scotland, analysing how film tours like these contribute to more general placemaking processes. Prior research has shown how film tours have become a staple of the tourist consumption of many contemporary cities. Building on these studies, the current article focuses explicitly on one of the defining features of these tours, namely the fictional character of their central topic. More particularly, this study examines how film tours are built up around a presumed conflation of imagined and material space. It argues that film tours are forms of cultural ‘work’ in which fictional plotlines from cinema are integrated into and used to revitalize notions of place. Through these practices, cinematic fiction eventually becomes part of what is experienced as the ‘true core’ of Edinburgh.
The trade show as a reception context in 1910s Glasgow
Growing interest in non-theatrical exhibition contexts is creating expanded, more diverse historical perspectives on the cinematic experience. Trade screenings, however, remain an under-researched form of film presentation. By documenting the early history of trade shows in Scotland, this paper argues that they constituted a particular reception context which was necessary for the material operation of a regional film trade as an economic sector, but also as a social sphere. The paper examines the changing conditions in which films were shown to the trade during the silent period, and considers the emergence of film reviewing as a localised practice in tension with industry trends. Access to film previews was a marker of the leverage held by different agents in the trade, and thus a study of this reception context sheds light on the changing power dynamic between local and international forces.