Class in British Musical Theatre

This short book gives an overview of the relationship between class and musical theatre in Britain, and how the class system plays out through industry practices.

Beginning with an analysis of the 2001 London production of My Fair Lady as an example of class representation, Class in British Musical Theatre argues how productions are marketed to particular groups, how audience segmentation practices feed into a classed discourse, and how all this shapes how musical theatre as a genre is received. It takes in contemporary musicals such as Everybody's Talking About Jamie and Matilda and looks back to Oh, What a Lovely War!.

Published in the Topics in Musical Theatre series, this short book gives the reader new ways of seeing the aesthetically and politically capacious category of class in musical theatre from a fresh perspective.