Kitty Marion: actor and activist edited by Viv Gardner and Diane Atkinson, Manchester, Manchester University Press, 2019, 282 pp., ISBN 978-1-5261-3804-0 [Book review]

Review for Women's History Review of Kitty Marion: actor and activist

Gagging for it: irony, innuendo and the politics of subversion in women’s comic performance on the post-1880 London music-hall stage and its resonance in contemporary practice

This thesis focuses on women performing comedy on the London music-hall stage after 1880, examining performers including Bessie Bellwood, Marie Lloyd, Marie Loftus, Maidie Scott, Vesta Victoria and Nellie Wallace. The work of these women as comedy has been neglected in theatre and performance histories, and their influence on the evolution of popular forms and the development of twentieth and twenty-first century comic traditions has received little scholarly attention. I argue that performing comic material offered them unique opportunities to connect directly with popular audiences, resist censorship and to challenge gender stereotypes and common perceptions of and restrictions on women and women’s roles in Britain during the late-nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. As part of their performances they developed comic approaches and techniques that remain identifiable in contemporary comedy, engaging in a range of strategies, from playful and disruptive ironic representations of familiar female types, to deliberately transgressive acts of crossing the line of decency through the embodiment of comic innuendo. Their knowing interpretations of coded references in the written texts of the material performed and jokes shared with their audiences during performances frequently served as ironic socio-political commentary on their lives and experiences. Making use of a range of critical approaches from areas as diverse as performance history and historiography, contemporary approaches to gender and comedy, performance theory, humour theory and feminist literary theory, I engage in analysis of extensive archive material. Throughout the thesis I also draw direct comparisons with the work of women who use comedy in late twentieth and twenty-first century forms, including stand-up comedy and performance art, to demonstrate a continuum of comic practice existing between these female music-hall artists and their counterparts performing comedy today

A funny thing happened on the way to the checkpoint: teaching stand-up comedy in occupied Palestine

This article considers ideas about the performance of personal stories in stand-up comedy that emerged during a teaching and performance project in a refugee camp in Palestine. After experimenting with a range of stand-up techniques and approaches, participants created public performances sharing their experiences of life under military occupation

Funny and disturbing: women’s serio-comic performances on the Victorian music hall

This article considers the contributions made to UK comic performance history by women serio-comic performers on the late-nineteenth century British music hall. These women were associated with gritty and witty portrayals of the lives of lower-class Victorians and frequently engaged in ironic representations of ‘acceptable’ versions of female behaviour in performances combining the serious and the comic. Reflecting on the style and content of their characterisations and their direct interactions with audiences, the article examines the varied nature of these largely forgotten acts, and considers the echoes of such serio-comic approaches in contemporary comedy

The Autistic Experience of Exercising within Nature-Based Environments: An Interpretive Phenomenological Analysis

Background: The psychological impact of exercising in nature has gained considerable research attention in recent years under the heading green exercise (GE). Literature has examined specific benefits of GE, comparison between indoor and outdoor environments and has utilised different theories to understand these benefits and differences. To date no academic literature has examined the impact of GE on autistic people with a diagnoses of Aspergers Syndrome (AS) (a former term to refer to autism without an accompanying intellectual disability), and a condition characterised by hypersensitive and hyposensitive senses, intuitively it has been suggested that the natural environment might not be a compatible setting for autistic people due to its unpredictable and sensory provoking conditions. Method: A group of four autistic males were interviewed using a semi structured interview schedule. Interviews were transcribed and then analysed using interpretive phenomenological analysis (IPA). Results/Discussion: Three superordinate themes were identified, positive introductions to nature (this group discussed how important having a good start in this environment was to engaging in this activity), positive association with nature (the participants viewed natural environments where they exercised in a positive way), and purpose and practicalities (participants spoke of viewing GE favourably when there was a purpose to it above and beyond doing it for its own sake) with 5 associated subordinate themes. Results suggest that autistic people appear to get considerable positive psychological outcomes from engaging within GE which relate directly to some of the features of AS e.g. disruptive concerns and that a functional purpose to the GE would be helpful in terms of encouraging uptake of and adherence to GE within an autistic group

Absolute differential positronium-formation cross sections

The first absolute experimental determinations of the differential cross-sections for the formation of ground-state positronium are presented for He, Ar, H2 and CO2 near 0○. Results are compared with available theories. The ratio of the differential and integrated cross-sections for the targets exposes the higher propensity for forward-emission of positronium formed from He and H2