Adam Ainsworth is senior lecturer in Drama at Kingston University, London, UK. His research interests include 19th-century pantomime, music hall and variety theatre and he is currently undertaking doctoral research that will produce the first detailed history of the Empire Theatre at Kingston-upon-Thames. He co-convenes the TaPRA Popular Performance Working Group.Oliver Double started his career as a professional comedian before lecturing on and teaching drama and comedy at the University of Kent, UK. He is the author of many journal articles on stand-up comedy and comedians. His publications include Stand Up: On Being A Comedian (2005) and Getting the Joke (2nd edition, 2014).Louise Peacock is assistant professor of theatre practice at the University of Southern California, USA. She is the author of Serious Play: Modern Clown Performance (2009) and Slapstick and Comic Performance: Comedy and Pain (2014). She is a member of the editorial board of Comedy Studies.

• IntroductionChapter 1 From Domestic Song to Drawing Room Recitation: Dan Leno’s Music Hall Repertoire (Caroline Radcliffe, University of Birmingham, UK)Chapter 2 American Vaudeville (Leigh Woods, Professor of Theatre, University of Michigan, USA) Chapter 3 It’s 1922 and at the Munich Kammerspiele Karl Valentin performs Der Christbaumbrettl at Die rote Zibebe (Michael Wilson, Professor of Drama, Loughborough University, UK)Chapter 4 Packed from Pit to Ceiling: the Kingston Empire (Adam Ainsworth, Kingston University, UK)Chapter 5 Grock: Genius among Clowns (Louise Peacock, University of Hull, UK)Chapter 6 Something Wicked: the Theatre of Derren Brown (Michael Mangan, Loughborough University, UK)Chapter 7 Performing the Burlesque Body: The Explicit Female Body as Palimpsest (Dr. Lynn Sally, Metropolitan College of New York, USA) Chapter 8 "Hiya Fans!" Celebrity Performance and Reception in Modern British Pantomime (Simon Sladen, V&A Museum, UK)Chapter 9 With them, Not at Them (Bim Mason, Circomedia, UK)Chapter 10 What’s special about stand-up comedy? Josie Long’s Lost Treasures of the Black Heart (Sophie Quirk, University of Kent, UK)Chapter 11 ‘It feels like a group of friends messing around onstage.’ Pappy’s and live sketch comedy (Oliver Double, University of Kent, UK)ConclusionEndnotesBibliographyIndexNotes on Contributors

An interesting collection of academic treatments of areas of performance that perhaps do not get as much attention, which has to be welcomed.