Abstract
After postmodern approaches called into question the foundations of academic history in the 1970s and 1980s, recent studies have identified a new boom in popular history formats such as historical novels, costume drama and TV documentaries. This trend has also spurred new theoretical approaches towards (popular) history, which are both a continuation and a reaction to postmodern theories. On the basis of these, this paper analyses two plays by the British writer and comedian Kjartan Poskitt – Henry the Tudor Dude: A Musical Play (1995) and Nell’s Belles: The Swinging Sixteen-Sixties Show: A Musical (2002)—both aimed at young amateur actors. These two plays present panoramic views of the lives of the English kings Henry VIII and Charles II, respectively, and show their objects in a highly entertaining and irreverent light, concentrating on their flamboyant private lives and personal failures. The paper demonstrates how these plays approach the dual aims of teaching and entertaining that are so typical of both children’s literature and popular history in general. Moreover, it argues that though the plays represent a new development in the previously neglected field of historical drama for the young, they can also serve to demonstrate recent theoretical approaches towards (popular) history.
Highlights
Kjartan Poskitt’s Henry the Tudor Dude, a comic musical for young amateur actors and young audiences, follows the life and loves of the English king Henry VIII
Poskitt has used the same approach to the past in other plays as well: a very similar treatment of an historical monarch can be observed in Nell’s Belles: The Swinging Sixteen-Sixties Show (2002). This comic musical follows the relationship between King Charles II and Nell Gwynne and depicts Charles II as ‘Charlie’ —a typical 1960s sex guru: Charles: Hey! Who’s this gorgeous creature? Irene [the charlady]: Who are you talking to? Me or my mob? Charles: I’ll take both. [15]
Taking into account the play’s young audience, the jokes are comparatively mild; and yet depicting Charles as a kind of Austin-Powers figure is clearly another means of turning the past into an exciting soap-opera, especially as Charles’s sexual prowess is presented in such an exaggerated fashion it cannot possible be taken seriously: Twins: Everybody knows about Charlie! Mercy :You ask my mum
Summary
Celebrities and Working Mums: Kjartan Poskitt’s Plays for Young Actors as History and Entertainment. Synthesis: an Anglophone Journal of Comparative Literary Studies, 0(8), 81-98.
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