Friday, March 04, 2011

Coatless Youths

I want the theater that Dickens described:

"Dickens and other commentators marked, in the Britannia and theatres like it, the huge and suffocating galleries packed with coatless youths who expressed approval and disapproval with shrill whistles, cheers and united sound effects of massive volume; the consumption of fried fish, porter, sausages, ham sandwiches, cakes, oranges and pig-trotters; the babies in the pit; the general spirit of enjoyment; the immense popularity of stage favourites and comic songs; and intense interest in the business of the stage." [Booth, "The Theatre and Its Audience," in The Revels History of Drama in English, p. 27]

P.S. Coatless Youths would be an amazing name for a punk band.

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