The Maud Allan Affair

by Russell James

2009 · Casemate Publishers

Maud Allan, the famous exotic dancer was destroyed by the infamous libel trial brought by charismatic British Member of Parliament. and pilot, Noel Pemberton-Billing.In this wonderfully written book, Russell James charts her rise and fall from the days when she saved the 1908 London Olympics from failure to the outrageous miscarriage of justice of her trial which knocked the dark days of the First World War off the front pages of the national newspapers.In his gripping narrative, Russell seamlessly moves from the days when Maud was courted by society to the end when her friends, apart from former PMs wife, Margot Asquith, shunned her in case they, too, were labeled as sexual deviants. The trial was based on the existence of the notorious (and fictional?). German black book and its list of 47,000 sexually depraved people who could be used by the Germans to defeat the British in War. Names included Herbert and Margot Asquith and the judge himself. Maud Allan did not stand a chance.A fantastic read brought out in time for the 2008 Beijing Olympics which will be looking ahead to the next London Olympics, in four years time.

English Theatre in Transition 1881-1914

by James Woodfield

2015 · Routledge

Originally published in 1984. The turn of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries was a time of considerable change in the English theatre. Victorian attitudes were shocked or shattered by the new drama of Ibsen; the major figure of George Bernard Shaw dominated the period; theatre censorship was the subject of a long and furious contest; and staging conventions changed from the spectacular stylings of Irving and Beerbohm Tree to the masking and statuesque styles of Isadora Duncan and the inner realism of Stanislavsky. This book traces the activities of the leading figures in the English theatre, notably William Archer who introduced Ibsen to this country and who became one of the main promoters of the idea of a National Theatre. Other personalities discussed include Harley Granville Barker, particularly his association with Shaw at the Court Theatre and his part in campaigns against censorship and for changes in the staging of Shakespeare, and Edward Gordon Craig, whose rebellion against the Victorian theatre took and anti-realist direction. This is a stimulating account of the background to the modern English theatre which can only increase appreciation of its standard and variety.