(Neo-)Victorian Impersonations:
Vesta Tilley and Tipping the Velvet
Keywords:
adaptation, cross-dressing, the gaze, gender, music hall, neo-Victorian, performance, sexuality, stage, transvestismAbstract
This paper examines the multi-layered adaptation and (re)presentation of the male impersonator on the Victorian music hall stage. It focuses specifically on the act of performing the performance of gender, the sexual titillation that ensues from such an act and how the format of delivery can impact audience reactions towards the cross-dresser. Particular attention is paid to the comparison between the male impersonation as performed by one of the most famous of Victorian and Edwardian male impersonators, Vesta Tilley (1864-1952), and the neo-Victorian (re)negotiations of the male impersonator as depicted in Sarah Waters's Tipping the Velvet (1998) and the subsequent BBC adaptation of Waters's novel which aired in 2002.
