The Rise and Fall of the Metropolitan Police Minstrels

在文化研究中，对黑脸吟游诗人现象有相当大的兴趣，特别是在美国背景下。这个主题为研究“黑人”在19世纪和20世纪文化中的社会和音乐结构提供了空间，相反，它也告诉我们很多关于当代“白人”的概念。对英国黑脸表演的研究落后了，但有可能在重要方面发展这些主题，突出大西洋两岸黑脸传统的异同。这一领域最具启发性的文献是迈克尔·皮克林和德里克·斯科特的作品，其中大部分由阿什盖特出版。（皮克林的《英国黑脸吟游诗人》是英国黑脸史的第一部延伸书，将于2008年3月出版，它将大大促进人们对这种广泛存在的音乐娱乐形式的理解。）主要是通过后殖民时期的学术研究，音乐学家们找到了解决英美表演历史中这一引人注目但令人不安的方面的理论工具。从19世纪40年代到20世纪30年代，黑脸吟游诗人是英国音乐生活的主要组成部分，在时尚和受人尊敬的场所（如圣詹姆斯大厅），繁荣的维多利亚海滨度假胜地（直到20世纪30年代被皮埃罗剧团取代），以及首都和其他主要城市中心的街道上都有发现。迄今为止，学者们关注的是美国巡演剧团的活动和接待，以及随之而来的专业团体；但业余吟游诗人也同样重要，其中最著名的业余吟游诗人团体是大都会警察吟游诗人（mpm）。mpm是由伦敦警察厅的现役警察组成的，他们中的许多人都与警队早期组织的欢乐合唱团有联系。从19世纪70年代初到20世纪30年代解散，他们在伦敦各地演出，为大都会和城市警察孤儿院筹集资金，他们不间断的表演生涯还没有被音乐学家、警察历史学家或文化历史学家注意到，更不用说成为学术研究的焦点了。正如我所展示的，MPM剧团对音乐创作在不断演变的英国警察公众形象中的作用提供了丰富的见解；英国文化中黑脸表演的意义和解释，以及警察对这一传统的参与；以及早期维多利亚式的表演方式与摄影、留声机和电影等新兴技术的碰撞（mpm在20世纪20年代至少录制了一张唱片，在《爵士歌手》发行三年后，mpm就“对讲机”进行了最终无果的谈判）。mpm的表演也阐明了性别的各个方面，不仅与“新警察”（一种新的等级男性职业）的创造和巩固有关，而且因为女性模仿从一开始就出现在他们的表演中，并在哑剧女克拉克森·罗斯（Clarkson Rose）的怂恿下，在20世纪20年代管理mpm的哑剧女克拉克森·罗斯（Clarkson Rose）的怂恿下，最终创造了“警察女孩”（一个穿着女装、丝绸和白脸的合唱团）。mpm的巨大成功和受欢迎程度在全国各地的警察部队中引起了模仿，但也引起了警官们的反感，他们热衷于通过运动、拳击、音乐骑行和游行乐队来推广不那么模糊的男性权威形式。这项研究利用了伦敦警察厅的大量档案，伦敦警察厅设立了一个委员会来管理吟游诗人团的活动；大都会和城市警察孤儿基金的档案和财务记录；采访那些在二三十年代目睹过MPM剧团的人；属于前牧师家庭的文件；还有当代报纸和警察期刊上的音乐会报道。这里首次探讨了与mpm有关的材料。

In cultural studies there has been considerable interest in the phenomenon of blackface minstrelsy, particularly in US contexts. The topic offers scope for investigating 'blackness' as a social and musical construction in 19th- and 20th-century culture, and conversely has much to tell us about contemporary notions of 'whiteness'. Study of British blackface performance has lagged behind, but potentially develops these themes in important ways, highlighting similarities and differences between blackface traditions on either side of the Atlantic. The most illuminating literature in this area, much of it published by Ashgate, is by Michael Pickering and Derek Scott. (Pickering's _Blackface Minstrelsy in Britain_, the first extended history of British blackface, is due out in March 2008, and will do much to advance understanding of this widespread form of musical entertainment.) It is largely through postcolonial scholarship that musicologists have found the theoretical wherewithal to tackle this telling, but uncomfortable aspect of Anglo-American performance history. From the 1840s until the 1930s, blackface minstrelsy was a major strand in British musical life, found in fashionable and respectable venues (such as St James's Hall), flourishing Victorian seaside resorts (until superseded by Pierrot troupes in the 1930s), and on the streets of the capital and other major urban centres. To date, scholars have concentrated on the activities and reception of touring American troupes, and the professional groups which sprang up in their wake; but amateur minstrelsy was arguably just as significant, and among the most well known of the amateur minstrel troupes was the Metropolitan Police Minstrels (MPMs). The MPMs were formed from the ranks of active police officers in the Met, many of whom had been associated with a glee club organised early in the force's history. They performed across London, raising funds for the Metropolitan and City Police Orphanage, from the early 1870s until they were disbanded in the 1930s, and their unbroken performance career has yet to be noticed by musicologists, police historians, or cultural historians, let alone become the focus of scholarly study. As I show, the MPM troupe offers rich insights into the role of music-making in the evolving public image of the British police service; meanings and interpretations of blackface performance in British culture and of policemen's engagement with this tradition; and early encounters between an essentially Victorian mode of performance, and emergent technologies such as photography, gramophone, and cinema (the MPMs made at least one recording during the 1920s, and entered into ultimately inconclusive negotiations for a 'talkie' just three years after the release of _The Jazz Singer_). The performances of the MPMs also illuminate aspects of gender, not only in relation to the creation and consolidation of the 'new police', a new hierarchical masculine profession, but also because female impersonation featured in their act from the beginning, and culminated in the creation of the 'Police Girls' (a chorus-line in drag, silks, and whiteface) at the instigation of the pantomime dame Clarkson Rose, who managed the MPMs in the 1920s. The phenomenal success and popularity of the MPMs spawned imitations in police forces across the country, but also antagonised officers keen to promote less equivocal forms of masculine authority through athleticism, boxing, musical rides, and marching bands. The study draws on the extensive archives of the Metropolitan Police, which operated a committee to manage the activities of the Minstrels; the archives and financial records of the Metropolitan and City Police Orphans' Fund; interviews with those who witnessed the MPM troupe in the '20s and '30s; papers belonging to the families of former Minstrels; and concert reports in contemporary newspapers and police periodicals. Material relating to the MPMs is explored here for the first time.