The Rise and Fall of the Metropolitan Police Minstrels

在文化研究中，黑脸吟游诗人现象引起了相当大的兴趣，特别是在美国的语境中。该主题提供了范围调查“黑色”作为一个社会和音乐建设在19世纪和20世纪的文化，反过来也有很多告诉我们当代的“白色”的概念。对英国黑人表演的研究已经落后，但可能以重要的方式发展这些主题，突出大西洋两岸黑人传统之间的相似性和差异。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《英国的黑脸吟游诗人》是英国黑脸的第一部长篇历史，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。）音乐学家们主要是通过后殖民研究找到了理论上的必要手段，来处理英美表演史上这一生动但令人不安的方面。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中的一个主要部分，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。到目前为止，学者们主要关注美国巡回剧团的活动和接待，以及随之兴起的专业团体;但业余吟游诗人也可以说同样重要，其中最著名的业余吟游诗人剧团是大都会警察吟游诗人（MPM）。MPM是由大都会警察局的现役警官组成的，其中许多人与该部队历史早期组织的欢乐合唱团有关。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，从19世纪70年代初一直到20世纪30年代解散，他们不间断的表演生涯尚未被音乐学家、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剧团提供了丰富的见解，音乐制作在英国警察服务不断发展的公众形象中的作用;英国文化中黑脸表演的意义和解释，以及警察与这一传统的接触;以及早期维多利亚时代的表演模式与摄影、留声机等新兴技术的相遇，和电影（MPM在20世纪20年代至少录制了一张唱片，并在《爵士歌手》发行三年后就进入了最终没有结果的谈判）。MPM的表演也阐明了性别方面的问题，不仅与“新警察”（一种新的等级制男性职业）的创建和巩固有关，而且还因为从一开始她们的表演就以女性扮演为特色，并在“女警察”的创建中达到高潮。（一个穿着长袍、丝绸和白脸的合唱队）是在哑剧女演员克拉克森罗斯的鼓动下，她在20世纪20年代管理着MPM。MPM的巨大成功和受欢迎程度在全国各地的警察部队中引发了模仿，但也引起了那些热衷于通过运动、拳击、音乐游乐设施和游行乐队来促进男性权威的不那么模棱两可的形式的官员的反感。这项研究利用了大都会警察局的大量档案，该委员会负责管理吟游诗人的活动;大都会和城市警察孤儿基金的档案和财务记录;对20年代和30年代目睹MPM剧团的人的采访;属于前吟游诗人家庭的文件;以及当代报纸和警察期刊上的音乐会报道。与MPM相关的材料在这里首次进行了探索。

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.