Introduction: Entertainment and the City

Abstract

This Introduction outlines the critical and historic context for using Glasgow’s ‘Britannia’ music hall as a prism through which to view the development of popular urban entertainments in nineteenth- and early twentieth-century cities. Discussing music hall’s relationship to cultural cosmopolitanism, it takes in debates as to whether music hall can be seen as a commercial development or an expression of popular culture that offers continuities with older entertainment forms. It also explores how recent writing on the significance of popular theatres in forming national culture and identity chimes with Scottish theatre’s historic development as a popular theatre with links to pre-industrial entertainment culture and to Scott’s national drama.