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David Garrick and the Mediation of Celebrity

Leslie Ritchie author

Format:Hardback

Publisher:Cambridge University Press

Published:17th Jan '19

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David Garrick and the Mediation of Celebrity cover

Explores how David Garrick - actor, newspaper proprietor and part-owner of Drury Lane Theatre - mediated his own celebrity.

Uncovers new material concerning David Garrick's ownership and manipulation of the media that will interest readers of theatre history, journalism and media studies, celebrity studies, advertising and social history. It gives the first view of Garrick as media entrepreneur, and quantifies and analyses Garrick's mediation of his own celebrity.What happens when an actor owns shares in the stage on which he performs and the newspapers that review his performances? Celebrity that lasts over 240 years. From 1741, David Garrick dominated the London theatre world as the progenitor of a new 'natural' style of acting. From 1747 to 1776, he was a part-owner and manager of Drury Lane, controlling most aspects of the theatre's life. In a spectacular foreshadowing of today's media convergences, he also owned shares in papers including the St James's Chronicle and the Public Advertiser, which advertised and reviewed Drury Lane's theatrical productions. This book explores the nearly inconceivable level of cultural power generated by Garrick's entrepreneurial manufacture and mediation of his own celebrity. Using new technologies and extensive archival research, this book uncovers fresh material concerning Garrick's ownership and manipulation of the media, offering timely reflections for theatre history and media studies.

'There is much new material here - thanks to Ritchie's expert mining of manuscript and archival materials - for theater historians and scholars of media. Fine illustrations; full bibliography … Highly recommended.' E. D. Hill, Choice
'Leslie Ritchie's meticulous David Garrick and the Mediation of Celebrity joins such re-considerations of the assumptions and anecdotes that shape the study of eighteenth-century theatre – and particularly of its most famous actor-manager.' Julia H. Fawcett, Theatre Journal

ISBN: 9781108475877

Dimensions: 235mm x 158mm x 19mm

Weight: 640g

312 pages