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Calvert, Dave

‘Royal Pierrots’ and ‘White Coons’: the British Pierrot Troupe in the Racial and National Imaginary

Original Citation

Calvert, Dave (2013) ‘Royal Pierrots’ and ‘White Coons’: the British Pierrot Troupe in the Racial

and National Imaginary. New Theatre Quarterly, 29 (2). pp. 107-120. ISSN 0266-464X

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THE PIERROT TROUPE emerged in the 1890sas a performance act largely focused on thecoastal resorts of Great Britain. Adopting theimage of the Pierrot character from the his -torical commedia dell’arte, the British troupesperformed al fresco shows on beaches andpromenades, incorporating a range of song,dance, comedy, and speciality acts thatreflected contemporary tastes for varietytheatre. The expansion and popularity of theform – sustained until the Second World War– suggests that it held deep-seated reson -ances within the British context of the time.

The appropriation of archaic spectacle forcontemporary purposes was certainly a tac ticof public performance that ranged beyondthe construction of the Pierrot troupe. Inemploying the strategy, such troupes con -nected with a symbolic network that includedthe ceremonial pageantry of royal occasions,the architectural landscape of the seaside,and the influential performance tradition ofblackface minstrelsy.

Speaking of the revival of royal pageantryin the late nineteenth century, David Canna -dine notes that:

In such an age of change, crisis, and dislocation,the ‘preservation of anachronism’, the deliberate,ceremonial presentation of an impotent but vener -ated monarch as a unifying symbol of per -manence and national community became bothpossible and necessary.1

The public presentation of the royal family inthis period aimed at providing an antidote tothe unsettling advances of modernism, and aBritish anchor for the pandemic global con -cern with nationhood. While serving as themost emphatic symbol of such concerns, themonarch and its family were far from uniquein this respect. Cannadine notes that thefoun dation of redbrick universities at the timepursued, in their architecture and ceremo -nies, ‘the anachronistic allure of archaic butinvented spectacle’.2 Ward notes similarlythat, after the First World War, ‘guild social -ism was temporarily able to flourish as itapplied ‘medieval’ organization to buildinghouses for local authorities’.3 In its referenceback to the early modern form of commediadell’arte, the Pierrot troupe linked into a con -temporary rather than historical networkgrounded in the preservation of anachronism.

ntq 29:2 (may 2013) © cambridge university press doi:10.1017/S0266464X13000225 107

Dave Calvert

‘Royal Pierrots’ and ‘White Coons’:the British Pierrot Troupe in the Racialand National Imaginary

The Pierrot tradition, invented towards the end of the nineteenth century, established aprevalent but now largely forgotten mode of performance around the coastal resorts ofBritain. In this article, Dave Calvert considers the relevance of this form in its historicalcontext. Arguing that it observes the preservation of anachronism consistent with notionsof invented traditions, he situates the Pierrot tradition within a symbolic network concernedwith national identity and experience. This includes its declared links to the constructionof royalty as the head of the imperial family, and both its schism and continuity with thetradition of blackface minstrelsy whose conventions it maintains. Its location at the seasideaccentuates this network of relations and elevates it to a transcendental plane of theimaginary untroubled by the complexities of modern life. Dave Calvert is a Senior Lecturerin Drama at the University of Huddersfield. His research encompasses popular theatre,applied theatre and learning-disabled performance. He is also a member of The Pierrotters,the last remaining professional seaside Pierrot troupe.

Key terms: invented tradition, seaside entertainment, blackface minstrelsy.

The connection with royalty was mostexplicit in the naming of several troupes as‘Royal Pierrots’. The wider reson ance of thisassociation moved from kingdom to empire.Since the declaration of Queen Victoria asEmpress of India in 1877 monarchy andempire had become inextricable, so that thesymbolism of national community was en -circled by symbolism of imperial community.The place of the Pierrot troupe in this net -work negotiated these inward- and outward-looking complexities of nationhood. In this,the symbolic location of the seaside added asecondary relation which further contextual -ized such negotiations. Characterized as aliminal space where everyday restraintscould be relaxed, the seaside was also rela -tively contained between the borders withhome and empire. In architecture and culture,it looked back to the nation’s metropolitancentres while at the same time pointingbeyond to the exoticism of distant colonies.

The space of the Pierrot troupe is, in thissense, one in which the demands, tensions,and ambitions of the national and imperialcharacter are brought into play. This is mostmarkedly proposed through the third sym -bolic relation I would like to discuss, theinterplay between Pierrot performance andblackface minstrelsy. The British tradition ofblackface performance followed, but greatlydiverged from, the American tradition. WhereAmerican blackface was, in part, a mechan -ism for a political response (from a predom -in antly white perspective) to urgent issues ofrace relations, not least those presented bythe abolitionist movement,4 the Britishcounterpart had become, in Pickering’sphrase, a ‘racial and national imaginary’ ofthe much more distant Other within imperialrelations.5 Pickering’s description of Pierrotsas ‘clowns in white make-up, as if in reversesemiotic principle to blackface’ opposes theforms too neatly.6 Other shared aestheticsfind greater points of connection that implysympathetic as well as oppositional relationsbetween them.

Situated between the power base and theoutposts of empire, between the symbolicconstruction of the monarch and theatricalrepresentations of the colonized black Other,

the Pierrot equally acts, I argue, as a racialand national imaginary. Starting with thecrossover between whiteface and blackfaceminstrelsy, this article considers how thePierrot, like the minstrel, ‘provided a set ofsymbolic bearings for the ongoing productionof identity and social relations’.7

An Antithesis of the ‘Nigger Minstrels’?

Pickering is not alone in recognizing theestablishment of the British Pierrot as aninversion of blackface acts. Chapman andChapman see the new Pierrot troupes, with‘faces whitened with zinc oxide’, as ‘theantithesis’ of the ‘nigger minstrels’.8 Mellorand Pertwee both suggest that the emerg -ence of the seaside Pierrot unseated the once-dominant blackface performers,9 concurringwith Walton’s chronological assessment thatthey ‘had superseded the Victorian “niggerminstrels” with their patter, banjos, and archor sentimental “plantation” song’.10 Thetransition from pervasive blackface min -strelsy to the dominance of the Pierrot wasnot simply a question of the older traditionsuccumbing to a new, antithetical whitefacechallenge, however, since both continuedalongside one another well into thetwentieth century. As such, the two formscontinued a complex interrelationship builton overlap as well as difference.

The adoption of the Pierrot in Britainmultiplied the individual commedia dell’artecharacter into a collective troupe, and thisexpansion itself directly followed the earlierdevelopment of blackface minstrel troupes.Pickering notes that ‘from the 1830s to themid-1840s, minstrelsy evolved from an initialsolo type of performance within a routinetheatrical package towards an auto no mousgenre of entertainment with estab lishedconventions’.11 Many of these con ventionswere also taken up by the Pierrot troupes,imposing generic connections beneath thedifferences in make-up.

Even the arrangement of the Pierrot stagespace drew from blackface proxemics. Thefirst half of a minstrel show tended tocontain the variety performances, with thesecond half traditionally being given over to

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an extended dramatic entertainment, often asentimentalized evocation of plantation life.Pickering describes how, during the openingvariety section,

a single row of minstrels sat around on chairs in asemi-circle . . . [which] allowed the performers tokeep each other continually within sight, encour -aged musical and comedic exchange, allowed forflexibility and improvisation, and bonded theperformers together in the various kinds of busi -ness they were about.12

Chapman and Chapman have photographsof various Pierrot troupes mid-performancewith this exact semi-circular arrangement inevidence for their variety performances (Cat -lin’s Pierrots at Withernsea, Bert Grapho’sJovial Jollies at Saltburn, the WaterlooPierrots at Bridlington). Pertwee records thesame arrangement being used by troupes atScarborough and Roker.

This spatial arrangement was specificallyborrowed from the theatrical variation of

blackface in indoor venues. Yet blackfaceminstrelsy was perhaps the most pervasivepopular form of entertainment in the nine -teenth century, infiltrating all arenas ofpopular culture. It was the persistent, smallerroving troupes of minstrels that the Pierrottroupes most immediately descended from:

Blacked-up entertainers performed solo, in duosand small bands at street corners, galas andfestivals, town fairs and mops, chapel gatheringsand wakes, markets and agricultural shows, clubdays and race meetings, boating events and sea -side resorts, annual beanos and festivals, as wellas in village and small-town concerts, Punch andJudy shows, Christmas pantomimes, travellingshows and circuses.13

The British Pierrot troupe could also befound in many of these contexts, though itsmost comfortable setting was at seasideresorts with their own traditions of blackfaceperformance. Such beachfront minstrels wereusually itinerant, busking on the sands during

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The Waterloo Pierrots. Charles Beanland, aka Uncle Sam, is seated second from left.

the day and in the hotels in the evening.Early Pierrot troupes followed this patternwhile others performed on al fresco plat -forms, especially erected on the beach orpromenade. It is this innovation in stagingwhich allowed their adoption of the onstagesemi-circle of chairs used by theatrical black -face troupes.

From Minstrels to Pierrots

Other conventions of seaside minstrelsywere followed in some detail by the Pierrots.Pickering notes that ‘beachfront minstrelscommonly went under the sobriquet of vari -ously named Uncles. This appellation hadlong been associated with minstrels.’14 Hepays particular attention to Harry Summer -son, known as Uncle Mack, whose Minstrelsperformed at Broadstairs. Summerson’stroupe post-dates the first Pierrot troupes,but his title is indicative of a longstandingminstrel convention. The use of the epithetUncle also crossed over into Pierrot tradition.Andie Caine was known as Uncle Andie,15

and a clutch of autographs in the CrimliskFisher archive reveals that several membersof his troupe in the 1930s adopted theconvention, with Gus Yelrob signing himselfUncle Gus, Tom Hall as Uncle Tommy, andBilly Gill as Uncle Billy.16

Charles Beanland of the Waterloo Pierrotsin Bridlington was also called Uncle, thoughrather than Uncle Charles was ‘known to oneand all as “Sammy”, and to the children asUncle Sam’.17 The reason for the change ofname indicates one reason why white faceand blackface minstrel troupes resembledeach other structurally and conventionally:the Waterloo Pierrots were originally theWaterloo Minstrels, who, as Chapman andChapman record, ‘performed in blackfaceand wore striped blazers and straw hats’.18 Itis, presumably, in this context that Charlesadopted the American nickname of Sam, justas Harry Summerson became Mack, harkingback to the earlier minstrelsy devotion toUncle Tom and Uncle Ned.

The Waterloos were not the only troupe,or performers, to transform themselves from‘nigger’ minstrels to Pierrots: Johnny ‘Smiler’

Grove ran a blackface troupe at Scarboroughbefore establishing a Pierrot troupe atRedcar; Bert Grapho, Billy Jackson, andPhilip Rees of Grapho and Jackson’s Mascotshad all performed with Joe Mulvana’sMinstrels at Whitby; and the South ShoreMinstrels at Starr Gate in Blackpool were re-invented around the turn of the century as aPierrot troupe called the White Coons.19 FredWhite also ran a troupe known as the WhiteCoons in Bognor Regis. Such titles not onlyacknowledged the transitions from blackfaceto whiteface performance; they also point tothe ongoing fluidity and crossovers betweenthese modes.

Uncle Mack’s Minstrels instituted WhiteNight in 1925, and subsequently performedas Pierrots every Thursday evening, whileconversely Andie Caine had his Pierrottroupe perform in blackface occasionally atbenefit nights. There is some dispute aboutthe origins of Caine’s Pierrot troupe whichcould suggest even greater fluidity. Chap -man and Chapman claim that photographicevidence suggests Caine came to Filey after acouple of seasons with Will Catlin’s troupe atScarborough, placing his arrival at around1897–98. This view was apparently proposedat one time by Geoff Mellor and refuted in acategorical letter to The Dalesman:

Soon after 1894 Andy [sic] Caine began his pierrottroupe with Teddy Miles and George Fisher . . . MrMellor said Andy left Will Catlin at the turn of thecentury, but I say he started no later than 1895.20

A playbill, identified as dating from 1904 andannouncing the tenth season of Andie Caine’stroupe, corroborates this account.21 Accord -ing to Caine’s son, however, in 1895 Cainewas performing in Scarborough, but withCap tain Frank’s Minstrels rather than Catlin.22

These conflicting recollections suggest thathis engagements were perhaps not exclusiveand that, while establishing his own troupein Filey, Caine could also have been perform -ing with both blackface and whiteface com -panies at Scarborough.

The semiotics of the Pierrot troupes there -fore appear to establish connections betweenthe whiteface and blackface tradition notonly in the reverse imaging of the make-up,

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but also through the titling of troupes andindividual performers, use of theatrical con -ventions, and the traffic of performers mov -ing between the forms. At a striking visuallevel the contrast between blackface andwhiteface would most readily distinguishthe two forms from each other, putting theemphasis on racial difference. Yet the simil -ari ties of the forms and the fluidity of move -ment between them complicate this. Atroupe name such as the White Coons notonly acknowledges the change from black -face to whiteface performance, but suggestssome continuity between the former andcurrent acts. Pickering objects, appropriately,to Rehin’s reading of the use of blackfacewhich:

yokes minstrelsy together with medieval Englishpageantry and the commedia dell’arte, and soregardless of social and historical context feelsfree to refer to black masks as a traditionaldramatic device with no racial significance. Ithardly needs to be added that Arlecchino was nota ‘coon’.23

In the specific cultural context of the latenineteenth century, however, the emergence

of Pierrot is interwoven with blackface per -formance to the extent that Pierrot, unlikeArlecchino, was in some measure identifiedas a ‘coon’. In this sense, troupe names suchas White Coons foreground racial signific -ance by drawing a line of correspondence aswell as distinction between the theatricalconstructions of black and white identities.This was far from consistent or common toall troupes. Elsewhere, as in the case of AndieCaine’s own Royal Pierrots, other nameswere adopted which point to con nectionsthat emphasized the alternative – thoughincreasingly related – field of nationalidentity and significance.

Royal Pierrots

The troupe name Royal Pierrots is almost asold as the tradition itself, with the originatorof the form, Clifford Essex, adopting it fol -lowing an early performance for Edward,Prince of Wales. As well as Andie Caine, otherseaside impresarios on the North West andYorkshire coasts followed suit after play ingto members of the royal family. Catlin’sRoyal Pierrots performed in Scar borough,

Will Catlin's Favourite Pierrots perform on the beach at Scarborough.

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while Johnny Grove’s Pierrots in Redcar hadbecome the Royal Entertainers by 1907.Bradford’s Ernest Binns also pro moted theRoyal Arcadians alongside his coastal troupes.

Other troupes, perhaps without the licenceto use the Royal title, having not appearedbefore royalty, referenced the empire in theirnames. Jack Bellamy’s Imperial Pierrots per -formed at Houghton-le-Spring and SeatonCarew in the North-East of England, and TheImps (managed by George Royle as aprecursor to his celebrated Fol-de-Rols) wasan abbreviation of The Imperials. The sym bol -ism that circulated through these companynames went beyond lending status and pres -tige to the troupes. Ward notes that increas -ingly during this period ‘the monarchy wasfundamentally entwined with the idea andreality of the British Empire. They were seentogether as forming two basic foundationsupon which Britishness could be built’.24 TheRoyal and Imperial troupe names accord -ingly incor por ated the British Pierrot into anetwork where national identity was in theprocess of being built through the culturalrepresen tation of the monarchy.

The question of national identity throughthis symbolic network was not being settledby debate at a level of substance but throughpresentation at a level of form. Cannadinehas mapped the revitalizing of royal cere -monial that coincided with the emergence ofthe British Pierrot troupe, beginning withQueen Victoria’s Golden Jubilee in 1887, andadvancing both in grandeur and expertisethrough her Diamond Jubilee and a succes -sion of royal funerals up to the investiture ofthe new Prince of Wales in 1911. Financial andcreative investment in spectacle was renewedat this time, and a more disciplined approachto the preparation and execution of publicrituals was demanded.

This was not necessarily a demonstrationof grandeur and discipline as reflectiveproperties of national character. Rather, thesewere competitive strategies that respondedto similar investments in ceremony and spec -tacle elsewhere, the playing out of Britain’sgreatness before its rivals on a global stage.25

On the domestic stage, the performance ofroyalty to British citizens utilized ceremony

as a focus for national unity. The tropes hereincluded the preservation of anachronism:the monarch’s carriage and other ritual ob -jects emphasized historical continuity not asproof of the durability of national characterbut as a defining feature of that character.The Pierrot, with its own anachronistic alluredrawn from the reference back to the earlymodern form of commedia dell’arte, con tri -buted to the public impression of continuityoperating here. Within the network, this waspartly con stituted by the hierarchical relation-ships being performed between monarchand entertainer: the Pierrot retained a servileand comic status, consistent with the zanniin the original Italian form, acknowledgingregal patronage and observing the dignifiedauthority of the royal position.

The Pierrots and Imperial Pomp

The emphasis on continuity throughanachronism can be seen as operating on thedomestic stage as an overarching, nationalform of commedia dell’arte in which theintrigues played out in one sphere by theservile buskers are relative to, and bound upwith, those of the royal masters – equivalentto the vecchi of the commedia – in another. Inthe symbolic network, national relationswere also filtered performatively throughthe motifs of the family circulating in publicdiscourse: thus the authority of Victoria asmatriarch, or Edward VII as patriarch, wasextended and complemented by the play -fulness of the nominally avuncular Pierrots.Rather than advocating the observable prop -er ties of a singular British character, British -ness became constructed here through anetwork of relations.

Walter Bagehot wrote in 1867 of the ‘CourtCircular’, the daily reports of the monarch’sengagements, that: ‘Its use is not in what itsays, but in those to whom it speaks.’ Theanalysis, in which the activities are meaning -less in themselves and accrue value onlybecause they are reported, is extended to theroyal family, which

sweetens politics by the seasonable addition ofnice and pretty events. It introduces irrelevantfacts into the business of government, but they are

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Above: Pierrot show at Holey Rock, Roker, 1905. Below: Andie Caine (downstage centre) leads the Royal FileyPierrots in a show on the sands.

facts which speak to ‘men’s bosoms’ and employtheir thoughts.26

The sovereign augmented by an active royalfamily collectively constituted a peculiarlyconstitutional form of entertainment which,in the public playing out of its activities,operated as a political disguise. Specifically,the continuity it represented distracted fromthe lack of continuity – indeed the uncer -tainty – of elected governments. Announce -ments of the royal family’s ongoing domesticengagements promoted an overriding stabi -lity in British public life that remainedrelatively untroubled by the destabilizingpolitical context of the time. At a nationallevel, this extended beyond the persistentturbulence of the ‘politically explosive’ Irishquestion: it ‘was also the period when thefirst official recognition of Welsh nationalinterests as such was made’ while Scotlandacquired ‘a modest Home Rule movement’.27

Bagehot was writing some twenty-fouryears before the emergence of the Pierrot,and also at a time when royal pageantry wasa less ostentatious affair. He himself opposedextravagant ceremony, arguing that it wouldcompromise the necessary mystery andassociated dignity of royalty. But increasingroyal prestige acquired some urgency in1877, the year that Bagehot died and thereclusive Victoria became Empress of India.This expansion of the symbolic royal rolemay have prompted the revival of grandpageantry a decade later; it also coincidedwith the diminishing role of genuine royalauthority in political matters, so that therevitalized ceremony was, for Cannadine,‘not so much the reopening of the theatre ofpower as the premiere of the cavalcade ofimpotence’.28

Towards the end of the century, it was notonly the changes in internal politics thatunsettled royal power but the internationalthreats from and rivalries with the newlyunified nations of Germany and Italy, and areinvigorated United States of America. Ifthese new pageants continued to operate asforms of disguise, Cannadine questionswhether this was perhaps less a constitu -tional distraction from political discontinuity

than the introspective masking of nationalinsecurities:

Whether these royal ceremonials . . . were anexpression of national self-confidence or of doubtis not altogether clear. It remains a widely heldview that Victoria’s jubilees and Edward’s corona -ion mark the high noon of empire, confidence,and splendour. But others, following the moodof Kipling’s ‘Recessional’, regard them in a verydiffer ent light – as an assertion of show and gran -deur, bombast and bravado, at a time when realpower was already on the wane.29

An Imaginary of Whiteness

The display of bravado was certainly ashowcase of British power abroad; it wasalso a matter of domestic morale, bolsteringnational self-assurance. The deployment ofcontinuity and anachronism that made theBritish Pierrot into a Royal Pierrot was notsimply concerned with the maintenance oftraditional reverence and privileges. Thesymbolic network bringing monarchy andPierrot together was situated within a sharedproject to reaffirm confidence in the nation’ssense of itself. As in commedia dell’arte, theskill and action of the zanni were orientedtowards the realization of the larger design.

It was possibly for this reason that thewhiteface clowns emerged from the black -face form, constructing ‘a racial and nationalimaginary’ of whiteness which confrontedpolitical reality and domestic anxiety. AsHobsbawm noted, this period saw a surge innationalism which was predicated on ethni -city and language. Since English was alreadya major international language, British nation -ality was contested more, per haps, throughthe ethnic question. The con tinuity evokedthrough anachronism and social rela tions inthe Pierrot correlated with its whiteness.

If the form suggested sympathy and over -lap with blackface minstrelsy, it also markedclear distinctions along racial lines. The soub -riquet ‘Uncle’ is again illustrative here: in thecase of blackface minstrelsy, the assumedname of the uncle was fictionalized: Harrybecame Mack, Charles became Sam. Inwhite face, the Pierrot retained its own name.In this, as in other distinctions, the minstrel

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constructed a ‘low-black Other’ while thePierrot assumed a higher status, though stillbelow its royal patrons. 30 The constructedwhite persona was, however, no less imagin -

ary than either its blackface or regal correlates.Hobsbawm remarks that, coinciding with

the rise of national identities along ethniclines,

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Postcard views of Pierrot shows in the round (at Filey, above), and in the park (at Wolverhampton, below).

the old-established division of man kind into afew ‘races’ distinguished by skin colour was nowelaborated into a set of ‘racial’ distinctions separ -ating people of approximately the same pale skin,such as ‘Aryans’ and ‘Semites’ or, among the‘Aryans’, Nordics, Alpines and Mediter raneans.31

Combined with the demonymic title Pierrot,designating the character as a citizen of thecoastal pier, the troupe per formances con -structed a fictionalized white race.

Pickering proposes that the mask inblackface minstrelsy ‘concealed the every -day ethnic identity of the performer, andrevealed the racialized identity of the per -sona’.32 In whiteface, the constructed racialgap between performer and persona waspresent but significantly reduced. The imag -in ary persona of the Pierrot still sat withinthe broader category of ‘Aryan’ consistentwith the performer’s own racial identity. The‘Uncle’ character was neither Self nor Otherin its ethnic dimension, but a racialized per -for mance of whiteness related to but removedfrom the performer’s everyday reality.

Although distanced from a reflective rep -resentation of white identity, the Royal titleadopted by the Pierrot troupes also con -ferred a sense of belonging that was notavail able to its counterparts in blackfaceminstrelsy. As a pivotal point between theroyal and blackface elements of this symbolicnetwork, the Pierrot in its imaginary zannistatus mediated national power from neitherthe heights of the former nor the depths ofthe latter. The mediating, imaginary, andresistant properties of the Pierrot characterfound a logical home at the seaside, betwixtand between land and sea, in which indivi -dual or national identity could be suspendedand reimagined.

We Do Like to Redefine the Seaside

Ward has noted that ‘the urban as well as therural has been celebrated as contributing tonational identity’.33 The binary poles of townand country observed here suggest that,even within discourse, the seaside – neitherconventionally urban nor rural – existsseparately from the social environments thatshape everyday experience. For residents of

seaside resorts, of course, questions ofidentity are no less urgent, and the particulareconomic and political structures of the coastno less determinate. Analysis is governed,however, by the principle that seaside loca -tions are not primarily oriented towards thepermanence and stability of residency, butthe temporary experiences of visitors. Thus,for Ward,

holidays, especially those at the seaside andabroad, have often been seen as spaces wheremany of the rules of ‘national character’ no longerapply. . . . Holidays have been about an escapefrom restraint, including that presumed to comefrom Englishness, for the middle and upperclasses associated with the stiff upper lip and forthe working class associated with ‘respectability’.34

Walton also recognizes the temporary escapeof the seaside when he notes that it ‘conjuresup the spirit of carnival’ and allows libera -tion from ‘the leaden constraints of day-to-day identity’.35

At the same time, he places restrictionsaround such freedom, insofar as resorts

were seldom places where constraints and con -ventions were cast to the winds; people broughttheir own internal controls and assumptionsabout proper behaviour with them . . . but theseaside provided a changed register of expec -tations, freer but still bounded by wider notions ofrespectability and propriety.36

Coastal resorts therefore allowed a rich spacefor the indulgence of imagined nationalidentities in which social expectations couldbe loosened. This was not a revolutionaryopportunity, however: rather than a tabularasa the promenade was already inscribedwith the boundaries and co-ordinates ofnational identity.

The symbolic network in which the BritishPierrot was located operated in a compactedform at the seaside and so was instrumentalin drawing these boundaries. Blackfaceminstrelsy already had a continuing, andcompeting, tradition here, strengthening theassociation with the Pierrot form. Thenaming of Royal Pierrots also served as areminder of royal witnesses to performances,with the entertainers themselves acting asthe shared connection between current spec -

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tators and their regal predecessors. Royaltywas not only summoned in the obliqueclaims and recall of the Pierrots, of course,but could be as physically present as black -face minstrels. Wally Cliff, a performer inFiley during the 1930s, recalls Gerald andGeorge Lascelles, the sons of Princess Mary,building sandcastles and paying little atten -tion to the Royal Pierrots nearby.37

This distilled national constituency of theseaside was matched by the setting: holiday -makers were, as Ward notes, ‘met not only bythe sea but by the extraordinary architectureof the Empire, and spectacular buildingsgiven patriotic names such as the Victoria Pier,Empress Ballroom, and Royalty Theatre’.38

Other regular attractions at the resorts dealtin foreign curiosities, including ‘zoos, circuses,aquaria, roof gardens, exhibitions of exoticaand of “other” cultures (Zulus, nativeAmericans)’.39 All the features of the resortlay along a continuum which began with themonarch at the heart of the nation andcontinued well beyond the familiar and thenative to distant colonial endpoints.

Constructing a Racial Imaginary

In line with the displays of exotica, thePierrot did not present British whiteness as ithabitually existed, but as an exhibition ofwhiteness at a remove from the context itinhabited. Its place in this continuumremained anchored to the primary nationalsymbol of the monarch, so that it honouredand, on some level, harboured the ethnicdominance that informed national identitywithin Empire. At the same time, in theimaginary whiteness of the character, it alsonodded towards the exotic Otherness of theblackface minstrel. Pickering observes thatthe ‘dual purpose’ of blackface was

to objectify, and make a stereotypical object of, arepressed self which was projected on to the low-black Other, and use this projection to give asatirical, burlesquing or simply frivolous dimen -sion to the entertainment.40

The Pierrot could equally engage in satire,burlesque and frivolity, indulging the re -pressed elements of national identity, those

which might unsettle the ‘sense of unique -ness and superiority’ proper to imperialcharacter.41 These traits range across buf -foon ery, fantasy, and sentimentalism, whichare staples of both blackface and whitefaceperformance but are excised from the royalimaginary.

While the troupes named Royal Pierrotsand White Coons emphasized differentassociations within the symbolic network,the underlying project remained the same: toconstruct a racial imaginary which nego -tiated the idealism of the imperial self-imageand the turbulent realities of politicaldivision and, in doing so, to situate itself atthe boundary between the familiar and theforeign. The imaginary whiteness of thePierrot, however, acted as a corollary of theimaginary whiteness of a common national(or imperial) British identity. Engaging withthe repressed and alienated properties ofidentity, it occupied a critical distance fromits own selfhood.

Without being wholly located in Other -ness it also avoided diminishment by thedestruc tive stereotyping that operated in thecon struc tions of blackness by white per for -mers. Rather, the frivolous dimension hereallowed some licensing, or even celebration,of the repressed and alienated elements ofwhite identity. As long as these were under -stood as exotic and contained by the limin -ally carniv alesque spaces of the seaside, suchtraits secured a place in the national psychewith out, in theory, threatening social orderand belonging.

The geographical isolation of such rep -ressed elements was nevertheless impossibleto regulate in practice. Walton notes that theexotica of the seaside also encompassed pre -served anachronism alongside the noveltiesof modernity:

the seaside resort was to become the last outpostof the horse-drawn landau, providing anotherreliably old-fashioned travel experience alongsidethe shock of the new on the fairground rides(some of which were themselves to focus nostal -gia as they passed from novelty to tradition).42

This opens up one further network in whichthe Pierrot is implicated – a negotiation

between its own emphasis on continuity andthe dramatic social changes brought aboutby technological innovation. Hobsbawm fur -ther identifies the ‘onrush of modernity’ asone of the threats to social order that de -manded the invention of imagined nationalcommunities as a response.43

The Pierrot form is acutely distanced fromthe technical advances of modernity in itsprac tice. Acoustic and intimate in perform -ance, the troupes could not compete with theoverwhelming spectacle of fairground rides,which is why they ‘flourished most insmaller resorts where there was little com pe -tition from a weighty entertainment indus -try: they struggled to make headway againstthe competition of Blackpool, for example,except when a company found a niche onone of the piers.’44 Their own commitment tocontinuity and anachronism already impliesincompatibility with change and innovation.

The Anxieties of Progress

Such resistance acts as a reminder that thePierrots were not simply offering a tem -porary liberation of the repressed elementsof national identity, but were engaged in amore intricate process of managing nationalidentity as continuity of the establishedrelations between things. In this way, theracial and national imaginary performed atthe seaside emphasized continuity as aprovocative challenge to the contemporaryinvestment in technological change andinnovation.

This is indicated in Walton’s observationon fairground rides which assume nostalgiain the passage from novelty to tradition. Thepeculiarity of the seaside is that, in itsdiverse yet coherent array of exotica, distinc -tions between the archaic and the innovativebecome confused: all exhibits appear toalways already belong to the imaginary spaceof the resort and only the encounter with it isnew. It is through this perception that theseaside can accelerate the passage fromnovelty to tradition as the objects, characters,and curiosities found there are assumedalways to have existed somewhere in thespace between the native and the non-native.

The dichotomy of the seaside as both apermanent landscape and a temporary escapeis significant here. The coastal resorts areonly a site of impermanent experience for thevisitors who arrive and leave; unlike con -ventional carnival, the seaside is primarilydefined by the space, rather than the time, offestivity and so carries its own permanencethat endures beyond the temporallybounded holiday period. It persists – as bothplace and memory – outside the touristexperi ence, lending additional dimensionsof continuity and belonging to the Pierrottroupe.

The song ‘Come Away to Binga-Boo’, byHampden Gordon and R. Penso, is indicativehere. According to a songbook dating fromaround 1912, it featured in the repertoire ofAndie Caine’s Royal Pierrots.45 The song’ssatirical target is modern urban technology(‘Aeroplanes and motor bikes’) and oppo -sitional politics (‘Suffragettes and Railwaystrikes’). The emphasis is on resistance tosuch political antagonisms and noisy newinventions which are ‘awf’lly in the way’ andform disturbances to the status quo.

The thrust of the song is avowedly lackingin patriotic fervour, however. Within thesatirical framework, the opening line –‘England’s going to the dogs!’ – is less alament for the nation than a note of despairat progress, underpinned with a feeling ofdisenfranchisement. The singer evokes alien -ation from politics, modernity, and even thepersonal (‘If you’re tired of life or your wifeis tired of you’). The lyric itself cannot give adecisive indication of the song in perform -ance; the line ‘People! Don’t be trodden on!’suggests, however, that the song is sung indirect address to the collective audience. Thesong appeals to a presumed sympathy withthe alienation experienced by the singer(s)when confronted with the inexorable anxi -eties of progress.

Taking the appeal further, a rallying cry toarms is not offered by the Pierrot(s); instead,those who identify with such alienation areinvited to abandon England for ‘Binga-Boo’,a distant and fictional island. The mock-African name of this exotic asylum pointstowards the blackface tradition, resonant

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with the sense of disenfranchisement in thesong, and also to the wider imperial contextbeyond the restraints of solely Englishconcerns. The predominant characteristic ofthe island is the simple life, devoid of thecomplexities of modernity, in which politicalrupture and insecurities play no part. Theseaside setting contextualizes this songwithin a portal to imagined spaces in whichresistant or anachronistic British identitiescould take refuge and thrive.

The imaginary location of the Pierrots shiftsfrom fictional to remembered land scapes inSacheverell Sitwell’s recollec tions of watch -ing the entertainers in Scarborough duringhis youth:

Two or even three companies of them in theirtheatre booths at low tide, where one could walklater and even see the marks of their trestles onthe wet sands. Or on a winter morning or after -noon when there was no sign of them whatever.They might never have existed at all, and theirseason was still far away. . . . I have not forgottenit, and still remember individuals in those sum -mer com panies of more than half a century ago.46

The description here notes the paradoxicalsituation that the Pierrot exists vividly inSitwell’s memory at moments when itappears never to have existed at all in reality.It is in this imaginary dimension that thePierrot ultimately acquires a sense of per -manence outside of its coastal existence. ThePierrot occupied the marginal spaces of theseaside but was not contained by or in them,haunting the national imagination long afterthe close of the show.

At the al fresco seaside, the Pierrot iscalled into existence in the space between thepermanent and the temporal, the new andthe traditional, the yet-to-be and the already-is. On both ontological and imaginary levels,it is also situated between the performedidentities of the blackface minstrel and theroyal vecchi. The white construction of astereo typical black identity was used cath -art ically to bolster national unity throughboth the indulgence and mockery of animagined, inferior Other. Alternatively, thepublic presentation of royalty enacted asuperior mode of existence that could be

sustained above the complexi ties and diffi -cul ties of political or ordinary life.

The liberation of repressed elements bythe whiteface mask, performed by and to aonce-removed ethnic variation of itself, con -founds questions of superiority and inferi -ority by mediating the imaginary positionsof royal and blackface personas. The imagin -ary spaces it occupies extend the transcen -dental realm of the seaside in which theanach ronistic and untroubled relations bet -ween the Pierrot, royal personages, and black-face minstrels can continue to rever berateand be symbolically negotiated.

Conclusion

The institution of the British Pierrot, en -during through the first half of the twentiethcentury, suggests that it held relevance for itsaudience, predominantly composed of Britishholidaymakers. Although a unique perform -ance form, it located itself within a symbolicnetwork that resonated with contemporarynational concerns. These included the increas-ing significance of racial and national iden -tity, against an imperial backdrop; thediminishing of British power at internationallevels; anxiety about the political disconti -nuities inherent in the parliamentary system;and a growing sense of disenfranchisementin the face of relentless modernization.

Such concerns were addressed by therepositioning of the royal family as symbolsof national continuity and power that trans -cended socio-political ruptures. At the otherend of the scale, the performance tradition ofblackface minstrelsy constructed a low-blackOther through which a white audience couldvicariously enjoy and dispel all the traitsconsidered inimical to a proper British iden -tity. The whiteface Pierrot situated itselfbetween these two poles, recognizing grow -ing points of alienation within the countryand seeming to hold the potential to recon -nect them to a unified and continuous whole.

This dimension of the Pierrots’ signific -ance was accentuated by its context at theseaside, a space in which national restraintscould be loosened – within reason – with aview to exploring alternative modes of

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being. The atmosphere of exotica that waspervasive here extended to the Pierrot itself,which appeared as an imaginary variationon a white racial and national identity. In itsconservative antipathy to change, however,the imaginary character could blur and pre -sent itself as the more authentic embodimentof British aspiration and realization. As such,it existed between reality and imagination, inboth the fantasy lands of its own making andthe recollections of its audiences, where itssymbolic significance could circulate andexert a vivid influence.

Notes and References

With thanks to Eric Pinder at the Crimlisk Fisher Archive,Filey, and to Tony Lidington for access to his private collec -tion of Pierrot memorabilia. Images are also reproducedcourtesy of Tony Lidington.

1. David Cannadine, ‘The Context, Performance andMeaning of Ritual: the British Monarchy and the “Inven -tion of Tradition”, c. 1820–1977’, in Eric Hobsbawm andTerence Ranger, ed., The Invention of Tradition(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992), p. 122.

2. Ibid., p. 138.3. Paul Ward, Britishness since 1870 (Oxford: Rout -

ledge, 2004), p. 63.4. See Robert C. Toll, Blacking Up: the Minstrel Show

in Nineteenth-Century America (Oxford: Oxford Univer -sity Press, 1977), p. 87.

5. Michael Pickering, Blackface Minstrelsy in Britain(Aldershot: Ashgate, 2008), p. 69.

6. Ibid.7. Ibid., p. 92.8. Maeve Chapman and Ben Chapman, Pierrots of the

Yorkshire Coast (Beverley: Hutton Press, 1988), p. 10.9. Geoff J. Mellor, Pom-Poms and Ruffles (Clapham:

Dalesman Publishing, 1966), p. 7; Bill Pertwee, Prom -enades and Pierrots (Vermont: David and Charles, 1979).

10. John K. Walton, The British Seaside (Manchester:Manchester University Press, 2000), p. 94.

11. Pickering, Blackface, p. 4.12. Ibid., p. 16.13. Ibid., p. 56.14. Ibid., p. 73.15. Mellor, Pom-Poms, p. 19.16. In the Crimlisk Fisher Archive, Filey.17. Chapman and Chapman, Pierrots, p. 66.18. Ibid., p. 64.19. See Chapman and Chapman, Pierrots; Mellor,

Pom-Poms.20. Crimlisk Fisher Archive, Filey.21. Ibid.22. See Ian Elsom, Looking at Filey: the Entertainer

<http://lookingatfiley.wordpress.com/2010/11/22/the-entertainer/>, accessed 3 January 2013.

23. Pickering, Blackface, p. 95.24. Ward, Britishness, p. 14.25. Cannadine, British Monarchy, p. 128–31.26. Walter Bagehot, The English Constitution [1867]

(ebook: Amazon.com, 2012), loc. 1079.27. Eric Hobsbawm, Nations and Nationalism since

1780, 2nd edn (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,1992), p. 105.

28. Cannadine, ‘British Monarchy’, p. 121.29. Ibid., p. 125–6.30. Pickering, Blackface, p. 105.31. Hobsbawm, Nations, p. 108.32. Pickering, Blackface, p. 96.33. Ward, Britishness, p. 66.34. Ibid., p. 86.35. Walton, Seaside, p. 4.36. Ibid., p. 5.37. Geoff Mellor ‘Heydays: Cliff Tops’, The Stage,

7 May 1998, p. 9.38. Ward, Britishness, p. 87.39. Walton, Seaside, p. 96.40. Pickering, Blackface, p. 105.41. Ward, Britishness, p. 16.42. Walton, Seaside, p. 95.43. Hobsbawm, Nations, p. 109.44. Walton, Seaside, p. 108.45. In the private collection of Tony Lidington.46. Sacheverell Sitwell, For Want of the Golden City

(London: Thames and Hudson, 1973), p. 185–6.

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