Staging race, protest, justice and revolution in Thatcher’s Britain: Les Misérables and the autumn of 1985

I’ve been sitting on this academic article for a couple of years – I meant to come back and edit it and revise it, but decided that ultimately I wanted it to exist. As ever, I’m writing from the position of a white British academic in making these arguments. It explores the relationship in much further detail and thinks about how whiteness is coded into what we experience in megamusicals. Because it’s written in the ‘before-times’ – it doesn’t mention the most recent summer of protest. Also, academic articles are generally massive – I’ve posted it as a series of blog posts and slightly edited it so it works on a blog series rather than an individual piece.

Part 1: Staging race, protest, justice and revolution

Part 2: Rehearsals and Riots- a chronology

Part 3: Handsworth Songs

Part 4: Staging Revolution in Handsworth Songs

Part 5: Les Mis, white optimism, and Autumn 1985

Part 6: The Megamusical and Whiteness

Part 7: White Women in Les Mis – a sense of an ending

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