In an innovative and wide-ranging collection of essays, "The Performing Century" looks at modes of performance and forms of theatre in Nineteenth-century Britain and Ireland. From the vogue for fairy plays to the acting styles of melodrama, from the work of a single impresario to the nature of a genre, from ship-launches in Belfast to royal weddings in England, from the representation of economics to the work of a parliamentary committee in regulating theatres, the authors bring new perspectives on familiar material and radically redefine what theatre and performance in the Nineteenth century might be.