Eighteenth-Century Gothic: Performance and Partying

Well, I saw Love Never Dies last week – and am still digesting it.  I’ve never in my life, apart from in detective fiction, come across such an unexpected ending.  More of that another time. I’ve been thinking a lot this week about performance in relation to eighteenth-century Gothic as I’ve been going over the proofs for an article I’ve written which looks at Strawberry Hill and Fonthill Abbey.  I’ve also been writing on Matthew Lewis’s plays.  This turned out to be a useful conjunction as it forced me to think about performance not just in relation to houses, masquerades