Rachel Willie is Lecturer in English Literature at Bangor University

STAGING THE REVOLUTION: DRAMA, REVINVENTION, AND HISTORY 1647-72 (Manchester) is a truly remarkable contribution to our understanding of interregnum and post-Restoration theatre. Its central argument — that the drama across the period is marked by striking continuities as well as disruptions — is sustained with a deeply impressive scholarly command; and the sheer range of reference, both primary and secondary, is exceptional. Any easy assumptions we might have entertained about the relationship between republican culture and theatrical practice are authoritatively overturned, and the study gives the great satisfaction of returning us from a broad idea of historical change to the much greater real complexity that happened at the time.University English Early Career book prize 2016 (Shortlisted)‘Rachel Willie’s Staging the Revolution is an exceptional book. A polished piece of clear argumentation and persuasive writing on a notoriously undervalued and understudied period of English theatrical history, the Interregnum and the responses to the Civil War on the Restoration stage, this text is one of the best new books of the year…This exquisitely researched book shifts the ground of analysis of this period in a way that will be felt for years to come.’ Andrew Br , Wilfrid Laurier University, Shakespeare Bulletin, Volume 35, Number 1, Spring 2017'Staging the Revolution is a fine piece of research with a wide appeal andreach. The writing is clear and compelling; the evidence is clearly presented and interpreted; and the significance of the volume as a kind of historical corrective to a longstanding myth but also an analysis of how that mythemerged, is entirely unprecedented.'Restoration and Eighteenth Century Theatre Research

• Introduction: Of 1647, theatre closure and reinvention1. The paper stage2. Fairs, ghosts, tyranny and usurpation: debating the body politic on the paper stage3. Reinventing the masque: Shirley and Davenant’s protectorate entertainments4. Heroic drama on the commonwealth and Restoration stage 5. Ideas of panegyric in early Restoration comedyEpilogue: Of 1688 and reinventing the pastBibliographyIndex

Rachel Willie is Lecturer in English Literature at Bangor University

STAGING THE REVOLUTION: DRAMA, REVINVENTION, AND HISTORY 1647-72 (Manchester) is a truly remarkable contribution to our understanding of interregnum and post-Restoration theatre. Its central argument — that the drama across the period is marked by striking continuities as well as disruptions — is sustained with a deeply impressive scholarly command; and the sheer range of reference, both primary and secondary, is exceptional. Any easy assumptions we might have entertained about the relationship between republican culture and theatrical practice are authoritatively overturned, and the study gives the great satisfaction of returning us from a broad idea of historical change to the much greater real complexity that happened at the time.University English Early Career book prize 2016 (Shortlisted)‘Rachel Willie’s Staging the Revolution is an exceptional book. A polished piece of clear argumentation and persuasive writing on a notoriously undervalued and understudied period of English theatrical history, the Interregnum and the responses to the Civil War on the Restoration stage, this text is one of the best new books of the year…This exquisitely researched book shifts the ground of analysis of this period in a way that will be felt for years to come.’ Andrew Br , Wilfrid Laurier University, Shakespeare Bulletin, Volume 35, Number 1, Spring 2017'Staging the Revolution is a fine piece of research with a wide appeal andreach. The writing is clear and compelling; the evidence is clearly presented and interpreted; and the significance of the volume as a kind of historical corrective to a longstanding myth but also an analysis of how that mythemerged, is entirely unprecedented.'Restoration and Eighteenth Century Theatre Research

• Introduction: Of 1647, theatre closure and reinvention1. The paper stage2. Fairs, ghosts, tyranny and usurpation: debating the body politic on the paper stage3. Reinventing the masque: Shirley and Davenant’s protectorate entertainments4. Heroic drama on the commonwealth and Restoration stage 5. Ideas of panegyric in early Restoration comedyEpilogue: Of 1688 and reinventing the pastBibliographyIndex

Rachel Willie is Lecturer in English Literature at Bangor University

STAGING THE REVOLUTION: DRAMA, REVINVENTION, AND HISTORY 1647-72 (Manchester) is a truly remarkable contribution to our understanding of interregnum and post-Restoration theatre. Its central argument — that the drama across the period is marked by striking continuities as well as disruptions — is sustained with a deeply impressive scholarly command; and the sheer range of reference, both primary and secondary, is exceptional. Any easy assumptions we might have entertained about the relationship between republican culture and theatrical practice are authoritatively overturned, and the study gives the great satisfaction of returning us from a broad idea of historical change to the much greater real complexity that happened at the time.University English Early Career book prize 2016 (Shortlisted)‘Rachel Willie’s Staging the Revolution is an exceptional book. A polished piece of clear argumentation and persuasive writing on a notoriously undervalued and understudied period of English theatrical history, the Interregnum and the responses to the Civil War on the Restoration stage, this text is one of the best new books of the year…This exquisitely researched book shifts the ground of analysis of this period in a way that will be felt for years to come.’ Andrew Br , Wilfrid Laurier University, Shakespeare Bulletin, Volume 35, Number 1, Spring 2017'Staging the Revolution is a fine piece of research with a wide appeal andreach. The writing is clear and compelling; the evidence is clearly presented and interpreted; and the significance of the volume as a kind of historical corrective to a longstanding myth but also an analysis of how that mythemerged, is entirely unprecedented.'Restoration and Eighteenth Century Theatre Research

• Introduction: Of 1647, theatre closure and reinvention1. The paper stage2. Fairs, ghosts, tyranny and usurpation: debating the body politic on the paper stage3. Reinventing the masque: Shirley and Davenant’s protectorate entertainments4. Heroic drama on the commonwealth and Restoration stage 5. Ideas of panegyric in early Restoration comedyEpilogue: Of 1688 and reinventing the pastBibliographyIndex