Problem bodies and sideshow space: A study of the twentieth century sideshow in Blackpool 1930-1940

This thesis presents an interdisciplinary reflection of the seaside sideshow in Britain during the 1930s. With a particular focus on Blackpool as a growing resort in the interwar years, it explores the showmanship, scandal and scrutiny of impresario Luke Gannon, who exhibited on Blackpool’s Golden Mile throughout the early 1930s. The unique exhibitions organised by Gannon, including fasting females and his notorious ‘Starving Bride’ exhibits, are explored in detail to demonstrate how the female body on display became a site of conflict. Tensions were played out through the regulation of the body on display, and a struggle ensued between efforts to create a modern progressive resort verses more traditional forms of entertainment. These struggles are articulated in conflicts about space on the Golden Mile and the visibility of particular forms of entertainment that became the subject of legal regulation. This thesis presents a series of vignettes and cross-chronological comparisons to demonstrate how the sideshow functions as a site of negotiation between entertainment entrepreneurs, local authorities and audiences. Local and national newspapers provide insight into the multiple interests and conflicting voices that sought to redefine acceptable entertainment. These conflicts are seen to be fought as part of a wider dialogue around ever emerging new ambitions for Blackpool and its reputation. Through this study, the significance of the micro and macro space of the sideshow is brought into focus as a site of profound negotiation, reaching beyond its enclosed boundaries to influence and infiltrate wider social and cultural realities. With strong theoretical grounding from the disciplines of History, Anthropology and Art History, this thesis seeks to recast the histories of the seaside. It does so through the examination of case studies, with the aim of revealing discrete negotiations that took place and shaped the townscape over the identification of wider trends. Evidently, the unique nature of the sideshow as a site that sought to excite and shock its audience is recast in new light, regarded as a space that shaped its wider context through productive exchanges between entrepreneur, the law and the complex commercial interests of Blackpool authorities.