Victorian Britain

The Victorian period of history refers to the time of Queen Victoria’s reign in Britain from 1837 to 1901.

Live entertainment was very popular in the Victorian era however people couldn’t just get in the car and drive to venues to see shows like we can today and they didn’t have the time to travel long distances to see one show. Therefore there were traveling shows where the entertainment came to the people instead of the other way around. These entertainers would spend the majority of their time earning a living by traveling around Britain entertaining their audiences with their skills. Circuses and fairs would visit areas and stay for several days until they stopped making as much money at which point they would leave and travel to their next destination. They would have comedy shows, puppets such as Punch and Judy, fire-eaters, strong men, animals and other acts entertaining the crowds as well as games for people to spend any spare money they had on.

 Travel was difficult at the beginning of the Victorian era as most travel was done by boat or horse and carriage depending on whether you were traveling on land or water obviously! These were very time consuming and expensive especially if the journeys were long. Also cars were only developed towards the end of Queen Victoria’s reign and were not really accessible to most people.  However travel did became easier and more accessible to people with the development of the railways making traveling to visit different parts of the country on day trips or holiday’s a lot more straight forward as previously only the very rich would be able to travel to places far from where they lived. Therefore the railways became very popular and continued to develop through the Victorian Era. After the development of railways people were able to travel to the seaside and watch the shows on the piers as part of their days out and this helped seaside destinations to develop. It also allowed some entertainers to settle in one place whilst still making a living from their entertainment shows.

As live entertainment was so popular there were many theatres or music halls as they were often called, in the Victorian era. Variety shows with singers, dancers and comedy acts were held as well as productions such as pantomimes which were often Christmas treats for well-behaved children. This was one aspect of Victorian life where the use of cosmetics to dramatically change someone’s appearance was not frowned upon as it was usually used to create a character or so that the performer’s facial features stood out more and therefore could be seen by people in the audience far away from the stage.