Come over here! the local hybridisation of international ‘Ragtime Revues’ in Australia

Two entertainments advertised as ‘revues’ premiered in Australia 1913-14; Come Over Here and Hullo Ragtime, both adverting to West End revues of the same titles. The immediate contexts of these productions exemplify the lines of local flow and blockage in the processes of the international circulation of personnel and genres of popular commercial entertainment, with its musical, visual or choreographic texts. Revues in this period were closely related to ideas of generic rule-breaking and cosmopolitan modernity. They are also intricately linked with the technologies of recorded sound which now complemented the sale of sheet music for domestic consumption and leisure. The main musical vehicles of revue are ‘ragtime’ music and its associated popular dances, and also the tango, whether in theatrical display or as social practice. Veronica Kelly is Emeritus Professor in the School of English, Media Studies and Art History, University of Queensland. Her most recent book is The Empire Actors: Stars of Australasian Costume Drama 1890s-1920s, (Sydney: Currency House, 2009).