Reviewed by:

• David Garrick and the Mediation of Celebrity by Leslie Ritchie
• Julia H. Fawcett

In the mid-1960s, the publication of The London Stage—a listing of every performance known to have been produced by a licensed theatre company in London between 1660 and 1800, along with any cast lists, reviews, casual commentaries, and passing anecdotes that the series’ dogged editors (and their even more dogged graduate students) could track down—revolutionized the way we study English theatre history of the long eighteenth century. In recent years, however, the emergence of new technologies of archiving and searching (among them the digitization of the series, led by Mattie Burkert, as The London Stage Database) has led scholars to revisit and even to reject some of the series’ sources and conclusions. Leslie Ritchie’s meticulous David Garrick and the Mediation of Celebrity joins such reconsiderations of the assumptions and anecdotes that shape the study of eighteenth-century theatre—and particularly of its most famous actor-manager.

Pointing out that his career directly coincided with the emergence of mass media in the form of newspapers and periodicals, Ritchie describes David Garrick as “the first actor to exploit the power of the press in the production and mediation of celebrity” (230). Garrick’s fame, she argues, was not only the result of his talent on the stage, but also of the savviness with which he curated his reputation in print (by, for instance, owning shares in several newspapers that featured theatrical reviews). She supports this argument with new evidence culled from a combination of careful archival research and the sorts of big-data analyses afforded by new digital tools. Ritchie thus reveals how Garrick conditioned audiences to appreciate the innovative acting techniques he is credited with having introduced to the English stage, and she traces many previously unremarked connections between Garrick and the media outlets that helped to produce his fame. As she does, she offers a potent reminder to theatre historians to delve more deeply into the personalities controlling the anecdotes and archives they have too often taken as authentic or objective records.

Ritchie organizes the book’s chapters around several modes of control that Garrick exerted over his media presence. She begins by setting the scene, laying out the eighteenth-century “mediascape” as one in which newspapers and theatres often depended on each other to create and spread the gossip that garnered readers and spectators. In chapter 2, she presents new evidence documenting Garrick’s close ties to the newspaper world. Garrick’s contemporaries, Ritchie reveals, were not only aware of this relationship but frequently commented upon it—a fact that Ritchie uses to suggest a nascent interest in a free press at this time (although the papers rarely lived up to it). Chapter 3 expands on this discussion by examining the blurred lines between news and advertising in eighteenth-century periodicals and by tracing the ways Garrick exploited this confusion to puff his own performances and create a “brand” that remained consistent throughout his career (87). Ritchie turns to negative publicity in chapter 4, asking how Garrick exploited bad press in some cases while suppressing it in others, as he sought “to protect his own and his theatre’s brand equity” (118). A final chapter examines Garrick’s role as businessman and patentee, using Garrick’s chosen metaphor of the prompter as “emblematic of Garrick’s media-centred approach to the theatre business, in which the audience is . . . prepared and prompted by media interventions to respond to Gar-rick and his theatre” (201). In a brief but illuminating conclusion, Ritchie examines how the sources through which we know David Garrick are mediated not only by the man himself but by the army of biographers and curators—both professional and amateur—who shaped his memory after his death.

Evoking the work of Judith Milhous, Robert Hume, and other documenters of the eighteenth-century playhouse, then, David Garrick and the Mediation of Celebrity contributes much to our understanding of Garrick. Although some of the book’s larger historiographical points about the unreliability of media accounts...

审核人：

• 大卫·加里克（David Garrick）和名人调解（Leslie Ritchie）
• 朱莉娅·福切特（Julia H.

在1960年代中期，出版了《伦敦舞台》，列出了1660至1800年间伦敦一家持牌剧院公司制作的所有已知演出的清单，以及所有演员表，评论，随笔评论和传闻该系列的顽强编辑（以及他们甚至更为顽强的研究生）可以追踪-革新了我们研究18世纪漫长的英国戏剧历史的方式。但是，近年来，归档和搜索新技术的出现（其中包括该系列的数字化，由Mattie Burkert领导，作为伦敦舞台数据库），导致学者们重新审视甚至拒绝了该系列的某些资料和结论。莱斯利·里奇（Leslie Ritchie）的一丝不苟大卫·加里克（David Garrick）和名人调解（Mediation of Celebrity）对构成十八世纪剧院尤其是其最著名的演员兼经理的研究的假设和轶事进行了重新思考。

里奇指出，他的职业生涯与报纸和期刊形式的大众媒体的出现直接吻合，他将戴维·加里克（David Garrick）形容为“第一位利用新闻界的力量进行名人制作和调解的演员”（230）。她认为，加里克（Garrick）的成名不仅是他在舞台上的才华的结果，而且是他提高印刷品声誉的机智的结果（例如，在几家以戏剧评论为特色的报纸上拥有股份）。她用仔细的档案研究和新的数字工具提供的各种大数据分析相结合的新证据，为这一论点提供了支持。因此，里奇（Ritchie）揭示了加里克（Garrick）如何使听众欣赏他被誉为英语舞台的创新表演技术，她追踪了加里克（Garrick）与媒体之间许多以前未曾提及的联系，这些联系有助于提高他的名声。当她这样做时，她强烈地提醒剧院历史学家更深入地研究控制他们经常被当作真实或客观记录的轶事和档案的个性。

里奇（Ritchie）围绕加里克（Garrick）对媒体的影响施加的几种控制方式来组织本书的章节。她从设置场景开始，布置了18世纪的“媒体景观”，报纸和剧院经常相互依赖，以创造和传播吸引读者和观众的八卦。在第二章中，她提供了新的证据来证明加里克（Garrick）与报纸界的紧密联系。里奇（Ritchie）透露，加里克（Garrick）的同时代人不仅意识到这种关系，而且经常对此发表评论-这是里奇（Ritchie）当时暗示对新闻自由产生新生兴趣的事实（尽管报纸很少兑现）。第三章通过讨论十八世纪期刊中新闻与广告之间的模糊界线，并追溯加里克利用这种困惑来充实自己的表演并创建一个在整个职业生涯中保持一致的“品牌”的方式，来扩展这一讨论。（87）里奇（Ritchie）在第4章转向负面宣传，询问加里克（Garrick）在寻求“保护自己和剧院的品牌资产”时，如何在某些情况下利用不良新闻而在其他情况下加以压制（118）。最后一章探讨了加里克（Garrick）作为商人和专利权人的角色，并使用了加里克（Garrick）选择的提示符作为“加里克（Garrick）以媒体为中心的剧场业务方法的代表，观众是在这里。。。媒体干预并准备对Gar-rick及其剧院做出回应”（201）。在一个简短但有启发性的结论中，

唤起朱迪思·米尔豪斯（Judith Milhous），罗伯特·休姆（Robert Hume）和18世纪剧场的其他记录员的作品，大卫·加里克（David Garrick）和名人调解（Mediation of Celebrity）为我们对加里克（Garrick）的理解做出了很大贡献。尽管本书在某些有关媒体报道不可靠的较大历史学方面的观点...