Music: Showtime!

Course overview

We invite you to join Dr Bruno Bower online each week to discover more about the joy of musical theatre.

Gaiety, glitz and glamour! The thrills of ‘light’ theatre have proved a winning formula in so many times and places. These shows have consistently delighted the masses, reaching audiences and profits that more high-minded products such as opera can only dream of. With such high rewards available, the types and formats have proliferated, catering to every taste.

This course explores the full range of shows that have taken the stage in different times and places. We will travel from operetta and burlesque in the nineteenth century to cabaret and musical comedy in the early twentieth to the book musicals, films, and jukebox musicals that came later.

Some consistent threads emerge: commercial enterprise, questions of status, national and political ideologies, and the sheer fluidity of a genre that adapts to whatever audiences want from it. In the process we will ask important questions to do with what we make of these forms.

Can we take them seriously without insisting that they be serious?

This course is open to everyone, with no previous experience necessary. All welcome!

Term dates

•  Autumn Term: week beginning 6 October 2025 until week ending 12 December 2025

Any questions?

If you have any questions about the content of this course please contact the tutor, Dr Bruno Bower: b.bower@imperial.ac.uk

For general programme and enrolment questions please contact the Imperial after:hours Administrator, Christian Jacobi: c.jacobi@imperial.ac.uk

Class recordings

These classes are not recorded.

Imperial certificates

There are no examinations or assessments for this course. However, attendance can lead to the award of an Imperial attendance certificate (T&Cs apply).