Abstract:
During the First and the Second World Wars, soldier concert parties entertained the troops with fast-paced musical and comedy sketches that drew on the performers' and the audiences' shared attraction to modern, popular entertainment. These concert parties are usually regarded as a side show to the wider war effort, their value found only in their contribution to maintaining soldier morale. In this thesis the concert parties take centre stage; they are the entry-point for a re-evaluation of some of the social and cultural narratives that have been employed to interpret this period in New Zealand history. Of particular interest is their relationship with the nation and nationalist expression, the models of masculinity they upheld and challenged, and how examining the place of the shows' star performers - the female impersonators - can contribute to our understanding of contemporary attitudes surrounding gender, sexuality and the body. The Kiwis and the New Zealand Pierrots from the Great War, and the Kiwi Concert Party from World War II were remarkably popular with soldier audiences during the war. For the New Zealand Pierrots and the Kiwi Concert Party this wartime success became the platform for immensely successful careers as commercial revue companies after the war, when they reinvented themselves as the Diggers and the Kiwis Revue Company respectively. Both troupes enjoyed long careers touring Australasia. The Diggers were still performing in the early 1930s, while the Kiwis Revue Company retired from the stage in 1954 having enjoyed over three million paid admissions. Whereas accounts of New Zealand's involvement in the two world wars are frequently confined to a focus on the nation and a restrictive image of the soldier, the historical actors examined here reveal far more ambiguous attitudes towards nationalism and masculinity. By exploring what happened when entertainers and audiences took their places at the concert party performance, this thesis illustrates the ways in which the cultural nationalist framework that has been so pervasive in New Zealand history writing has obscured many of the people, emotions and events that are part of New Zealand's past.