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Introduction

Pleasure and Place in Soho

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 December 2019

Melissa Tyler
Affiliation:
University of Essex
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Summary

This is a book about working in a particular place, a place ‘built around enjoyment and entertainment’2 as well as exploitation and excess. It is about how that place ‘works’ to shape the experiences and identities of those based there. Occupying less than a square mile, London’s Soho is something of a simultaneously global and local space. With its golden squares, red lights, black markets, pink neon, blue films and, most recently, rainbow flags, Soho has, throughout its history, been a colourful place in which to live, work and consume. Described rather affectionately by cultural historian Judith Walkowitz as a ‘land of lost causes’,3 and by author Nigel Richardson, who experienced Soho bohemianism in the 1950s first-hand, as both ‘bad and beautiful’, it is a place of ‘backstreet industry and below-stairs debauchery’, where those who want to stand out can and those who want to blend in can become invisible.

Type
Chapter
Information
Soho at Work
Pleasure and Place in Contemporary London
, pp. 1 - 14
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2019

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  • Introduction
  • Melissa Tyler, University of Essex
  • Book: Soho at Work
  • Online publication: 05 December 2019
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781316875704.001
Available formats
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Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

  • Introduction
  • Melissa Tyler, University of Essex
  • Book: Soho at Work
  • Online publication: 05 December 2019
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781316875704.001
Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

  • Introduction
  • Melissa Tyler, University of Essex
  • Book: Soho at Work
  • Online publication: 05 December 2019
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781316875704.001
Available formats
×