(C)Overt Operations

In ‘(C)Overt Operations: Detective disguise and the threat of deception,’ Isabel Stowell-Kaplan explores productive tensions contradictions rife in theatrical performance undercover operations. Beginning with introduction New Police mid-nineteenth century, article shows how institution a centralized police force London laid bare anxieties about power sort state surveillance British associated revolutionary France. These concerns quite literally shaped initial force. The ‘bobby’ was employed conspicuous policing; he to deter criminals prevent crime by virtue his very visible presence. What then do we make plainclothes counterpart? No longer badged or uniformed, did new detective visibly perform work country not always comfortable presence? One answer this question could be found mid–late nineteenth-century drama, beginning Jack Hawkshaw—the first English on stage. ‘C(O)vert Operations’ Hawkshaw’s showy fit within melodramatic schema that valued clarity moral legibility. hands, those many successors, ‘undercover’ synonym for ‘disguise’, dramatic at that. It was, other words, simultaneously clandestine flashy, indicative contradiction heart performing ‘undercover’. moreover, propensity shared detectives’ stage nemeses, thereby threatened bring detectives uncomfortably close they pursued. Examining plays such as Ticket-of-Leave Man (1863), (1875), Handcuffs (1893) Sherlock Holmes (1899), investigates implications uneasy association between criminal, showing drama explored social consequences going ‘undercover’, where work, criminality, fraud deception merged.