The Effervescent Carnival: Performance, Context, and Mediation at Notting Hill

Abstract

The Notting Hill Carnival is now Europe's largest street festival, celebrating the music and popular arts of a variety of cultures. Not so long ago, the event – which sometimes culiminated in violence between the police and carnival goers – was widely perceived as both threatening and marginal. But more recently the size, success, and high media profile of the carnival have given it a ‘responsible’ image – and won sponsorship from a variety of commercial concerns. In this article Gavin Carver Explores these developments in the meditation and context of the carnival, and asks whether the sponsorrship has contributed towards the containment of the carnival, transforming a socio/cultural event into mere decorative spectacle. GAvin Carver is a Lecturer in Drama at the University of Kent.