title: Henry Danger

text: In the United States, the series premiered with a one-hour special on Nickelodeon on July 26, 2014. The first season concluded on May 16, 2015. The second season premiered on September 12, 2015, and concluded on July 17, 2016. The third season premiered on September 17, 2016, and concluded on October 7, 2017. The fourth season premiered on October 21, 2017, and concluded on October 20, 2018. The fifth season premiered on November 3, 2018, and concluded on March 21, 2020.


title: Henry Danger

text: In Canada, the series premiered on YTV on October 8, 2014. In Australia and New Zealand, the series began airing on Nickelodeon on January 17, 2015. In the United Kingdom and Ireland, the series premiered on Nickelodeon on February 13, 2015.


title: Henry Danger

text: The entire series is available to stream on Paramount+, while the first three seasons are available to stream on Netflix as of January 2021.


title: Henry Danger

text: On March 2, 2017, Nickelodeon announced that a new animated series, under the working title of "The Adventures of Kid Danger and Captain Man", was in development with 10 episodes announced. "The Adventures of Kid Danger" premiered on January 15, 2018 and concluded on June 14, 2018.


title: Henry Danger

text: In May 2017, the president of Viacom's Nickelodeon group announced that a film based on the series was being developed. In January 2022, it was announced that Jace Norman would reprise his role and executive produce a "Henry Danger" film set to be released on Paramount+.


title: Henry Danger

text: On February 19, 2020, it was announced that "Henry Danger" would be receiving a spinoff titled "Danger Force" which premiered on March 28, 2020. The series was created by Christopher J. Nowak and stars Cooper Barnes and Michael D. Cohen, reprising their roles from "Henry Danger", with four new superheroes-in-training joining the team.


title: Kinky Boots (musical)

text: Based on the 2005 British film "Kinky Boots", written by Geoff Deane and Tim Firth and mostly inspired by true events, the musical tells the story of Charlie Price. Having inherited a shoe factory from his father, Charlie forms an unlikely partnership with cabaret performer and drag queen Lola to produce a line of high-heeled boots and save the business. In the process, Charlie and Lola discover that they are not so different after all.


title: Kinky Boots (musical)

text: Following the show's conception in 2006, the creative team was assembled by 2010. The original production of "Kinky Boots" premiered at the Bank of America Theatre in Chicago in October 2012, with both direction and choreography by Jerry Mitchell, and starring Stark Sands and Billy Porter as Charlie and Lola, respectively. It made its Broadway debut at the Al Hirschfeld Theatre on April 4, 2013, following previews that began on March 3, 2013. The musical began a US tour in 2014. The Broadway production ended on April 7, 2019.


title: Kinky Boots (musical)

text: Having initially been less well received by theatre critics and at the box office than another 2013 Broadway production, "Matilda the Musical", "Kinky Boots" entered the 2013 awards season as an underdog. However, less than a month after opening, "Kinky Boots" surpassed this rival with audiences in weekly box office gross and later enjoyed a post-Tony boost in advance sales. The production earned a season-high 13 nominations and 6 Tony wins, including Best Musical, Best Actor for Billy Porter and Best Score for Lauper in her first outing as a Broadway songwriter, making her the first woman to win alone in that category. The musical's cast album premiered at number one on the Billboard Cast Albums Chart and number fifty-one on the "Billboard" 200 chart. Making its West End debut in 2015, in 2016, it won three Laurence Olivier Awards, including Best New Musical.


title: Kinky Boots (musical)

text: "Kinky Boots" is based on the 2005 British film of the same name, which was in turn inspired by a 1999 episode of the BBC2 documentary television series "Trouble at the Top". It followed the true story of Steve Pateman, who was struggling to save his family-run shoe factory from closure and decided to produce fetish footwear for men, under the brand name "Divine Footwear". Daryl Roth, a Tony Award-winning producer, saw the film at the 2006 Sundance Film Festival and fell in love with its "heart and soul". She felt that its themes resonated and thought that the story had potential as source material for a musical. Independently, Hal Luftig saw the film in London and agreed "that its heart and humanity (and bigger-than-life leading 'lady') would translate well to musical theatre." Within a year, Roth secured the rights to adapt the film to the stage and partnered with Luftig, a Tony and Olivier Award-winning producer.


title: Kinky Boots (musical)

text: By mid-2008, Roth and Luftig were in discussions with a potential director, Jerry Mitchell, but they still had not found writers. When Roth sent Mitchell the DVD of the film, he was enthusiastic about it. Roth and Luftig hired Mitchell to direct and Harvey Fierstein to write the book. Mitchell knew that Fierstein and Cyndi Lauper were friends, and he thought they would make a good team to create the musical. Fierstein agreed and eventually approached Lauper to write the songs because he "saw in the adaptation an opportunity to work with someone with a big musical range, 'somebody who could write club music,' ... along with show tunes." Lauper joined the creative team in June 2010. Lauper's last project before "Kinky Boots" had been the album "Memphis Blues", while Fierstein was working on "Newsies" when he began "Kinky Boots". The work marked Lauper's debut as a musical theatre songwriter, although she had some theatrical experience, having performed on Broadway in the 2006 Roundabout Theatre Company production of "The Threepenny Opera". Among Fierstein's prior experiences were works about drag queens: "La Cage aux Folles" and "Torch Song Trilogy". Lauper has said that she identifies with drag queens.


title: Kinky Boots (musical)

text: Fierstein and Lauper had both gained previous critical acclaim and honors in their respective fields. Fierstein had won four Tonys: acting and writing awards for "Torch Song Trilogy", an acting Tony for "Hairspray", and one for writing the book of "La Cage"; Lauper is a chart-topping singer-songwriter and actress who had won Grammy, Emmy and many other awards for her songs and performances. Fierstein noted a change in focus between the film "about the saving of a factory" and the musical, which include "drag queens singing as they pass along the assembly line." He said the main difference is that the musical is, "at its core, about two young men who come from seemingly opposite worlds who figure out that they have a lot in common, beginning with the need to stand up to their dads." Lauper's inspirations ranged from the musicals "South Pacific" and "West Side Story" to Aaron Copland's "Appalachian Spring" and pop singer Lana Del Rey. In a broadcast interview with Patrick Healy of "The New York Times", Lauper and Fierstein said that, in adapting the film, they stressed themes of community and the universality of the father-son bond as vehicles to explore the issues of tolerance and self-acceptance.


title: Kinky Boots (musical)

text: "Kinky Boots" was given a reading on October 6, 2011. Lauper was actively engaged in refining the material once the cast began readings. In January 2012, Roth announced that the show would be workshopped that month, and that Stark Sands and Billy Porter had been cast in the starring roles. In August 2012, the producers announced the Broadway opening date of April 4, 2013.


title: Kinky Boots (musical)

text: Charlie Price grows up as the fourth-generation "son" in his family business, Price & Son, a shoe manufacturing company with its factory in Northampton. Another young boy, growing up in London, is as fascinated by shoes as Charlie is bored by them. But in this case, it is a pair of red women's heels that have attracted his attention, aggravating his strict father. Years pass. Charlie's father is aging and hopes Charlie will take over the factory. Still, Charlie is eager to move to London with his status-conscious fiancée, Nicola, and pursue a real estate career ("The Most Beautiful Thing").


title: Kinky Boots (musical)

text: Charlie has barely made it into his new flat in London when his father dies suddenly. Charlie hurries home for the funeral, where he finds the factory near bankruptcy. The factory makes good quality men's shoes, but they are not stylish and not cheap, and the market for them is drying up. Charlie is determined to save the factory and his father's legacy, though he has no desire to run Price & Sons himself. The workers, many of whom have known Charlie his entire life, do not understand why Charlie moved away in the first place, and many are hostile and skeptical of the new management.


title: Kinky Boots (musical)

text: Returning to London, Charlie meets his friend and fellow shoe salesman, Harry, in a pub to ask for help. Harry can only offer a temporary solution and advises Charlie not to fight the inevitable ("Take What You Got"). Leaving the pub, Charlie witnesses a woman being accosted by two drunks. He intervenes and is knocked unconscious. He comes to in a seedy nightclub, where the woman he attempted to rescue is revealed to have been the club's drag queen headliner, Lola, who performs with her backup troupe of drag dancers, the "angels" ("Land of Lola"). Recuperating from his ordeal in Lola's dressing room, an uncomfortable Charlie notices the performers' high-heeled boots are not designed to hold a man's weight. Lola explains that the expensive and unreliable footwear is an essential part of any drag act.


title: Kinky Boots (musical)

text: Charlie returns to the factory and begins reluctantly laying off his workers. Lauren, one of the women on the assembly line, explodes at Charlie when given her notice and stubbornly tells him that other struggling shoe factories have survived by entering an "underserved niche market." This gives Charlie an idea ("Land of Lola" {Reprise}), and he invites Lola to come to the factory to help him design a women's boot that can be comfortable for a man ("Charlie's Soliloquy"/"Step One").


title: Kinky Boots (musical)

text: Lola and the angels arrive at the factory, and she is immediately dissatisfied with Charlie's first design of the boot. Quickly getting the women of the factory on her side, she draws a quick design of a boot, explaining the most important factor is by far the heel ("The Sex is in the Heel"). George, the factory manager, realizes a way to make her design practical. An impressed Charlie begs Lola to stay until a prestigious footwear show in Milan in three weeks to design a new line of "kinky boots" that could save the factory. Lola is reluctant since she is already receiving crass comments from Don, the factory foreman, and some of the other factory workers but is flattered by Charlie's praise and finally agrees.


title: Kinky Boots (musical)

text: Charlie announces that the factory will be moving ahead with production on the boots. He thanks Lauren for giving him the idea and offers her a promotion. She accepts and is horrified but thrilled to realize she is falling for him ("The History of Wrong Guys").


title: Kinky Boots (musical)

text: The next day, Lola shows up in men's clothes and is mocked by Don and his friends. An upset Lola takes refuge in the bathroom, and Charlie attempts to comfort her. Lola explains that her father trained her as a boxer but disowned her when she showed up for a match in drag. The two discover their similarly complex feelings toward their fathers, and Lola introduces herself by her birth name: Simon ("Not My Father's Son").


title: Kinky Boots (musical)

text: Nicola and her boss Richard Bailey arrive from London and present Charlie with a plan for the factory that Richard has drawn up: closing it and converting it into condominiums. Charlie refuses but is shocked to discover that his father had agreed to this plan before he died, presumably because Charlie was not there to run it. He refuses to sell, and soon the workers are celebrating as the first pair of "kinky boots" is finished ("Everybody Say Yeah").


title: Kinky Boots (musical)

text: Some of the factory workers are not enthusiastic about the radical change in their product line. Some of them, especially the intimidating Don, make Lola feel very unwelcome. Lola taunts him back, enlisting the female factory workers' help to prove that Lola is closer to a woman's ideal man than Don ("What a Woman Wants"). Lola presents Don with a unique wager to see who is the better "man": Lola will do anything that Don specifies if Don will do the same thing for her. Don's challenge is for Lola to fight him in a boxing match at the pub. Charlie, remembering Lola's background, is horrified. Lola easily scores against Don in the ring but ultimately lets Don win the match ("In This Corner"). Afterward, Don asks why she let him win, and Lola replies that she could not be so cruel as to humiliate Don in front of his mates. She gives him her part of the challenge: "accept someone for who they are."


title: Kinky Boots (musical)

text: Charlie is pouring his own money into the factory to ensure it will be ready in time for Milan, and he is getting frantic that the product is not right, angrily forcing his staff to redo what he considers to be shoddy work. Nicola arrives, fed up with Charlie's obsession over the factory, and breaks up with him. Lola has been making some decisions about production and preparations without consulting Charlie. When he discovers that she has decided to have her angels wear the boots on the runway rather than hiring professional models, an overwhelmed Charlie lashes out at her, humiliating her in front of the other workers. Lola storms out, and the factory workers go home. Alone, Charlie struggles with the weight of his father's legacy and what it means to be his own man ("Soul of a Man").


title: Kinky Boots (musical)

text: Lauren finds Charlie and tells him to come back to the factory. It is revealed Don has persuaded the workers to return to work and to sacrifice a week's pay to ensure the boots can be finished in time for Milan. Charlie is astonished and grateful and asks if Don has paid up on his wager by accepting Lola. Lauren explains that the person that Don has accepted is Charlie himself.


title: Kinky Boots (musical)

text: As he heads to the airport for Milan, Charlie leaves a heartfelt apology on Lola's voicemail. Meanwhile, Lola performs her act at a nursing home in her home town. After she leaves the stage, she speaks to her dying father, who uses a wheelchair, and reaches a sense of closure ("Hold Me in Your Heart").


title: Kinky Boots (musical)

text: Charlie and Lauren arrive in Milan. But without models, Charlie is forced to walk the runway himself. Lauren is thrilled by his dedication ("The History of Wrong Guys (Reprise)"), but the show threatens to be a disaster. Just as all seems lost, Lola and her angels arrive to save the day. Lauren and Charlie share their first kiss, and the whole company celebrates the success of the "Kinky Boots" ("Raise You Up/Just Be").


title: Kinky Boots (musical)

text: In Lauper's first effort at writing for the stage, she found that it required a sustained effort to write songs for the different characters. Lauper joked about the difficulty of writing her first score: "How much of a stretch is it for me to write songs about fashion, funny relationships, people changing their minds and shoes?" The first song that Lauper wrote was the opening number, which included a wide range of voices. Her process was to conceive a song and sing it into her iPhone, and orchestrator Stephen Oremus would write it down. Oremus would then "'blow up' the vocal line into harmonies, create the incidental music that linked scenes and songs" and orchestrate the material. The songs range in style "from pop to funk to new wave to tango, with highly personal lyrics". "New York Times" critic Melena Ryzik wrote: "Though there are plenty of hooky, rousing numbers, the emotional heart of "Kinky Boots" is several ballads about the weight of parental expectations." The musical uses a twelve-piece orchestra consisting of keyboards, percussion, bass, guitars, reeds, violin, viola, cello, trumpet, and trombone.


title: Kinky Boots (musical)

text: On August 30, 2017, songwriters Benny Mardones and Robert Tepper sued Cyndi Lauper for lifting elements from their song “Into the Night” for "Kinky Boots"’ final song “Raise You Up.” The judge referred the case to a mediator, but no settlement was reached.


title: Kinky Boots (musical)

text: On February 6, 2012, the "Chicago Tribune" reported that "Kinky Boots"' producers were considering taking advantage of an incentive program from the State of Illinois for out-of-town tryouts for Broadway shows. The October 2012 pre-Broadway Chicago tryout was announced on February 22, 2012. On June 28, 2012 the full Chicago cast was announced. The production was rehearsed at the New 42nd Street Studios in New York City in September 2012. The show began its pre-Broadway run at the Bank of America Theatre in Chicago, on October 2, 2012, which continued until November 4, 2012. The show was directed and choreographed by Mitchell; scenic design was by David Rockwell, costumes by Gregg Barnes, lighting by Kenneth Posner and sound by John Shivers. The music director and orchestrator was Stephen Oremus. The director and design team had gained previous critical acclaim and theatre or music awards. Mitchell had won a Tony Award for choreographing the 2005 revival of "La Cage aux Folles"; Barnes and Posner had won Tonys; and Rockwell had been nominated for Tonys and other theatre awards.


title: Kinky Boots (musical)

text: Mitchell and Rockwell had previously collaborated on "Hairspray", "Catch Me If You Can" and "Legally Blonde". Mitchell told "The New York Times" that the "Everybody Say Yeah" scene, in which the cast celebrates the creation of the first pair of Kinky Boots with a choreographed celebration on conveyor belts, required repeated innovations and adjustments like the eventual addition of safety rails and actor controls for the apparatus. Designer Derek McLane commented that it is not uncommon for repeat choreographer/set designer collaborations to result in intriguing innovation like the conveyor belt dance scene in "Kinky Boots". McLane was impressed with the "series of conveyor belts that came apart, moved around, and fit the context of the story" in order to accentuate the choreography of "a troupe of men in four-inch heels". With respect to the conveyor belts, he said, "They've never been used as dynamically as this, creating a series of surprises, with the kind of wild athleticism that actually looks dangerous. It's one of the more thrilling combinations of stage design and choreography that I can recall."


title: Kinky Boots (musical)

text: After the tryout, the team went back to work, adding a new musical number for Charlie and a second song in the drag club, removing another song, and revising the book. The Broadway debut started previews on March 3, 2013 at the Al Hirschfeld Theatre, with the official opening on April 4, 2013. Both the Chicago and original Broadway casts starred Billy Porter as Lola, Stark Sands as Charlie and Annaleigh Ashford as Lauren. Porter, in particular, was singled out for critical praise.


title: Kinky Boots (musical)

text: "The New York Times" noted that in the 2012–13 season, most of the new Broadway musicals were "inspired by movies or books". The paper found the show timely for its treatment of problems that paralleled those at the time of its production, including "chronic unemployment, financial distress and the collapse of manufacturing". Prior to the June 9, 2013 Tony Awards, "Kinky Boots" had trailed its box office competitor, "Matilda the Musical", in advance sales. However, less than a month after opening, "Kinky Boots" surpassed this rival in weekly box office gross. "Kinky Boots" won a season-high six Tony Awards, including Best Musical. The next day, the show sold $1.25 million tickets, and its advance ticket sales for future dates became a hot commodity. In the weeks following its Tony wins, the show became so popular that in the beginning of July a special ticket lottery system was created to keep fans from camping outside the theatre. "Kinky Boots" set a new box-office record at the Al Hirschfeld Theatre, and "recouped its $13.5 million capitalization in a relatively quick 30 weeks of performances", which was "faster than any big budget musical in recent history." In October 2013, "Kinky Boots" had the second highest premium-price tickets on Broadway behind only "The Book of Mormon". After its six-year run (closing on April 7, 2019), the show had grossed $319 million. Following Christopher Balme’s commodification paradigm, one could suggest "Kinky Boots"’ unprecedented financial power is a consequence of the musical’s ability to “tap into aspects of a society's ideological make-up”, such as issues regarding financial strife and LGBTI discrimination.


title: Kinky Boots (musical)

text: The musical's economic clout empowers a shift in the American cultural climate, engendering acceptance of cross-dressing and transgender individuals. For example, on November 28, 2013, members of the cast performed the finale of the show in the nationally televised Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade. Many viewers commented that, in their opinion, the performance was inappropriate for a family program. By contrast, some spectators applauded the performance for sharing messages of “inclusivity” and “diversity”. This demonstrates how the musical's financial power has played a strong role in “starting a dialogue”, both support and criticism, facilitating the necessary steps to “open peoples’ minds” and hearts towards LGBTI Americans. Fierstein responded that the show's inclusion in the parade reflected decreasing prejudice and increased tolerance for LGBT people in society. The performance of August 26, 2015 marked the 1000th Broadway performance for the production. The Broadway production closed on April 7, 2019 after 34 previews and 2,507 performances.


title: Kinky Boots (musical)

text: The Toronto original cast, led by Alan Mingo Jr as Lola and Graham Scott Fleming as Charlie, began rehearsals with Jerry Mitchell and the Broadway creative team on May 4, 2015. It began previews on June 16, 2015 with its opening night coming on June 28 to critical acclaim.


title: Kinky Boots (musical)

text: Initially planned to run from June to September 2015 at the Royal Alexandra Theatre, with a mostly Canadian cast, by the beginning of July, the run was extended to November. The run was later extended to January 3, to March 6 and finally to May 15, 2016, as the final show before the theatre closed for a major renovation.


title: Kinky Boots (musical)

text: The West End production began previews at the Adelphi Theatre in London, on August 21, 2015, with its official opening night on September 15. Killian Donnelly and Matt Henry played Charlie and Lola respectively, with Amy Lennox as Lauren, Amy Ross as Nicola, Jamie Baughan as Don and Michael Hobbs as George. Although the show is set in a British town, it took a concerted effort to remove Americanisms from the Broadway production. On July 8, 2017, Matt Henry departed from the role of Lola after 2 years and around 750 performances in the role. "Kinky Boots" closed on January 12, 2019, after over 1,400 performances.


title: Kinky Boots (musical)

text: A North American tour began at the Smith Center for the Performing Arts in Las Vegas on September 4, 2014. The role of Lola was set to be played by Kyle Taylor Parker. Porter took a week off from the Broadway production to perform with the national tour when it visited his home town of Pittsburgh from August 4 through August 9, 2015, at the Benedum Center. The tour closed at The Kentucky Center in June 2017.


title: Kinky Boots (musical)

text: A South Korean production ran from December 2, 2014, to February 22, 2015, at the Chungmu Art Hall in Seoul.


title: Kinky Boots (musical)

text: The Japanese production ran in the New National Theatre in Tokyo from July 21 to August 6, 2016; the Orix Theater in Osaka from August 13 to 22, 2016; and the Tokyu Theatre Orb in Shibuya from August 28 to September 4, 2016. It starred Teppei Koike as Charlie and Haruma Miura as Lola. Miura won the Best Actor Award and Haruko Sugimura Award at the 24th Yomiuri Theater Awards for his performance, and the play had a second run in 2019 with the cast reprising their roles.


title: Kinky Boots (musical)

text: The Australian production opened on 12 October 2016, at Her Majesty's Theatre in Melbourne. The cast included Callum Francis, from the London production, as Lola, and Toby Francis as Charlie. Joining them were Sophie Wright (Lauren), Daniel Williston (Don), Teagan Wouters (Nicola) and Nathan Carter (George). This production then toured to Sydney's Capitol Theatre and Brisbane's QPAC where it closed on October 22, 2017.


title: Kinky Boots (musical)

text: A Filipino production, staged by Atlantis Theatrical, ran from June to July 2017, with Nyoy Volante as Lola and Laurence Mossman as Charlie Price. It was revived for a limited run in March 2018.


title: Kinky Boots (musical)

text: On July 7, 2017 a Polish production premiered at Teatr Dramatyczny in Warsaw, with Krzysztof Szczepaniak as Lola and Mateusz Weber as Charlie.


title: Kinky Boots (musical)

text: The show premiered at the Operettenhaus in Hamburg, Germany, in December 2017, with Gino Emnes and Dominik Hees leading the production as Lola and Charlie Price. It closed on September 30, 2018.


title: Kinky Boots (musical)

text: A UK tour started on September 19, 2018, at the Royal & Derngate in Northampton, where the show is set, and continued through 2019 before closing at Hull New Theatre on November 23.


title: Kinky Boots (musical)

text: In November 2019, "Kinky Boots" premiered as part of the onboard entertainment for Norwegian Encore, a cruise ship in the Norwegian Cruise Line fleet.


title: Kinky Boots (musical)

text: In June 2019, St. Louis was the first city to produce a regional production of "Kinky Boots" at The Muny (St. Louis Municipal Opera Theatre). The original Broadway producers and team oversaw the production and development. The cast featured Graham Scott Fleming as Charlie Price, J. Harrison Ghee as Lola, and Taylor Louderman as Lauren.


title: Kinky Boots (musical)

text: In January 2020 a production of the musical opened in Buenos Aires, Argentina, with as Lola, Fernando Dente as Charlie Price and as Lauren. The run was cut short because of the pandemic, yet it re-opened in April 2022, with Martin Bossi and Fernando Dente in the same roles, and as Lauren. Sofia Morandi took over the role again in July of the same year. It closed on August 28, 2022.


title: Kinky Boots (musical)

text: A Spanish production opened on October 5, 2021 at the Espacio Delicias in Madrid, with Daniel Diges as Charlie Price, Tiago Barbosa as Lola, and Angy Fernández as Lauren.


title: Kinky Boots (musical)

text: In February 2022 opened the Danish production at Det Ny Teater with Silas Holst as Lola and Lars Mølsted as Charlie.


title: Kinky Boots (musical)

text: It was announced in April 2022 that a production of Kinky Boots would run Off-Broadway at Stage 42, NY for a limited season. Starring Calum Francis as Lola, Christian Douglas as Charlie Price and Danielle Hope as Lauren. The Off-Broadway revival trims the opening scene, doing away with the scenes depicting Charlie and Simon as children. Fierstein also tweaked the show's dialogue and depiction of gender non-conforming identities, including removing all instances of the word "transvestite" and having Lola include the singular they/them pronouns when addressing the audience. The production closed on November 20 2022, After 32 previews and 102 regular performances.


title: Kinky Boots (musical)

text: Upon its October 2012 Chicago opening, "Chicago Tribune" critic Chris Jones described the show as a "warm, likable, brassy, sentimental, big-hearted and modestly scaled" production. Another reviewer praised the score, book, direction and, particularly, Porter, before suggesting that, before opening on Broadway, it could use a more effective opening number, better pacing in Act 2 and "the budding romance between Charlie and coworker Lauren ... needs more lead-in. In other words, give Ashford, a clear crowd favorite, more to do".


title: Kinky Boots (musical)

text: The musical's Broadway debut received mixed to positive reviews. The show was awarded a "Critic's Pick" designation by "The New York Times, Time Out New York" and "New York Magazine", and was included in "Entertainment Weekly" magazine's "Must See" list.


title: Kinky Boots (musical)

text: Ben Brantley of "The New York Times" gave a warm review, calling it "inspired" and comparing the work to other successful recent Broadway musicals: "Like "The Full Monty" (choreographed by Mr. Mitchell) and "Billy Elliot the Musical", it is set in a hard-times British factory town, where jobs are in jeopardy and spirits need lifting. Like "La Cage aux Folles" and "Priscilla Queen of the Desert", it presents drag queens as the show’s official spirit lifters. And like "Hairspray", the musical this production most resembles in tone, "Kinky Boots" is about finding your passion, overcoming prejudice and transcending stereotypes." Brantley wrote that Lauper's "love- and heat-seeking score" wowed with her "trademark ... mix of sentimentality and eccentricity", and that the costumes and boots courtesy of Gregg Barnes made for "big red scene stealers". He also praised “Raise You Up/Just Be,” as "one of the best curtain numbers since 'You Can't Stop the Beat' sent "Hairspray" audiences dancing out of the theater.” Brantley, however, did not extend his praise to Fierstein's script, writing that his "sticky, sermonizing side" comes through in the second half, where "all the clichés stand naked before you."


title: Kinky Boots (musical)

text: The theatre critic for "Time Out New York" called the show "the very model of a modern major musical." The Associated Press termed it "a big ol’ sweet love story about sons, the families we make and red patent leather. ... Thank goodness for Harvey Fierstein – he spins theatrical magic", but despite criticisms of the script the “perpetual cheer-churning machine” that is "Kinky Boots" certainly serves an important end goal; to empower not just its central characters, but the entire audience, in the spirit of acceptance. According to Julie Grossman, "Kinky Boots" facilitates the retraining of the eye to gender conventions and “repositions the marginalised figure as central to the spectacle of mass theatre... enacting a shift in the perspective of the viewer”. The finale “Raise You Up/Just Be” epitomises the empowerment of the individual, empowerment to “Just Be” regardless of the “oppressive gender roles directly connected to patriarchal views of legacy and inheritance” under which Charlie and Lola initially suffer. "Entertainment Weekly" said "Cyndi Lauper's infectious score is cause for celebration." "New York Magazine", "The New York Post", "The Washington Post" and "Variety" all gave mostly favorable reviews.


title: Kinky Boots (musical)

text: "Los Angeles Times" theater critic Charles McNulty criticized Lauper's "novice mistakes" with a score that "never establishes a compositional through line" and saying that while "Fierstein's heart is in the right place ... the show's earnestness sinks it", adding that "if [the show] weren't such a cheesy commercial mess, it might actually be fun". Joe Dziemianowicz of the "New York Daily News" wrote that while the "script has issues like a pair of shoes" that don't quite fit, "Mitchell's production moves lickety-split" and "Porter ... is a force of nature as Lola." But, he added, Lauper's "multicolored, surprising and fun" score outshines the fancy footwear and proves to be the "real star of this show". Writing for "The Guardian", David Cote noted that the decision to use American actors for an adaptation that maintained the Northampton setting resulted in a disconcerting inconsistency in terms of accents. "The Wall Street Journal" gave the show a negative review, calling it "an imitation heart-warming British working-class musical with a gay angle and a maudlin ending. ... "Kinky Boots" is its own spoiler alert, the kind of musical in which you recite the dialogue a half-beat ahead of the actors. ... [the score] sounds like ... "Cyndi: The Deservedly Forgotten Late-'80s B-Sides." A review in "The Bergen Record" said that the show "sorely lacks is a dramatic commitment to what it's doing. Which is why a show that seems to make few false steps is so relentlessly tedious," calling it "dull" and "synthetic". "Talkin' Broadway" also gave the show a negative review. The "Village Voice", "AM New York", and "NBC" turned in lukewarm reviews.


title: Kinky Boots (musical)

text: In 2014, "Kinky Boots" began a United States national tour, which has also garnered mostly positive reviews. "Democrat and Chronicle" raved, “Flashy, funny and uplifting, "Kinky Boots" has appeal — and lots of it — for all ‘ladies, gentleman and those who are yet to make up their mind.’” BroadwayWorld Los Angeles offered “praise to the entire triple threat ensemble!“ The Republic countered, “Despite the fiery showstopper 'Sex Is in the Heel,' however, "Kinky Boots" is surprisingly short on sex appeal, and the cheerleaderish troupe of drag queens called Angels don't have any of the transgressive appeal of the Cagelles from Fierstein's earlier hit "La Cage aux Folles"." CBS Minnesota summed it up as “loud, proud and a tubular sensation.”


title: Kinky Boots (musical)

text: The London production received mostly raves, with the London Evening Standard writing, "The thigh's the limit for this high-kicking London musical," calling it "a glorious high-kicking romp," and adding that "...its energy is infectious." Time Out London called it "dazzling, fabulously sassy and uplifting," explaining "It's not all glitz and high-kicks...there are some grittier moments that give the show an edgier feel." And Digital Spy proclaimed it "hilarious, heartwarming, and a hell of a lot of fun," offering special praise for the show's star: "Matt Henry...truly steals the show...He is utterly commanding in the role, and you instantly root for him."


title: Kinky Boots (musical)

text: It has been argued that "Kinky Boots" has added to the public discourse of gender, and its flexibility and fluidity. The prevalence of drag culture in mainstream media has introduced a step of separation between femininity and being female.


title: Kinky Boots (musical)

text: "Matilda" had been the pre-awards season favorite, but as the season progressed, it became clear that "Kinky Boots" and the revival of "Pippin" would provide serious competition. Early in the 2013 awards season, "Kinky Boots" did well, receiving Drama League Award nominations for Distinguished Production of a Musical and Distinguished Performance, for both Porter and Sands, and winning for Distinguished Production. The show received nine Outer Critics Circle Award nominations, winning three, including Outstanding New Broadway Musical, Outstanding New Score and Outstanding Actor in a Musical (Porter). The musical received only two Drama Desk Award nominations, however, and only one win: Porter for Outstanding Actor in a Musical. "New York Times" theatre writer Patrick Healy, however, reported that some Tony voters found "Matilda" "dark" and "a bit chilly", and accurately predicted that "while the cleverness of "Matilda" may be enough to win best book, the warmth of "Kinky Boots" will be enough to score an upset and take the top Tony for best musical."


title: Kinky Boots (musical)

text: "Kinky Boots" received a season-high 13 Tony Award nominations. "Matilda", which "The New York Times" described as the "unalloyed critical hit" of the season, received 12 nominations, 11 of them in the same categories as "Kinky Boots". In addition to its critical success, "Matilda" had won the Drama Desk Award for outstanding musical and had set a record by winning the most Olivier Awards in history. Nevertheless, "Kinky Boots" won a season-high six Tonys, including Best Musical, which the press described as an upset, and Lauper's win for Best Score made her the first woman to win alone in that category. The creative team are Americans, and reviewer David Cote, an American writing in "The Guardian", judged that the show's win was a case of "the balance of love going to a homegrown American musical, "Kinky Boots", over the British import "Matilda"." The other Tony wins were for best actor (Porter), sound design (Shivers), choreography (Mitchell) and orchestrations (Oremus). Fierstein, Sands, Ashford, Mitchell (as director) and the three other designers were all nominated but did not win. "Kinky Boots" also won the 2013 Artios Award for Outstanding Achievement in Casting in the Broadway musical category.


title: Kinky Boots (musical)

text: The West End production won the Evening Standard Radio 2 Audience Award for Best New Musical, which was based on voting by the public at the 2015 Evening Standard Theatre Awards. The show earned seven nominations for the 2016 Laurence Olivier Awards, which was second to a revival of "Gypsy", which earned eight nominations. "Kinky Boots" won three Olivier Awards: Best New Musical, Best Actor in a Musical and Best Costume Design, trailing only "Gypsy"'s four awards.


title: Kinky Boots (musical)

text: A Broadway original cast album, produced by Lauper, Oremus and William Wittman was released on May 28, 2013. It premiered at number one on the Billboard Cast Albums Chart and number fifty-one on the "Billboard" 200 chart, making it the highest charting Broadway cast recording since "The Book of Mormon"s album was released two years earlier. Before the Chicago tryout, "Sex Is in the Heel" became the first Broadway song to reach the top 10 of the "Billboard" club charts in 25 years. "Land of Lola" was released as a dance remix by Wayne G. & LFB in June 2013. The album received a favorable review in "Playbill" from Steven Suskin and won the Grammy Award for Best Musical Theater Album.


title: Kinky Boots (musical)

text: A West End Original Cast Recording was recorded live at the Adelphi Theatre and released April 1, 2016. The West End cast recording was nominated for a 2017 Grammy Award for Best Musical Theater Album.


title: Kinky Boots (musical)

text: In summer 2018, a Kinky Boots co-branded pop-up store launched at Mellower Coffee's Tongren Road location in Shanghai. Mellower Coffee has specially made a "Sparkle Dance" drink for this event.


title: Nineteen Eighty-Four (1984 film)

text: Nineteen Eighty-Four, also known as 1984, is a 1984 British dystopian dark science fiction drama film written and directed by Michael Radford, based upon George Orwell's 1949 novel of the same name. Starring John Hurt, Richard Burton, Suzanna Hamilton, and Cyril Cusack, the film follows the life of Winston Smith, a low-ranking civil servant in a war-torn London ruled by Oceania, a totalitarian superstate. Smith (Hurt) struggles to maintain his sanity and his grip on reality as the regime's overwhelming power and influence persecutes individualism and individual thinking on both a political and personal level.


title: Nineteen Eighty-Four (1984 film)

text: The film, which was Burton's last screen appearance, is dedicated to him. The film was nominated for a BAFTA Award for Best Art Direction, and won two Evening Standard British Film Awards for Best Film and Best Actor.


title: Nineteen Eighty-Four (1984 film)

text: In a dystopian 1984, Winston Smith endures a squalid existence in the totalitarian superstate of Oceania under the constant surveillance of the Thought Police. He resides in London, the capital city of the territory of Airstrip One, formerly England, and works in a small office cubicle at the Ministry of Truth, rewriting history as dictated by the Party and its supreme leader, Big Brother, who never appears publicly but instead appears only on propaganda posters, advertising billboards, and television monitors. He also occasionally attends public rallies at Victory Square where the citizens are shown propaganda films of the current war situation as well as contradictory and false news stories about Oceania's war effort to unite the civilized world under Big Brother's rule. While his co-worker and neighbor, Parsons, seems content to follow the state's laws, Winston, haunted by painful childhood memories and restless carnal desires, keeps a secret diary of his private thoughts, thus creating evidence of his thoughtcrime. However, he tries to do it undercover of the telescreens, to maintain his safety.


title: Nineteen Eighty-Four (1984 film)

text: His life greatly changes when he is accosted by fellow Outer Party worker Julia, a mysterious, bold-looking, sensual, and free-spirited young woman who works as a print machine mechanic in the Ministry of Truth, and they begin an illicit affair. During their first meeting in the remote countryside, they exchange subversive ideas before having sex. Shortly after, Winston rents a room above a pawn shop in the less restrictive proletarian area where they continue their liaison. Julia procures contraband food and clothing on the black market, and for a brief few months they secretly meet and enjoy an idyllic life of relative freedom and contentment together.


title: Nineteen Eighty-Four (1984 film)

text: Their affair comes to an end one evening, when the Thought Police suddenly raid the flat and arrest them both. It is later revealed that a telescreen hidden behind a picture on the wall in their room recorded their transgressions and that the elderly proprietor of the pawn shop, Mr. Charrington, is a covert agent of the Thought Police. Winston and Julia are taken away to the Ministry of Love to be detained, questioned and "rehabilitated" separately. There O'Brien, a high-ranking member of the Inner Party whom Winston had previously believed to be a fellow thoughtcriminal and agent of the resistance movement led by the Party's archenemy, Emmanuel Goldstein, systematically tortures him.


title: Nineteen Eighty-Four (1984 film)

text: O'Brien instructs Winston about the state's true purpose and schools him in a kind of catechism on the principles of "doublethink"the practice of holding two contradictory thoughts in the mind simultaneously. For his final rehabilitation, Winston is brought to Room 101, where O'Brien tells him he will be subjected to the "worst thing in the world", designed specifically around Smith's personal phobias. When confronted with this unbearable horrora cage filled with wild ratsWinston's psychological resistance finally and irretrievably breaks down, and he hysterically repudiates his allegiance to Julia. Now completely subjugated and purged of any rebellious thoughts, impulses, or personal attachments, Winston is restored to physical health and released.


title: Nineteen Eighty-Four (1984 film)

text: Winston returns to the Chestnut Tree Café, where he had previously seen the rehabilitated thoughtcriminals Jones, Aaronson and Rutherford (themselves once prominent but later disgraced members of the Inner Party) who have since been "vaporized" and rendered unpersons. While sitting at the chess table, Winston is approached by Julia, who was similarly "rehabilitated". They share a bottle of Victory Gin and impassively exchange a few words about how they have betrayed each other. After she leaves, Winston watches a broadcast of himself on the large telescreen humbly and remorsefully confessing his "crimes" against the state and imploring forgiveness from the populace.


title: Nineteen Eighty-Four (1984 film)

text: Upon hearing a news report declaring the Oceanian army's utter rout of Eurasia's forces in North Africa, Winston, having been deprived of his freedom to think and feel for himself and reduced to a mere shell of a man, and soon to be deprived of his very physical existence as well, looks at the still image of Big Brother that appears on the telescreen, then turns away with tears in his eyes as the words "I love you" are heard whispered in his voice.


title: Nineteen Eighty-Four (1984 film)

text: In winter 1983, the director Michael Radford asked his producer to try to obtain the rights to Orwell's novel, with low expectations that they were available. It turned out that the rights were held by Marvin Rosenblum, a Chicago lawyer who had been trying on his own to get such a film produced. Rosenblum agreed to become an executive producer, and while producer Simon Perry raised the production money from Richard Branson, Radford wrote the script, inspired by his idea to make a "science fiction film made in 1948." The script was finished in three weeks.


title: Nineteen Eighty-Four (1984 film)

text: For the role of O'Brien, Paul Scofield was originally contracted to play the part, but had to withdraw after sustaining a broken leg while filming "The Shooting Party". Anthony Hopkins, Sean Connery and Rod Steiger were all then considered. Richard Burton, who was living in Haiti, joined the production six weeks into its shooting schedule and insisted on his costume of a boiler suit being hand-made for him in Savile Row.


title: Nineteen Eighty-Four (1984 film)

text: Some internet sources claim that principal photography began on 19 March 1984 and ended in October 1984. However the film was released that same month, and a title card at the end of the film explicitly states, it "was photographed in and around London during the period April–June 1984, the exact time and setting imagined by the author." The budget was originally £2.5 million but this rose during filming and additional funds were required. The opening scenes of the film showing the Two Minutes Hate were filmed in a grass-covered hangar at RAF Hullavington near Chippenham in Wiltshire. Some scenes set in Victory Square were also filmed at Alexandra Palace in London. Senate House (University of London) was used for exterior shots of the Ministry of Truth.


title: Nineteen Eighty-Four (1984 film)

text: The disused Battersea Power Station in Wandsworth served as the façade for the Victory Mansions, and the Beckton Gas Works in the Docklands of Newham was used as the setting for the proletarian zones. The pawnshop exterior, a pub scene and a scene with a prostitute were filmed in Cheshire Street, in London's East End, an area Orwell had visited and commented on in his first book, "Down and Out in Paris and London". The canteen interiors were filmed in a disused grain mill at Silvertown. In contrast, the idyllic, dreamlike "Golden Country", where Winston and Julia repair for their first tryst and which recurs in Winston's fantasies, was filmed in the southwest county of Wiltshire at a natural circle of hills called "Roundway", near the town of Devizes. The scenes on the train were shot on the Kent and East Sussex Railway. The film shared a number of locations with Terry Gilliam's "Brazil", which was filmed the same year.


title: Nineteen Eighty-Four (1984 film)

text: Radford and cinematographer Roger Deakins originally wanted to shoot the film in black and white, but the financial backers of the production, Virgin Films, opposed this idea. Instead, Deakins used a film processing technique called bleach bypass (originally created by Technicolor and Deluxe, but recreated for this production by Key) to create the distinctive washed-out look of the film's colour visuals. The film is a very rare example of the technique being applied to every release print, rather than the interpositive, that was struck from the original camera negative, or the internegative (struck from the interpositive); as the silver is retained in the print and cannot be reclaimed by the lab, the cost is higher, but the retained silver gives a "depth" to the projected image.


title: Nineteen Eighty-Four (1984 film)

text: "Nineteen Eighty-Four" made its theatrical debut on 10 October in London and on 14 December in New York City. It was released in the United States for one week in December 1984 at the Egyptian Theatre in Los Angeles to qualify for the 1984 Academy Awards and grossed a house record $62,121, despite stormy weather.


title: Nineteen Eighty-Four (1984 film)

text: Vincent Canby of "The New York Times" said the film was "admirable, bleakly beautiful", although "not an easy film to watch".


title: Nineteen Eighty-Four (1984 film)

text: Roger Ebert awarded the film 3.5/4 stars, writing that it "penetrates much more deeply into the novel's heart of darkness" than previous adaptations, and describing Hurt as "the perfect Winston Smith".


title: Nineteen Eighty-Four (1984 film)

text: Review aggregation website Rotten Tomatoes has given the film a 72% approval rating, based on 29 reviews, with an average rating of 6.7/10. The site's critical consensus states: ""1984" doesn't fully emerge from the shadow of its source material, but still proves a solid, suitably discomfiting adaptation of a classic dystopian tale."


title: Nineteen Eighty-Four (1984 film)

text: Metacritic has given the film a rating of 67 out of 100 based on 8 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews".


title: Nineteen Eighty-Four (1984 film)

text: Virgin Films (formerly part of the Virgin Group), who financed the film, commissioned the British rock/pop duo Eurythmics to produce the music for the soundtrack after initially approaching David Bowie, who demanded a fee that Virgin deemed to be too high. Radford objected to Virgin's insistence on using the more pop-oriented electronic Eurythmics music, as the traditional orchestral score originally intended for the film had been composed entirely by Dominic Muldowney a few months earlier.


title: Nineteen Eighty-Four (1984 film)

text: Against Radford's wishes, Virgin exercised their right of final cut and replaced Muldowney's musical cues with the new Eurythmics contributions. One Eurythmics song, "Julia", was also heard in its entirety during the film's closing credits. However, Muldowney's main theme music (particularly the state anthem, "Oceania, 'tis for thee") was still prominently used in the film.


title: Nineteen Eighty-Four (1984 film)

text: In November 1984, Virgin Records released the Eurythmics soundtrack album, containing considerably altered versions of their music heard in the film, under the title "1984 (For the Love of Big Brother)". The album reached number 23 on the UK Album Chart, and was later certified Gold by the BPI for sales in excess of 100,000 copies. A song from the album, "Sexcrime (Nineteen Eighty-Four)", was released as a single just prior to the album and became one of Eurythmics' biggest hits, peaking at number 4 and was awarded a Silver disc for sales in excess of 200,000 copies. The music video for the single made use of clips from the film. The track "Julia" was also released as a single which peaked just outside the Top 40.


title: Nineteen Eighty-Four (1984 film)

text: Radford disowned Virgin's edit of the film containing the mixed Eurythmics/Muldowney score and, during his acceptance speech at the "Evening Standard" British Film Awards, expressed his displeasure at Virgin's "foisting" the Eurythmics music on his film. Radford withdrew the film from consideration at the BAFTA awards in protest of Virgin's decision to change the musical score. Eurythmics responded with a statement of their own claiming no knowledge of prior agreements between Virgin and Radford/Muldowney and that they had accepted the offer to compose music for the film in good faith.


title: Nineteen Eighty-Four (1984 film)

text: In 1999, Muldowney's complete orchestral score (24 tracks in total) was released on a special limited edition CD album under the title "Nineteen Eighty-Four: The Music of Oceania", to commemorate the film's 15th anniversary. The CD booklet featured previously unseen production photographs and artwork as well as liner notes by Radford.


title: Nineteen Eighty-Four (1984 film)

text: As of today, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer owns the film's rights worldwide since they own both the Atlantic Releasing Corporation and the Virgin Films catalogues, and on their DVD release in North America in 2003, the film's colour is restored to a normal level of saturation and the Eurythmics contributions to the score were removed entirely and replaced with Muldowney's musical cues as Radford had originally intended—although both Eurythmics and Muldowney are still jointly credited in the opening and closing titles. This DVD release was quickly discontinued and currently remains out of print. This version had previously been shown by Channel 4 in the UK in the late 1980s. However, while the MGM DVD release of the film in the UK in 2004 features the desaturated visuals, it has the mixed Eurythmics/Muldowney soundtrack on the English- and French-language audio tracks, but the purely Muldowney soundtrack on the German- and Spanish-language audio tracks.


title: Nineteen Eighty-Four (1984 film)

text: In 2013 the film was re-released on DVD in North America by TGG Direct on a double feature with "Megaville" (1990), under licence from MGM. This DVD release also features the original mix of Eurythmics/Muldowney soundtracks, as well as the theatrical desaturated colour palette. In 2015 the film was released on Blu-ray in North America by Twilight Time in a limited 3,000 copy run, again, licensed by MGM. This release features the Eurythmics/Muldowney Soundtrack on one audio channel and Muldowney's orchestral score on another, as well as keeping true to the original colour scheme.


title: Nineteen Eighty-Four (1984 film)

text: The version of the film which has been released on digital download services is the 2015 HD edition. It is available only with the original Eurythmics/Muldowney soundtrack.


title: Nineteen Eighty-Four (1984 film)

text: The 2019 Criterion Collection release of the film contains both the Eurythmics soundtrack and the original score composed by Dominic Muldowney.


title: Nineteen Eighty-Four (1984 film)

text: International Video Entertainment paid $2 million for North American home video rights, the fifth biggest deal ever at the time. Their VHS release came out in 1985. Polygram Video later released the film on VHS in the mid-1990s. In 2003, MGM Home Entertainment released the film on DVD in North America and in the UK a year later, the American DVD only contains Muldowney's score while the UK DVD contains the mix of his and Eurythmics' soundtrack. TGG Direct re-released the movie on DVD in 2013 as a double feature with Megaville. The film has been released on Blu-ray twice, first by Twilight Time in 2015 as a limited 3,000 copy run and by The Criterion Collection in 2019. All later home video copies of the film in the United States contain the score done by Eurythmics and Dominic Muldowney, rather than just the latter.


title: Pager

text: A pager (also known as a beeper or bleeper) is a wireless telecommunications device that receives and displays alphanumeric or voice messages. One-way pagers can only receive messages, while response pagers and two-way pagers can also acknowledge, reply to and originate messages using an internal transmitter.


title: Pager

text: Pagers operate as part of a paging system which includes one or more fixed transmitters (or in the case of response pagers and two-way pagers, one or more base stations), as well as a number of pagers carried by mobile users. These systems can range from a restaurant system with a single low power transmitter, to a nationwide system with thousands of high-power base stations.


title: Pager

text: Pagers were developed in the 1950s and 1960s, and became widely used by the 1980s. In the 21st century, the widespread availability of cellphones and smartphones has greatly diminished the pager industry. Nevertheless, pagers continue to be used by some emergency services and public safety personnel, because modern pager systems' coverage overlap, combined with use of satellite communications, can make paging systems more reliable than terrestrial based cellular networks in some cases, including during natural and man-made disasters. This resilience has led public safety agencies to adopt pagers over cellular and other commercial services for critical messaging.


title: Pager

text: In Japanese, it was commonly called a pocket bell (ポケットベル, "poketto beru") or "pokeberu" (ポケベル), which is an example of "wasei-eigo".


title: Pager

text: One of the first practical paging services was launched in 1950 for physicians in the New York City area. Physicians paid US$12 per month for the service and carried a pager that would receive phone messages within of a single transmitter tower. The system was manufactured by the Reevesound Company and operated by Telanswerphone. In 1960, John Francis Mitchell combined elements of Motorola's walkie-talkie and automobile radio technologies to create the first transistorized pager, and from that time, paging technology continued to advance and pager adoption among emergency personnel is still popular as of July 2016.


title: Pager

text: In 1962, the Bell System, the U.S. telephone monopoly, presented its Bellboy radio paging system at the Seattle World's Fair. Bellboy was the first commercial system for personal paging. It also marked one of the first consumer applications of the transistor (invented by Bell Labs in 1947), for which three Bell Labs inventors received a Nobel Prize in Physics in 1956. Solid-state circuitry enabled the Bellboy pager, about the size of a small TV remote device, to fit into a customer's pocket or purse, quite a feat at that time. The Bellboy was a terminal that notified the user when someone was trying to call them. When the person received an audible signal (a buzz) on the pager, the user found a telephone and called the service centre, which informed the user of the caller's message. In the mid-1980s, tone and voice radio paging became popular among emergency responders and professionals. Tone and voice pagers were activated either by a local base station, or through a telephone number assigned to each individual pager. Bell System Bellboy radio pagers each used three reed receiver relays, each relay tuned to one of 33 different frequencies, selectively ringing a particular customer when all three relays were activated at the same time—a precursor of DTMF. The ReFLEX protocol was developed in the mid-1990s.


title: Pager

text: While Motorola announced the end of its new pager manufacturing in 2001, pagers remained in use in large hospital complexes. First responders in rural areas with inadequate cellular coverage are often issued pagers.


title: Pager

text: The 2005 London bombings resulted in overload of TETRA systems by the emergency services and showed that pagers, with their absence of necessity to transmit an acknowledgement before showing the message, and the related capability to operate on very low signal levels, are not completely outclassed by their successors. Volunteer firefighters, EMS paramedics and rescue squad members usually carry pagers to alert them of emergency call outs for their department. These pagers receive a special tone from a fire department radio frequency.


title: Pager

text: Restaurant pagers were in wide use in the 2000s. Customers were given a portable receiver that would usually vibrate, flash, or beep when a table became free or when their meal was ready. Pagers have been popular with birdwatchers in Britain and Ireland since 1991, with companies Rare Bird Alert and Birdnet Information offering news of rare birds sent to pagers that they sell.


title: Pager

text: The U.S. paging industry generated $2.1 billion in revenue in 2008, down from $6.2 billion in 2003. In Canada, 161,500 Canadians paid $18.5 million for pager service in 2013. Telus, one of the three major mobile carriers, announced the end to its Canadian pager service as of 31 March 2015, but rivals Bell, Rogers and PageNet intend to continue service.


title: Pager

text: Today, companies like Visiplex offer similar solutions for onsite pager systems in the medical, education and commercial sectors.


title: Pager

text: The UK National Health Service is thought to use over 10% of remaining pagers in 2017 (130,000), with an annual cost of £6.6 million. Matt Hancock, (then) Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, announced in February 2019 that the 130,000 pagers still in use were to be phased out. NHSX announced plans in May 2020 to replace pagers and bleepers with "more modern communication tools," accelerated by the pressure placed on the service by the COVID-19 pandemic in England. In August 2020, a new procurement framework for clinical communications was launched which is intended to phase out pagers by the end of 2021, replacing them with "dedicated clinical-facing communication and tasks management tools" from 25 approved suppliers.


title: Pager

text: In Japan, more than ten million pagers were active in 1996. On 1 October 2019, Japan's last paging service provider shut down radio signals and terminated its service.


title: Pager

text: Many paging network operators now allow numeric and textual pages to be submitted to the paging networks via email. A significant convenience for users given the widespread adoption of email, and commonalities in delivery assurances. This can result in pager messages being delayed or lost. Older forms of message submission using the Telelocator Alphanumeric Protocol involve modem connections directly to a paging network and are less subject to these delays. For this reason, older forms of message submission retain their usefulness for disseminating highly-important alerts to users such as emergency services personnel.


title: Pager

text: Common paging protocols include TAP, FLEX, ReFLEX, POCSAG, GOLAY, ERMES and NTT. Past paging protocols include Two-tone and 5/6-tone. In the United States, pagers typically receive signals using the FLEX protocol in the 900 MHz band. Commercial paging transmitters typically radiate 1000 watts of effective power, resulting in a much wider coverage area per tower than a mobile phone transmitter, which typically radiates around 0.6 watts per channel. Although FLEX paging networks tend to have stronger in-building coverage than mobile phone networks, commercial paging service providers will work with large institutions to install repeater equipment in the event that service is not available in needed areas of the subscribing institution's buildings. This is especially critical in hospital settings where emergency staff must be able to reliably receive pages to respond to patient needs.


title: Pager

text: Unlike mobile phones, most one-way pagers do not display any information about whether a signal is being received or about the strength of the received signal. Since one-way pagers do not contain transmitters, one-way paging networks have no way to track whether a message has been successfully delivered to a pager. Because of this, if a one-way pager is turned off or is not receiving a usable signal at the time a message is transmitted, the message will not be received and the sender of the message will not be notified of this fact. In the mid-1990s, some paging companies began offering a service, which allowed a customer to call their pager-number and have numeric messages read back to them. This was useful for times when the pager was off or out of the coverage area, as it would know what pages were sent to the subscriber even if the subscriber never actually received the page. Other radio bands used for pagers include the 400 MHz band, the VHF band and the FM commercial broadcast band (88–108&MHz). Other paging protocols used in the VHF, 400 MHz UHF and 900 MHz bands include POCSAG and ERMES. Pagers using the commercial FM band receive a subcarrier, called the Subsidiary Communications Authority, of a broadcast station. On-site paging systems in hospitals, unlike wide area paging systems, are local area services. Hospitals commonly use on-site paging for communication with staff and increasingly for contacting waiting patients when their appointment is due. These offer waiting patients the opportunity to leave the waiting area, but still be contacted.


title: Pager

text: Paging systems are operated by commercial carriers, often as a subscription service and they are also operated directly by end users as private systems. Commercial carrier systems tend to cover a larger geographical area than private systems, while private systems tend to cover their limited area more thoroughly and deliver messages faster than commercial systems. In all systems, clients send messages to pagers, an activity commonly referred to as "paging". System operators often assign unique phone numbers or email addresses to pagers (and pre-defined groups of pagers), enabling clients to page by telephone call, e-mail and SMS. Paging systems also support various types of direct connection protocols, which sacrifice global addressing and accessibility for a dedicated communications link. Automated monitoring and escalation software clients, often used in hospitals, IT departments and alarm companies, tend to prefer direct connections because of the increased reliability. Small paging systems, such as those used in restaurant and retail establishments, often integrate a keyboard and paging system into a single box, reducing both cost and complexity.


title: Pager

text: Paging systems support several popular direct connection protocols, including TAP, TNPP, SNPP and WCTP, as well as proprietary modem- and socket-based protocols. Additionally, organizations often integrate paging systems with their Voice-mail and PBX systems, conceptually attaching pagers to a telephone extension and set up web portals to integrate pagers into other parts of their enterprise. A paging system alerts a pager (or group of pagers) by transmitting information over an RF channel, including an address and message information. This information is formatted using a paging protocol, such as 2-tone, 5/6-tone, GOLAY, POCSAG, FLEX, ERMES, or NTT. Two-way pagers and response pagers typically use the ReFLEX protocol.


title: Pager

text: Modern paging systems typically use multiple base transmitters to modulate the same signal on the same RF channel, a design approach called "simulcast". This type of design enables pagers to select the strongest signal from several candidate transmitters using FM capture, thereby improving overall system performance. Simulcast systems often use satellite to distribute identical information to multiple transmitters and GPS at each transmitter to precisely time its modulation relative to other transmitters. The coverage overlap, combined with use of satellite communications, can make paging systems more reliable than terrestrial based cellular networks in some cases, including during natural and man-made disaster. This resilience has led public safety agencies to adopt pagers over cellular and other commercial services for critical messaging.


title: Pager

text: Pagers themselves vary from very cheap and simple beepers, to more complex personal communications equipment, falling into eight main categories.


title: Pager

text: Pagers also have privacy advantages compared with cellular phones. Since a one-way pager is a passive receiver only (it sends no information back to the base station), its location cannot be tracked. However, this can also be disadvantageous, as a message sent to a pager must be broadcast from every paging transmitter in the pager's service area. Thus, if a pager has nationwide service, a message sent to it could be intercepted by criminals or law enforcement agencies anywhere within the nationwide service area.


title: Pager

text: As is the case with many new technologies, the functionality of the pager shifted from necessary professional use to a social tool integrated in one's personal life. During the rise of the pager, it became the subject of various forms of media, most notably in the 1990s hip-hop scene. Popular artists from the era, including Ice Cube, Method Man, and A Tribe Called Quest, began referencing newly developed mobile technologies such as the pager. A Tribe Called Quest's single "Skypager" directly speaks of the importance of such a wireless communication device, with group member Q-Tip stating that the Skypager "serves an important communicative function for a young professional with a full calendar". Three 6 Mafia's "2-Way Freak," Sir Mix-A-Lot's "Beepers" and "Bug a Boo" from Destiny's Child also make reference to pagers.


title: Pager

text: Illicit drug dealers used pagers to great effect during the 1990s to conduct commerce, using them to arrange meetings with buyers. Associate superintendent for Miami-Dade County Public Schools in Florida James Fleming once called them "the most dominant symbol of the drug trade" and schools have previously forbidden students from carrying them because of the ease with which they could be "used to arrange illegal drug sales."


title: Strange World (film)

text: Strange World is a 2022 American computer-animated science-fiction adventure film produced by Walt Disney Animation Studios and distributed by Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures. The 61st film produced by the studio, it was directed by Don Hall, written and co-directed by Qui Nguyen, and produced by Roy Conli. The film stars the voices of Jake Gyllenhaal, Dennis Quaid, Jaboukie Young-White, Gabrielle Union, and Lucy Liu. Set in Avalonia, the film follows the Clades (Gyllenhaal, Quaid, Young-White, and Union), a legendary family of explorers, and Callisto Mal (Liu), the leader of the exploration, who must set aside their differences as they embark on a journey to a mysterious land inhabited by surreal lifeforms to save a resource called the Pando from losing its energy power source.


title: Strange World (film)

text: "Strange World" takes inspiration from pulp magazines, "Journey to the Center of the Earth" (1864) and "King Kong" (1933). In addition, the land of Avalonia was given an orange-and-white color scheme to contrast with the titular strange world, as the filmmakers chose red and magenta. To communicate non-verbally, several animators worked to create the movement of the character Splat. While the film is predominately CGI, the film does incorporate 2D animation from Randy Haycock with additional 2D animation by Eric Goldberg and Mark Henn in certain scenes.


title: Strange World (film)

text: "Strange World" premiered at the El Capitan Theatre in Los Angeles on November 15, 2022, and was theatrically released in the United States on November 23. The film was noted for introducing Walt Disney Animation Studios' first openly LGBTQ lead character. The film received generally positive reviews from critics, but was a box office bomb, with projections of as much as a $147 million loss for Disney.


title: Strange World (film)

text: In Avalonia, a land surrounded by an endless wall of mountains, Jaeger Clade and his son Searcher are adventurers who brave the wilderness to explore new worlds. While trying to traverse one of the mountains, Searcher discovers a plant that gives off green energy. Jaeger insists on continuing the quest, but Searcher and the rest of the expedition team believe that the new plant, dubbed Pando, is good enough. Jaeger angrily continues his mission alone. Twenty-five years later, Searcher has made a name for himself by harvesting Pando and turning it into a fuel resource for Avalonia. He is married to fellow harvester Meridian and they have a son named Ethan who gets embarrassed whenever Searcher tries talking to his crush Diazo.


title: Strange World (film)

text: One day, Callisto Mal, the leader of Avalonia who was one of Jeager's former expedition teammates, shows up in a giant airship called the "Venture" and informs the Clades that the Pando is losing its power, meaning that they need Searcher to help find the cause. He joins a new expedition team to travel into a giant sinkhole where giant roots of Pando have been located. On the way down, Meridian tries catching up in her crop duster after Ethan and their dog Legend have sneaked aboard the ship. Ethan wanted to come with Searcher but was shortlasted when they are attacked by red wyvern-like creatures, continuing to head down until they break through the crust and end up in a subterranean world.


title: Strange World (film)

text: As Searcher and Legend are separated from the group during the crash, they get attacked by a creature called a Reaper only to be rescued by Jaeger who has been living underground all these years, revealing that he has tried taking advantage of traversing under the mountain, but is blocked off by an acidic ocean that he cannot cross. He decides to help look for the "Venture" as a means to cross it. Meanwhile, the group tries to prepare the ship, but Ethan sneaks away to find Searcher and discovers a blue creature he dubs Splat, who tries taking him to his father. They end up getting attacked by more Reapers, but reunite with Searcher, Legend and Jaeger. They are soon rescued by Meridian and Callisto who outrun the creatures and return to the "Venture".


title: Strange World (film)

text: Searcher insists on completing their mission while Jaeger wants to continue journeying across the Strange World. Callisto agrees to help fix the ship so that they can continue traveling. During this time, Ethan realizes that Searcher and Jaeger do not see eye-to-eye and he becomes frustrated with them and their opposing views. After another wild encounter, Searcher and Jaeger finally have a heart-to-heart talk and realize that they do respect each other's goals in life. They finally encounter a root cluster of where the Pando is as it is being attacked by the creatures. Believing that the Pando is fighting back, they decide to try and help it.


title: Strange World (film)

text: Searcher and Jaeger have another argument over Jaeger's influence on Ethan that ends with Ethan angrily leaving. Searcher follows him aboard a small flying vehicle, but as they are making up, they realize that they are floating above an endless ocean and are in front of a giant eye with a mountain on top of it. The two realize that Avalonia is on the back of a giant turtle-like creature whose body they have been traveling through, and that the Pando is an illness that needs to be destroyed. They head back to inform everyone about it, but they are in disbelief with Jaeger angrily leaving to see for himself and Callisto and the team locking up the Clades to prevent them stopping their mission, but Legend and Splat release the family. To stop the Pando from killing the world, Searcher and Ethan head to the root cluster, which is actually the heart, while Meridian takes over the ship and finally convinces Callisto. Jaeger, after having a change of heart, returns and they break through the Pando. Creatures suddenly appear and bring the heart back to life, saving the land, but losing the Pando power source.


title: Strange World (film)

text: One year later, Ethan is in a relationship with Diazo as they and their friends collect resources from the Strange World, Avalonia has shifted from Pando energy to wind turbines, Jaeger revisits his ex-wife, who has remarried during his 'death', and Searcher and Jaeger's relationship has improved.


title: Strange World (film)

text: In the end credits, Legend, the Clades' three-legged dog, and Splat, the blue creature from the Strange World, are listed as playing themselves.


title: Strange World (film)

text: In December 2021, Walt Disney Animation Studios announced a new film titled "Strange World" with Don Hall as director, Qui Nguyen as co-director and writer, and Roy Conli as producer.


title: Strange World (film)

text: On June 8, 2022, following the release of the teaser trailer, Jake Gyllenhaal was announced as the voice of Searcher Clade. Nine days later, the rest of the main cast for the film was announced at France's "Annecy Animation Festival", including Jaboukie Young-White as Ethan Clade, Gabrielle Union as Meridian Clade, Lucy Liu as Callisto Mal, and Dennis Quaid as Jaeger Clade.


title: Strange World (film)

text: According to Hall, "Strange World" is a nod to pulp magazines—popular fiction from the first half of the 20th century that was printed on inexpensive wood pulp paper, including films like "Journey to the Center of the Earth", "Fantastic Voyage" and "King Kong". He also said "[he] loved reading the old issues of pulps growing up. They were big adventures in which a group of explorers might discover a hidden world or ancient creatures. They've been a huge inspiration for "Strange World"."


title: Strange World (film)

text: For the worlds both beyond the land and below the giant creature, the land of Avalonia was given an orange-and-white color scheme to contrast with the titular strange world inside the creature, for which the filmmakers chose red and magenta for the lung forest. They created a way for the character Splat to communicate non-verbally, like the magic carpet in "Aladdin". While the rest of the film is CGI, 2D animation was also added from Randy Haycock with additional 2D animation by Eric Goldberg and Mark Henn.


title: Strange World (film)

text: Henry Jackman was announced to compose the score for the film, marking his third collaboration with Don Hall, after "Winnie the Pooh" and "Big Hero 6", and his fifth overall feature-length scoring work with Walt Disney Animation Studios.


title: Strange World (film)

text: Following the project announcement, the first look concept art of the film was released on December 9, 2021. Max Evry of "/Film" said the image "[looked] a lot like "Avatar", or at the very least the Pandora section of Disney World's Animal Kingdom." The teaser trailer was released on June 6, 2022. Petrana Radulovic for "Polygon" felt it was "an homage to retro sci-fi flicks" and similar to "Raya and the Last Dragon", it "definitely seems to lean more into the action than Disney's typical musical fantasies." A new trailer was shown at the 2022 D23 Expo and the official trailer was released on September 21, 2022, followed by a cast reaction video a day later, and a "special look" trailer was released on October 19, 2022. Two featurettes "Welcome To Strange World" and "100 Years of Amazing Characters", which showcased the characters of Splat and Legend, were released on November 3, 2022, and November 8, 2022, respectively.


title: Strange World (film)

text: "Strange World" premiered at the El Capitan Theatre in Hollywood on November 15, 2022. It was theatrically released in the United States on November 23, 2022.


title: Strange World (film)

text: "Strange World" was not released theatrically in some regions; due to Disney's opposition to local regulations regarding theatrical windows, the company announced on June 8, 2022, that "Strange World" would not see a theatrical release in France and would instead go straight to Disney+ in the region following its theatrical release in other regions, and "Deadline Hollywood" reported that Disney pulled out for a theatrical release in 20 countries, mainly the Middle East, Africa, South Asia and China, due to the inclusion of a gay main character, Ethan Clade. This was done to prevent those regions' censorship of LGBTQ+ references, as a main storyline in the film revolves around Ethan having a crush on another boy.


title: Strange World (film)

text: This was the first film to feature the commemorative 100th anniversary Disney logo in celebration of the company's centennial in 2023, created by Disney Studios Content and Industrial Light & Magic. Christophe Beck composed a new arrangement of "When You Wish Upon a Star".


title: Strange World (film)

text: , "Strange World" has grossed $33.8 million in the United States and Canada, and $26.8 million in other territories, for a worldwide total of $60.6 million. Following its poor opening weekend, "Variety" and "Deadline Hollywood" estimated the film would lose the studio $100–147 million.


title: Strange World (film)

text: In the United States and Canada, "Strange World" was released alongside "" and "Devotion", as well as the wide expansions of "The Fabelmans" and "Bones and All", and was initially projected to gross $30–40 million from 4,174 theaters over its five-day opening weekend. The film made $4.2 million on its first day (including $800,000 from Tuesday night previews), which led to less optimism about it meeting initial box office projections and could debut to as low as $23 million. The film ended up debuting even lower than initial re-adjustments, making $11.9 million in its opening weekend (a five-day total of $18.6 million). Several publications labeled the film a box office bomb, with "The Hollywood Reporter" saying was "the worst opening for a Disney Animation Thanksgiving title in modern times" and "Variety" calling it a "catastrophic result for Disney". The poor opening was blamed on poor audience reception, middling critical reviews, a vague and unoriginal premise, and lackluster marketing compared to other Disney animated films.


title: Strange World (film)

text: Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "B" on an A+ to F scale, while those at PostTrak gave it an overall positive score of 82%, including an average four out of five stars. "Strange World" was the first film from Walt Disney Animation to earn lower than "A–" and is considered the lowest CinemaScore rating of all Disney animated films since 1991.


title: Strange World (film)

text: Peter Debruge of "Variety" wrote "it's the characters as much as the environment that make this vibrant, "Journey to the Center of the Earth"-style adventure movie colorful and diverse in all the best ways. Great as the people and places they explore may be, however, the relatively unimaginative story consigns this gorgeous toon to second-tier status ... instead of cracking the pantheon of Disney classics." Lovia Gyarke of "The Hollywood Reporter" praised the visuals, writing it was "meticulously and wondrously rendered by the "Strange World" animators, who drew much of their inspiration from pulp magazines of the 30s and 40s. There's a painterly feel to the landscape, which, combined with the film's sci-fi bent, might trigger memories of Disney's "Treasure Planet"." Tracy Brown of the "Los Angeles Times" also praised the visuals as "vibrant, weird, visually stunning... From its lush palette to its cute and deadly flora and fauna, this strange, mysterious world is very much deserving of its status as the film's title character."


title: Strange World (film)

text: Richard Roeper of the "Chicago Sun-Times" wrote the film isn't in the same category as ""Frozen", "Zootopia" and "Encanto", it's a family-friendly fun fest with the expected ingredients of fast-paced action, ingenious visuals, terrific voice performances and, yes, some heaping spoonfuls of upbeat messaging about family ties, the importance of being true to oneself and how we should all take great measures to take care of not only each other but the world in which we live, no matter how STRANGE that world might be." Brian Truitt of "USA Today" gave the film three stars out of four, stating "Strange World" is "an enjoyable piece of vibrant world building that steps away from the musical bent of recent non-Pixar efforts like "Encanto" and the "Frozen" flicks." Odie Henderson of "The Boston Globe" praised the film's environmental and father-son messages, as well as the "excellent voice-over work plus the score by Henry Jackman make the preachiness palatable and the film fun. The look of Avalonia's underworld is a lovely distraction; its garish and bright pinks, reds, and greens look lifted from the colored roofs of a suburban New Jersey neighborhood in the 1970s."


title: Strange World (film)

text: For "The Washington Post", Kristen Page-Kirby found "the story is too basic and the characters too slight for "Strange World" to pack a punch. The visual beauty of the film isn't enough. After all, pretty is as pretty does — and in "Strange World," pretty doesn't do much." Jacob Stoller of "Paste Magazine" admitted that while the film "can be arresting—especially with its inventive setting and bulbous creatures—and its attempts at deconstructing the sweaty, macho-man ethos hawked by its inspiration are admirable. But with muddled themes and slight characters, remnants of the old dime magazines coordinate to bring "Strange World" down on the wrong side of familiar." Cath Clarke of "The Guardian" felt the characters "aren't half-bad", but the "clunky script feels like it's been re-drafted and re-drafted to the point of incomprehension – blowing any chance of conveying a message. However well-meaning, it makes for a surprisingly dull watch."


title: Madame Bovary

text: Madame Bovary (; ), originally published as Madame Bovary: Provincial Manners ( ), is a novel by French writer Gustave Flaubert, published in 1856. The eponymous character lives beyond her means in order to escape the banalities and emptiness of provincial life.


title: Madame Bovary

text: When the novel was first serialized in "Revue de Paris" between 1 October 1856 and 15 December 1856, public prosecutors attacked the novel for obscenity. The resulting trial in January 1857 made the story notorious. After Flaubert's acquittal on 7 February 1857, "Madame Bovary" became a bestseller in April 1857 when it was published in two volumes. A seminal work of literary realism, the novel is now considered Flaubert's masterpiece, and one of the most influential literary works in history.


title: Madame Bovary

text: "Madame Bovary" takes place in provincial Northern France, near the town of Rouen in Normandy. Charles Bovary is a shy, oddly dressed teenager arriving at a new school where his new classmates ridicule him. He struggles his way to a second-rate medical degree, and becomes an "" in the Public Health Service. He marries the woman his mother has chosen for him, the unpleasant but supposedly rich widow Héloïse Dubuc. He sets out to build a practice in the village of Tôtes.


title: Madame Bovary

text: One day, Charles visits a local farm to set the owner's broken leg and meets his patient's daughter, Emma Rouault. Emma is a beautiful, poetically dressed young woman who has received a "good education" in a convent. She has a powerful yearning for luxury and romance inspired by reading popular novels. Charles is immediately attracted to her, and visits his patient far more often than necessary, until Héloïse's jealousy puts a stop to the visits.


title: Madame Bovary

text: When Héloïse unexpectedly dies, Charles waits a decent interval before courting Emma in earnest. Her father gives his consent, and Emma and Charles marry.


title: Madame Bovary

text: The novel's focus shifts to Emma. After Charles and Emma attend an elegant ball given by the Marquis d'Andervilliers, Emma finds her married life dull and becomes listless. Charles decides his wife needs a change of scenery and moves his practice to the larger market town of Yonville (traditionally identified with the town of Ry). There, Emma gives birth to a daughter, Berthe, but motherhood proves a disappointment to Emma. She becomes infatuated with Léon Dupuis, an intelligent young man she meets in Yonville. Léon is a law student who shares Emma's appreciation for literature and music and returns her esteem. Emma does not acknowledge her passion for Léon, who despairs of gaining Emma's affection and departs for Paris to continue his studies.


title: Madame Bovary

text: One day, a rich and rakish landowner, Rodolphe Boulanger, brings a servant to the doctor's office to be bled. He casts his eye over Emma and imagines she will be easily seduced. He invites her to go riding with him for the sake of her health. Charles, solicitous for his wife's health and not at all suspicious, embraces the plan. Emma and Rodolphe begin an affair. She, consumed by her romantic fantasy, risks compromising herself with indiscreet letters and visits to her lover. After four years, she insists they run away together. Rodolphe does not share her enthusiasm for this plan and on the eve of their planned departure, he ends the relationship with a letter placed at the bottom of a basket of apricots delivered to Emma. The shock is so great that Emma falls deathly ill and briefly returns to religion.


title: Madame Bovary

text: When Emma is nearly fully recovered, she and Charles attend the opera, at Charles' insistence, in nearby Rouen. The work being performed that evening was Gaetano Donizetti's "Lucia di Lammermoor", based on Walter Scott's 1819 historical novel "The Bride of Lammermoor". The opera reawakens Emma's passions, and she re-encounters Léon who, now educated and working in Rouen, is also attending the opera. They begin an affair. While Charles believes that she is taking piano lessons, Emma travels to the city each week to meet Léon, always in the same room of the same hotel, which the two come to view as their home. The love affair is ecstatic at first, but Léon grows bored with Emma's emotional excesses, and Emma grows ambivalent about Léon. Emma indulges her fancy for luxury goods and clothes with purchases made on credit from the merchant Lheureux, who arranges for her to obtain power of attorney over Charles' estate. All the same, Emma's debt steadily mounts.


title: Madame Bovary

text: When Lheureux calls in Bovary's debt, Emma pleads for money from several people, including Léon and Rodolphe, only to be turned down. In despair, she swallows arsenic and dies an agonizing death. Charles, heartbroken, abandons himself to grief, preserves Emma's room as a shrine, and adopts her attitudes and tastes to keep her memory alive. In his last months, he stops working and lives by selling off his possessions. His remaining possessions are seized to pay off Lheureux. When he finds Rodolphe and Léon's love letters, he breaks down for good. He dies, and his young daughter Berthe is placed with her grandmother, who soon dies. Berthe then lives with an impoverished aunt, who sends her to work in a cotton mill. The book concludes with the local pharmacist Homais, who had competed with Charles' medical practice, gaining prominence among Yonville people and being rewarded for his medical achievements.


title: Madame Bovary

text: Emma Bovary is the novel's eponymous protagonist (Charles's mother and his former wife are also referred to as Madame Bovary, while their daughter remains Mademoiselle Bovary). She has a highly romanticized view of the world and craves beauty, wealth, passion, as well as high society. It is the disparity between these romantic ideals and the realities of her country life that drive most of the novel, leading her into two affairs and to accrue a sizable debt that eventually leads to her suicide. She lives a life of the mind, and it is her introspection and analysis of her internal conflicts that marks the psychological growth of Flaubert as an author.


title: Madame Bovary

text: Charles Bovary, Emma's husband, is a very simple and common man. He is a country doctor by profession but is, as in everything else, not very good at it. He is in fact not qualified enough to be termed a doctor, but is instead an "officier de santé", or "health officer". Yet he is a healthy man who enjoys his work, riding about to attend to patients. He is outgoing and friendly, with a gift for remembering names and faces, and he is mostly called upon to perform first aid. He does this competently enough to earn the loyalty and friendship of his patients in Tôtes; however, when he moves to Yonville to practise medicine there he is sabotaged by the pharmacist Homais. Charles adores his wife and finds her faultless, despite obvious evidence to the contrary. He never suspects her affairs and gives her complete control over his finances, thereby securing his own ruin. Despite Charles's complete devotion to Emma, she despises him, for she finds him the epitome of all that is dull and common.


title: Madame Bovary

text: Rodolphe Boulanger is a wealthy local man who seduces Emma as one more in a long string of mistresses. Though occasionally charmed by Emma, Rodolphe feels little true emotion towards her. As Emma becomes more and more desperate, Rodolphe loses interest and worries about her lack of caution. After his decision to escape with Emma, he resigns and feels unable to handle it, especially the existence of her daughter, Berthe.


title: Madame Bovary

text: Léon Dupuis is a clerk who introduces Emma to poetry and who falls in love with her. He leaves Yonville when he despairs of Emma reciprocating his feelings, but the two reconnect after Emma's affair with Rodolphe Boulanger collapses. They begin an affair, which is Emma's second.


title: Madame Bovary

text: Monsieur Lheureux is a manipulative and sly merchant who continually convinces people in Yonville to buy goods on credit and borrow money from him. Having led many small businesspeople into financial ruin to support his business ambitions, Lheureux lends money to Charles and plays Emma masterfully, leading the Bovarys so far into debt as to cause their financial ruin and Emma's suicide.


title: Madame Bovary

text: Monsieur Homais is the town pharmacist. He is vehemently anti-clerical and practises medicine without a licence. Though he pretends to befriend Charles, he actively undermines Charles's medical practice by luring away his patients and by setting Charles up to attempt a difficult surgery, which fails and destroys Charles's professional credibility in Yonville.


title: Madame Bovary

text: Justin is Monsieur Homais' apprentice and second cousin. He had been taken into the house on charity and was useful at the same time as a servant. He harbors a crush on Emma. At one point he steals the key to the medical supply room, and Emma tricks him into opening a container of arsenic so she can "kill some rats keeping her awake". She, however, consumes the arsenic herself, much to his horror and remorse.


title: Madame Bovary

text: The setting of the novel is important, first as it applies to Flaubert's realist style and social commentary, and, second, as it relates to the protagonist, Emma.


title: Madame Bovary

text: Francis Steegmuller estimated that the novel begins in October 1827 and ends in August 1846. This roughly corresponds with the July Monarchy, the reign of Louis Philippe I, who strolled through Paris carrying his own umbrella as if to honor an ascendant bourgeois middle class. Much of the time and effort that Flaubert spends detailing the customs of the rural French people shows them aping an urban, emergent middle class.


title: Madame Bovary

text: Flaubert strove for an accurate depiction of common life. The account of a county fair in Yonville displays this and dramatizes it by showing the fair in real time counterpoised with a simultaneous intimate interaction behind a window overlooking the fair. Flaubert knew the regional setting, the place of his birth and youth, in and around the city of Rouen in Normandy. His faithfulness to the mundane elements of country life has garnered the book its reputation as the beginning of the movement known as literary realism.


title: Madame Bovary

text: Flaubert's capture of the commonplace in his setting contrasts with the yearnings of his protagonist. The practicalities of common life foil Emma's romantic fantasies. Flaubert uses this juxtaposition to reflect both setting and character. Emma becomes more capricious and ludicrous in the light of everyday reality; yet her yearnings magnify the self-important banality of the local people. Emma, though impractical, and with her provincial education lacking and unformed, still reflects a hopefulness regarding beauty and greatness that seems absent in the bourgeois class.


title: Madame Bovary

text: The book was in some ways inspired by the life of a schoolfriend of the author who became a doctor. Flaubert's friend and mentor, Louis Bouilhet, had suggested to him that this might be a suitably "down-to-earth" subject for a novel and that Flaubert should attempt to write in a "natural way," without digressions. The writing style was of supreme importance to Flaubert. While writing the novel, he wrote that it would be "a book about nothing, a book dependent on nothing external, which would be held together by the internal strength of its style", an aim which, for the critic Jean Rousset, made Flaubert "the first in date of the non-figurative novelists", such as James Joyce and Virginia Woolf. Though Flaubert avowed no liking for the style of Balzac, the novel he produced became arguably a prime example and an enhancement of literary realism in the vein of Balzac. The "realism" in the novel was to prove an important element in the trial for obscenity: the lead prosecutor argued that not only was the novel immoral, but that realism in literature was an offence against art and decency.


title: Madame Bovary

text: The realist movement was, in part, a reaction against romanticism. Emma may be said to be the embodiment of a romantic: in her mental and emotional process, she has no relation to the realities of her world. Although in some ways he may seem to identify with Emma, Flaubert frequently mocks her romantic daydreaming and taste in literature. The accuracy of Flaubert's supposed assertion that "Madame Bovary, c'est moi" ("Madame Bovary is me") has been questioned. In his letters, he distanced himself from the sentiments in the novel. To Edma Roger des Genettes, he wrote, "Tout ce que j'aime n'y est pas" ("all that I love is not there") and to Marie-Sophie Leroyer de Chantepie, "je n'y ai rien mis ni de mes sentiments ni de mon existence" ("I have used nothing of my feelings or of my life"). For Mario Vargas Llosa, "If Emma Bovary had not read all those novels, it is possible that her fate might have been different."


title: Madame Bovary

text: "Madame Bovary" has been seen as a commentary on the bourgeoisie, the folly of aspirations that can never be realized or a belief in the validity of a self-satisfied, deluded personal culture, associated with Flaubert's period, especially during the reign of Louis Philippe, when the middle class grew to become more identifiable in contrast to the working class and the nobility. Flaubert despised the bourgeoisie. In his Dictionary of Received Ideas, the bourgeoisie is characterized by intellectual and spiritual superficiality, raw ambition, shallow culture, a love of material things, greed, and above all a mindless parroting of sentiments and beliefs.


title: Madame Bovary

text: For Vargas Llosa, "Emma's drama is the gap between illusion and reality, the distance between desire and its fulfillment" and shows "the first signs of alienation that a century later will take hold of men and women in industrial societies."