摘要：T he recent stage adaptation of Sarah Waters's neo-Victorian novel Tipping the Velvet (1998) by Laura Wade, directed by Lyndsey Turner, makes for a fascinating comparison with both the source text and the 2002 BBC television adaptation. The novel, the serial and the play are all, in their different ways, revealing of the period in which they were made. It is now eighteen years since the first publication of Tipping the Velvet: a lifetime in political terms (indeed, eighteen years is the same length as the successive Thatcher and Major administrations of Conservative rule in the UK, from 1979 to 1997 respectively). After considering some of the paradoxes of the theatrical adaptation of this story of performance and the stage, the second part of this review essay sets out to highlight these differences by focusing on the way the final third of the novel is adapted, and on what happens to one of the minor characters, Zena Blake.
