Aviation extended the horizon of international touring across Asia and the Pacific in the 1950s and 1960s. Nightclubs in Hong Kong, Manila, Melbourne, Singapore, Sydney, Tokyo, and Taipei presented an international array of touring acts. This book investigates how this happened. It explores the post-war formation of the Asia Pacific region through international touring and the transformation of entertainment during the ¿jet age¿ of aviation. Drawing on archival research across the region, Bollen investigates how touring variety forged new relations between artists, audiences, and nations. Mapping tours and tracing networks by connecting fragments, he reveals how versatile artists translated repertoire in circulation as they toured, and how entrepreneurial endeavours harnessed the production of national distinction to government agendas. He argues that touring variety on commercial circuits diversified the repertoire in regional circulation, anticipating the diversity emerging in state-sanctioned multiculturalisms, and driving the government-construction of national theatres for cultural diplomacy.

Jonathan Bollen is Senior Lecturer in Theatre and Performance Studies at the University of New South Wales in Sydney, Australia. His research interests include performance and desire, popular entertainment, regional touring, productions of Australian plays, and digital methods for research.  

1. Chapter 1: Introduction.- 2. Chapter 2: Transporting Variety through the Nightclubs of Hong Kong.- 3. Chapter 3: Translating Repertoire between Melbourne and Manila.- 4. Chapter 4: The Tourist Trade: Flying in to Singapore, 1946-1975.- 5. Chapter 5: Entrepreneurial Diplomacy: The Cherry Blossom Show on tour from Tokyo.- 6. Chapter 6: Encountering Internationalism on the Circuit around Sydney.- 7. Chapter 7: Containing Diversity: National Distinction and International Style.- 8. Chapter 8: Conclusion.