Melodrama was the nineteenth century's most popular form of theatre, as it demonstrated precisely the values that the contemporary audience desired, due to its essence of escapism and their demand for real people, cities and social situations to be recreated on stage. The nineteenth century saw the industrial revolution in England, after which stage machinery naturally developed, in order to create more spectacular effects for an audience demanding more realistic displays of tragedy and sensation from their theatres. The Concise Oxford Dictionary defines melodrama in its historical sense as "a play with songs interspersed and with orchestral music accompanying the action". Thus music was an integral part of this theatrical genre, typically used in order to heighten the dramatic effect of scenes. This technique is employed throughout Leopold Lewis's `The Bells', an example of which is not only the use of the ringing bells to evoke past memories and haunting nightmares, but also the constant stopping and starting of background music in significant situations, such as, in Act 3 of the play: (The mesmerist goes up stage to back of Mathias, makes some passes. Music. Mathias (to himself). Mathias, if you sleep you are lost...I will--not--no-- (Falls asleep, Music ceases.) The sudden lack of music, so shortly after it first begins, creates additional dramatic effect and deathly silence in this courtroom scene, for it can be concluded that now Mathias is sleeping and exposed, all is certainly lost. Melodramatic form is expressed through various textual features, and dramatic effects. Melodrama adds extra significance and importance to gestures, as it is a genre intended for performance, rather than reading. Peter Brooks' `The Melodramatic Imagination" remarks that "Everyday gestures point to another world of life and death". This ostensibly purports that such acts as the sailor diving into the water in order to slay a shark and retrieve...