This book sets out to explore how dialect is employed in performance to construct identities linked to place, social class, and ethnicity. In so doing, the author refuses to adopt a single approach and instead takes into account many different but interrelated theories. This intricate theoretical framework is explained in chapters 1 and 2 with the former being devoted to some global concepts and the latter to approaches that became relevant while data was being collected and analysed. Some of the issues that are dealt with in these two sections are the nature of performances and its relation to mediatization, the value of dialect to create and recreate identities from the perspective of enregisterment and indexicality and as a tool for humour and social critique, and the notions of ‘intertextuality’ and ‘framing’ in relation to performances. Apart from that, in chapters 1 and 2 the methodology is discussed. Clark's data set consists of ‘locally based live creative performances’ (19) held in several towns and cities of the West Midlands region. The performances range from professional theatre work to amateur open mic nights and are sound recorded together with subsequent conversations about those very performances with the artists, spectators, and some local and national celebrities.

Chapters 3, 4, and 5 form the body of the book where the performances and conversations are analysed. In the first of these, amateur and semiprofessional comic shows performed in a village of the Black Country region and in Birmingham are examined. Chapter 4 also focuses on comedy produced in Birmingham except that the entertainers presented here are English of Afro Caribbean origin, some of whom bring music in the form of rap into their performances. The last of these chapters is concerned with performances of a more scripted nature, which are performance poetry and plays, staged in towns and cities such as Stoke on Trent, Coventry, Birmingham, and Leamington Spa.

In these chapters, the analysis of the performances and conversations includes orthographic transcriptions with some phonetic notation so that readers can easily follow the discussion. This analysis touches on the topics of agentive use of dialect, language awareness, accommodation, and globalisation. Performers are shown to be conscious of dialect and the extent to which they use it depends on the type of venue, audience, and content. Furthermore, as pointed out by the author, performers use and enregister dialect ‘as a way of making sense of or coming to terms with the rapidly changing world and the forces of mediatization and globalisation in ways that do not deny people's linguistic and social roots’ (162). A good summary of this analysis is provided in the last chapter, which finishes with a proposal of a theoretical framework for the study of dialect use in performative discourse.

Overall, Clark's work is an excellent contribution to the study of artistic representations of dialect that proves the power of dialect use in performances to ‘subvert or mock contemporary cultural norms’ (166), playing with stereotypes while creating and recreating identities.