The composer Benjamin Britten (1913-1976) was only in Japan for twelve days, in 1956, but his exposure to Japanese culture had a powerful impact on his music, resulting in his opera Curlew River.

As air services developed and Japan become more accessible, the number of visitors from Britain increased. One of these early visitors was composer Benjamin Britten.

Following the introduction of Western music to Japan in the nineteenth century, Meiji leaders struggled to incorporate it into the modernised education system. This essay details the way in which British vocal music provided a solution to their difficulties.

This essay details David Lean's interactions with Japan as a filmmaker through his two film projects The Wind Cannot Read and The Bridge on the River Kwai.

Cosmopolitan novelist and writer Frank Tuohy (1925-99) lived in several different countries, but it was in Japan that he spent the longest time. This essay offers an account of his life there, as well as his own reflections on Japan and the impact the country had on his fiction.

This portrait describes the fascinating career of the juggler and top spinner Mizuhara Gintarō (1875-1952) in Britain and other countries. He was notably successful in presenting Japanese performance practices to British audiences over a long period of time.

Alongside his contribution to the modernisation of music performance and education in Japan, John William Fenton is known as a composer of the first Japanese national anthem, Kimigayo. This portrait considers his career as a bandmaster in the British and then Japanese armed forces.

Dorothy Britton was born in Japan before the war and returned there during the Occupation. This chapter gives an account of her life as a bridge between Japanese and English cultures.

Marie Stopes (1907-1958) is most widely known as the pioneer of birth control and sex education for women in Britain. This chapter details her often forgotten early years in Japan, including her published works on Japanese theatre and her love affair with a professor at Tokyo University, as well as her employment as the first female Western scientist to work at Tokyo University.

This portrait details the scholarly career of P.G. O'Neill (1924-2012), his study of the Japanese language, Japanese festivals and Nō theatre.

Among the outstanding students of Japanese during the war, Ronald Doore was so succesful that he was asked to stay on at SOAS as an additional teacher. He had to wait five years after the war for his first trip to Japan, and here he gives his account of Japan in the penultimate year of the Occupation.

A facsimile of the British Embassy, Tokyo, report on the Beatles' 1966 visit to Japan.

The Royal Ballet and top ballet dancers from Britain have been frequent visitors to Japan since the late 1950s.

Sakura Jōji (1858-1939) studied physics and chemistry at University College London, and became one of Japan's leading scientists. He also pioneered the study in English of Nō drama.

Sessue Hayakawa (1886-1973) was the first Japanese native to meet with considerable success in the American and European film industries.

Following a period of study in Britain and Germany, Shimamura Hōgetsu (1871-1918) pioneered the introduction of Western drama and theatre (shingeki) to Japan. This essay details his srtuggles and successes.

Poet Stephen Spender was in Japan in 1958, and recalls his experiences of noh and Hokkaido.

This essay reports on the Daiwa Foundations 40th anniversary of the Beatle's visit to Japan in 1966.

The 1991 Japan Festival was a major celebration of Japanese culture across the UK, and marked the centenary of the Japan Society. The festival is covered in detail elsewhere, but this chapter records the efforts of Martin Campbell-White to involve both the Takarazuka Revue and sumo.

This chapter considers the career of Tsubouchi Shōyō (1859-1935) as a pre-eminent scholar and translator of Shakespeare, focussing on his connections to the town of Sherbourne, Dorset.