Music hall and variety Page 3

Dame Esmerelda Cicely Courtneidge, DBE (1 April 1893 - 26 April 1980) was an Australian-born British actress, comedian and singer. The daughter of the producer and playwright, Robert Courtneidge, she was appearing in his productions in the West End by the age of 16.

Following the outbreak of the First World War, her father had a series of failures and temporarily withdrew from production. No other producers offered the young Cicely leading roles in musical comedies and so she turned instead to the music hall, learning her craft as a comedian. In 1916 she married the actor and dancer Jack Hulbert, with whom she also formed a professional partnership that lasted until his death 62 years later. They acted together on stage and screen, initially in a series of revues, with Hulbert frequently producing as well as performing.

During the Second World War, she entertained the armed forces and raised funds for the troops. After the war, she concentrated on non-musical theatre, appearing in the West End, and on tour, in a range of plays, both serious and comic and, in the late 1960s, also appeared on TV, most notably in the role of Reg Varney's mother in the first series of On The Busses, before Doris Hare took over the part.

While appearing in her last West End run in 1971, she celebrated 70 years on the stage. The following year she was appointed Dame of the British Empire. One of her last stage appearances was in a royal gala performance at the Chichester Festival Theatre in June 1977, celebrating the Queen's Silver Jubilee with an all-star cast including Ingrid Bergman, Wendy Hiller, Flora Robson and Diana Rigg.

Jack Hulbert died in 1978 and Cicely two years later, shortly after her 87th birthday, at a nursing home in Putney. She was cremated at the Golders Green Crematorium.

Here she performs the revue sketch Double Damask:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=xZ1izbkWWoI

For the uninitiated (like myself), damask is a rich, heavy silk or linen fabric with a pattern woven into it, used for table linen and upholstery; Double damask is a type of woven fabric with a pattern visible on both sides. It is made from pure flax yarns and has a denser weave than single damask.

The Andrews Sisters were a popular pre-war & wartime trio comprising three sisters, Laverne, Maxine & Patty, whose well known songs include Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy, Don't Sit Under the Apple Tree with Anyone else but me and Rum and Coca Cola. During the war they entertained the troops in Africa, Italy and the USA. They were inducted into the Minnesota Rock/Country Hall of Fame in May 2006.

This is a less well known song of theirs which might be considered offensive, particularly by overweight men, today:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=mlbiEDsTv9s

For any overweight males who might object to the lyrics of the Andrew Sisters' version, there is a gender-reversal version sung by Arthur Godfrey about his female dance companion:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9h-a9cvsbMM

Charles Morton, who is recognised as the "Father of the Halls", was born on this day in 1819 in Hackney. He acquired the Canterbury Arms in Upper Marsh, Lambeth in 1849. He had previously owned pubs and had promoted simple Tavern Concerts but, realising the potential of the area, added the purpose built, 700 seater Canterbury Hall in 1852, which is generally regarded as the first real Music Hall in that it was especially built to house entertainment.

Initially the entertainment was of a rather highbrow nature with classical music featuring heavily. But comic singers eventually became the draw. Acts included Vesta Tilley and Harry Champion.

Morton sold the Canterbury in 1867 and went on to build the Oxford Music Hall on the corner of Tottenham Court Road and also saved other theatres from financial disaster including the Tivoli. In 1877 he became the manager of the Alhambra Theatre in Leicester Square. The theatre had fallen into financial difficulties following the decision by the Middlesex Magistrates not to grant a Music and Dancing Licence in October 1870. Morton took it over and made a success, presenting a programme of variety.

Morton announced his retirement in 1891 but, in 1893, at the age of 74, he was asked to take over the management of the Palace Theatre of Varieties, which he then ran successfully with a programme of variety theatre until his retirement shortly before his death in 1904 aged 86. He is buried in a family grave on the eastern side of Highgate Cemetery. His biography Sixty Years Stage Service was published in 1905.

Rochdale's finest, Gracie Fields, shopping at the Co-op to get her divi:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=LTf1Pm4PSUQ

In series 1 episode 3 of Ever Decreasing Circles (A Strange Woman), as Paul prepares to burn the previous owner's house sign of "Hill View" since the house is neither on a hill nor boasts a view, Martin explains that it did have a view. When? When the house wasn't there. If you'd stood in that spot before the house was built, you would have seen for miles. This prompts Paul to quote:

"With a ladder and some glasses
You could see to Hackney Marshes
If it wasn't for the houses in between"

to which Martin responds "We're miles from Hackney so that's a red herring."

This passage that Paul quotes is from a 1932 comic song by Gus Elen: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_XchS7hdddU

Born in Pimlico, Elen worked as a barman and a draper's assistant and had packed eggs for the Co-op before becoming a singer. He began busking at an early age and found a position singing in a minstrel troupe. His solo success began in 1891 when he started performing in public houses, singing songs in a manner similar to many cockney fruit sellers of the time, known as costermongers. Elen dressed in a coster uniform of striped jersey, peaked cap turned towards one ear and a short clay pipe in the side of his mouth for the stage persona he created, His characters adopted a persona of being constantly bad-tempered and pugnacious.

In 1907 he starred in a short film called Wait Till the Work Comes Round and appeared in the 1935 Royal Command Performance.

The song Sweet Violets is a song that contains classic examples of a "censored rhyme", where the expected rhyme of each couplet is replaced with an unexpected word which segues into the next couplet or chorus. For example:

There once was a farmer who took a young miss
In back of the barn where he gave her a... Lecture
on horses and chickens and eggs
And told her that she had such beautiful...Manners

This is a style sometimes used by the Two Ronnies in their closing musical skit.
Here it is sung by Mitch Miller, whose most well known record was The Yellow Rose of Texas, which reached #2 in the charts in 1955:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6hsEzLSFA10

Gilbert and Sullivan once famously opined that "A Policeman's Lot is Not a Happy One". Opinion seems to be divided between Jack Warner

who seems happy enough:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=kGbKcFMpet4

and Robb Wilton

not so much:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=bt2MBiZ3-Ak&t=29s

... and Sandy Powell was very much in the Robb Wilton camp as far as morose policemen were concerned:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OfvNqUrLk3I

and

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L5dWexpHoS0

Sandy Powell (born Albert Arthur Powell in Rotherham 30 January 1900) was an English comedian although he often wore a kilt on stage.

He made a total of 85 78rpm records between 1929 and 1942, mostly double-sided sketches with him in various occupations. The first, The Lost Policeman (the first link above), recorded on the cheap Broadcast label, sold almost half a million copies and his subsequent recordings for Broadcast and Rex were similarly extremely popular. He said in a 1982 interview that he used his stage work to advertise the records, rather than the other way about. He had a stooge in his act during the 1930s, the boy soprano, Jimmy Fletcher, father of the actor Gerard Fletcher who has appeared in Emmerdale, Coronation Street and other programmes.

In the 1930s he began to work on the radio, always introducing his show with catchphrase "can you hear me, mother?" and continued to work on radio, tv and pantomime throughout the 1940s and 1950s. After being on stage for a few weeks with a series of awful ventriloquists, he bought a dummy himself and did his own comedy act as a ventriloquist where the dummy would fall apart.

He performed in the Eastbourne Pier Theatre for over 15 seasons in the 1950s and 1960s, earning himself the title "Mr Eastbourne", He actually died, of a heart attack, in Eastbourne on 26 June 1982.

There was a pub named "The Comedian" in his honour in St Ann's Road, Rotherham but is sadly now long gone. He was the subject of This is Your Life in 1971 and was awarded the MBE in 1975.

Catch the Legends of Variety tour this September & October if you can with Freddy "Parrot Face" Davies: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FMfJoLUozog&list=OLAK5uy_kGMWbMtAKpvdL4TVM6YmSvgOT2wFg3wjg&index=11 and others:

Tour dates:

Thu, 7th September 2023
Plaza Theatre, Stockport

Wed, 13th September 2023
Queen's Theatre, Barnstaple

Thu, 14th September 2023
Lighthouse, Poole

Wed, 20th September 2023
Theatre Royal, Nottingham

Thu, 21st September 2023
Stafford Gatehouse Theatre, Stafford

Wed, 27th September 2023
The Woodville Halls Theatre, Gravesend

Wed, 11th October 2023
Ipswich Regent, Ipswich

In the apparent absence of the seven little people from the forthcoming Snow White film, here is a film of 4'6" Little Tich performing his Big Boot Dance at the Paris Exposition in 1900. This was his best known act for which he wore boots with 28 inch soles.

http://www.artpublikamag.com/post/how-the-big-foot-dance-made-little-tich-into-a-huge-star

Little Tich, real name Harry Relph (21 July 1867 - 10 February 1928), was an English music hall comedian and dancer during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. He was also a popular pantomime performer and appeared in them annually at theatres throughout the provinces and also at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane, where he appeared in three pantomimes between 1891 and 1893 alongside Dan Leno and Marie Lloyd.

More biographical information can be found on the above link.

When he died at his home in Hendon on 10 February 1928, aged 60,, his death and funeral were national news. The Daily News called him "the comedian whose popularity had never waned and whose name was as famous in 1928 as it was when music-halls flourished 30 years ago". He was buried at East Finchley Cemetery.

Interesting to see Fred Emney on the bill. This would be the father of the film & tv actor we know from later years.

You will have read Graham McCann's excellent article on Flanders & Swann on this site, published in May 2021:

www.comedy.co.uk/features/comedy_chronicles/remarkable-legacy-of-flanders-and-swann/

Michael Flanders (1922-1975) was a lyricist, actor, and singer. He collaborated with Donald Swann (1923-1994), composer and pianist, in writing and performing comic songs. They first worked together in a school revue in 1939 and eventually wrote more than 100 comic songs together.

Between 1956 and 1967, Flanders and Swann performed their songs, interspersed with comic monologues, in their long-running two-man revues At the Drop of a Hat and At the Drop of Another Hat, which they toured in Britain and abroad. Both revues were recorded in concert by George Martin and are available on CD as well as various compilations of their works.

Probably their two most famous songs (thanks to Children's Favourites on a Saturday morning) are The Gasman Cometh and The Hippopotamus Song ("mud, mud, glorious mud...")

Two lesser known songs, but always worth hearing, are:

Transport of Delight: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4UgBZfInBlU which commemorates the good old London bus. Interestingly this clip also includes an introduction to their show by Michael Flanders.

and:

the weather song: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_eT40eV7OiI bemoaning the vagaries of the British weather .

In the 1939 FA Cup Final, played on 29 April 1939, Portsmouth beat Wolves 4-1 and so, famously, held the cup for seven years as there wasn't another competition until after the end of the war.

The following week, Blackpool played hosts to Portsmouth in a league game. In attendance was George Formby (whether with or without his little stick of rock is not recorded) and here he is holding the cup with the two captains, James Blair (left, Blackpool) and Jimmy Guthrie (right, Portsmouth).

Judging by the shadows being cast, looks as if it's turned out nice again...

Sir George Robey (born George Edward Wade 20 Sept 1869) was known as "the prime minister of mirth."

He made his first appearance on the professional stage in 1891 and, of his numerous character roles, the most famous was the collarless cleric with the red nose, the startled and heavy black eyebrows, the indignant stare and the ribald smile.

He entertained London audiences during World War I with The Bing Boys Are Here, a jovial musical comedy and, for 15 years thereafter, he toured in his own revues and with his own companies. In 1932 he played King Menelaus in a lavish production of Offenbach's Helen! and three years later he played Falstaff in Henry IV (Part I). He was best known for his extravagant characterisations, precise diction and comic timing.

Robey appeared in many pantomimes and films and in countless music hall performances. He continued working until his retirement in 1949 at the age of 80. He was knighted in 1954 and died later that year - on Nov. 29 - in Saltdean, Sussex.

So popular was he that a set of Toby Jugs were produced in his image:

Here he sings It's the First Time I've Ever Done That: www.youtube.com/watch?v=eeV1yhKKplM

Quote: Billy Bunter @ 23rd August 2023, 7:29 PM

Transport of Delight: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4UgBZfInBlU which commemorates the good old London bus. Interestingly this clip also includes an introduction to their show by Michael Flanders.

View original

This is particularly wonderful.

Quote: Aaron @ 27th August 2023, 3:12 PM

This is particularly wonderful.

View original

You might also like this transport-related one then, again from Flanders & Swann. In memory of the railway stations closed by Dr Beeching in 1963. If not the song then certainly the wonderful pictures accompanying it (not that I can take any credit for that - other than finding it).

www.youtube.com/watch?v=zTFcN8RsJbs

Or, if it was the preamble that impressed you, then here's another one:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=G5M4tw_82PM