What A Performance! Pioneers Of Popular Entertainment

This lively three-part series sees comedian Frank Skinner and music presenter Suzy Klein go back in time to the days before TVs entered our living rooms in 1955.

And it's not just a dry historical programme - they even have a go at creating vintage entertainment themselves!

"We tell the story from the music hall era of the 19th century through to the golden age of variety and the working men's clubs of the 1950s," says Frank, 58.

"We find out all we can about the great acts of the past - a time when Britain really did have talent."

In the opening episode, Frank and Suzy focus on music halls, and famous names such as Marie Lloyd and Champagne Charlie.

They study their acts and try their hand at performing them at the end of the show. "It's harder than it looks," laughs Frank.

Susanna Galton, The Mirror, 28th November 2015

Radio Times review

At one point in this history of pre-televisual entertainment, Frank Skinner enters a rehearsal room to hear a classic music-hall song. It was a favourite of Dan Leno, a 19th-century superstar sometimes regarded as the first stand-up comic (Chaplin and Laurel were both fans). The song is called The Hard-Boiled Egg and the Wasp, but it's less entertaining than its title, even with the full-blooded rendition we get to see.

And that's the problem: music-hall routines, as extensively celebrated here by Skinner and Suzi Klein, haven't aged well, or perhaps they need the right context to work - not a larky documentary. At least Klein has a decent stab at impersonating the genre's queen - Marie Lloyd.

David Butcher, Radio Times, 24th November 2015