
The Oxford Music Hall, ca. 1875
Music hall is a type of British theatrical
entertainment which was popular
between 1850 and 1960. The term can refer to:
- A particular form of variety
entertainment involving a mixture of popular song, comedy and
speciality acts. British music hall
was similar to American vaudeville,
featuring rousing songs and comic acts, while in the United Kingdom
the term vaudeville referred to more working-class types
of entertainment that would have been termed burlesque.
- The theatre or other venue in which such entertainment takes
place;
- The type of popular music normally associated with such
performances.
Origins and development

The Eagle Tavern in 1830
Music hall
in London
had its
origins in entertainment provided in the new style saloon bars of
public houses during the 1830s.
These
venues replaced earlier semi-rural amusements provided by
traditional fairs and suburban pleasure gardens such as Vauxhall
Gardens
and the Cremorne Gardens
. These latter became subject to urban
development and became fewer and less popular.
The saloon was a room where for an admission fee or a greater price
at the bar, singing, dancing, drama or comedy was performed.
The most
famous London saloon of the early days was the Grecian Saloon,
established in 1825, at The Eagle (a former tea-garden), 2
Shepherdess Walk, off the City Road
in north London. According to John Hollingshead, proprietor of the
Gaiety Theatre,
London
(originally the Strand Music Hall), this
establishment was "the father and mother, the dry and wet nurse of
the Music Hall". Later known as the Grecian Theatre, it was
here that
Marie Lloyd made her début at
the age of 14 in 1884. It is still famous because of an English
nursery rhyme, with the somewhat mysterious lyrics:
Up and down the City Road
In and out The Eagle
That's the way the money goes
Pop goes the
weasel.
[[Image:Wilton's Music Hall -
Interior.jpg|thumb|left|The interior of Wilton's
(here, being set for a wedding).The lines of
tables give some idea of how early Music Halls were used as supper
clubs.]]
Another famous "song and supper" room of this
period was Evans Music-and-Supper Rooms
, 43 King Street, Covent Garden
, established in the 1840s by W.H. Evans.
This venue was also known as 'Evans Late Joys' - Joy being the name
of the previous owner.
Other song and supper rooms included the Coal
Hole in The
Strand
, the Cyder Cellars in Maiden Lane, Covent Garden
and the Mogul Saloon in Drury Lane
.
The music hall as we know it developed from such establishments
during the 1850s and were built in and on the grounds of public
houses. Such establishments were distinguished from theatres by the
fact that in a music hall you would be seated at a table in the
auditorium and could drink alcohol and smoke tobacco whilst
watching the show. In a theatre, by contrast, the audience was
seated in stalls and there was a separate bar-room.
An exception to this
rule was the Britannia
Theatre
, Hoxton
(1841) which
somehow managed to evade this regulation and served drinks to its
customers. Though a theatre rather than a music hall, this
famous establishment later hosted music hall variety acts.
The first music halls
establishment often regarded as the first true music hall was the
the
Canterbury
, 143
Westminster Bridge Road
,
Lambeth
built by
Charles Morton,
afterwards dubbed "the Father of the Halls", on the site of a
skittle alley next to his pub, the Canterbury Tavern. It opened on
17 May 1852: described as "the most significant date in all the
history of music hall". The hall looked like most contemporary pub
concert rooms, but its replacement in 1854 was of then
unprecedented size. It was further extended in 1859, later rebuilt
as a variety theatre and finally destroyed by bombing in
1942.
Another
early music hall was The Middlesex, Drury Lane
(1851). Popularly known as the 'Old Mo', it
was built on the site of the Mogul Saloon. Later converted into a
theatre it was demolished in 1965.
The New London Theatre
stands on its site.
Several
large music halls were built in the East End
.These included the London Music Hall aka The
Shoreditch Empire, 95-99 Shoreditch
High Street, (1856-1935). This theatre was
rebuilt during 1894 by Frank Matcham, the architect of the Hackney
Empire.
Another in this area was the Royal Cambridge
Music Hall, 136 Commercial Street
(1864-1936). Designed by William Finch Hill
(the designer of the Britannia theatre in nearby Hoxton), it was
rebuilt after a fire in 1898.
The
construction of Weston's Music Hall
, High
Holborn
(1857), built up on the site of the Six Cans and
Punch Bowl Tavern by the licensed victualler of the premises, Henry
Weston, signalled that the West End
was fruitful territory for the music hall.
During
1906 it was rebuilt as a variety theatre and renamed as the
Holborn
Empire
. It was closed as a result of enemy action
in
the Blitz on the night of 11-12 May
1941 and the building was pulled down in 1960. Significant West End
music halls include:
- The
Oxford Music
Hall
, 14/16 Oxford Street
(1861) - built on the site of an old coaching inn
called the Boar and Castle by Charles Morton, the pioneer music
hall developer of The Canterbury, who with this development brought
music hall to the West End
. Demolished in 1926.
- The
London
Pavilion
(1861). Facade of 1885 rebuild still extant.
- The Alhambra, Leicester
Square
(1860), in the former premises of the London
Panopticon. This sophisticated venue was noted for its
alluring corps de ballet and was a focal point for West End
pleasure seekers. It was demolished in 1936.
Other large suburban music halls included:
- The
Old Bedford, 123-133 High Street, Camden Town
(1861). Built on the site of the tea gardens
of a pub called the Bedford Arms. The Bedford was a favourite haunt
of the artists known as the Camden
Town Group headed by Walter
Sickert who featured interior scenes of music halls in his
paintings, including one entitled 'Little Dot Hetherington at The
Old Bedford'. The Old Bedford was demolished in 1969.
- Collins', Islington Green
(1862). Opened by Sam Collins, in 1862, as
the Lansdowne Music Hall, converting the pre-existing Lansdowne
Arms public house, it was renamed as Collins' Music Hall in 1863.
It was colloquially known as 'The Chapel on the Green'. Collins was
a star of his own theatre, singing mostly Irish songs specially
composed for him. It closed in 1956, after a fire, but the street
front of the building still survives (see below).
- Deacons in Clerkenwell
(1862).
A noted
music hall entrepreneur of this time was Carlo Gatti who built a music hall, known as
Gatti's, at Hungerford
Market
in 1857. He sold the music hall to South Eastern Railway in 1862,
and the site became Charing Cross railway station
. With the proceeds from selling his first
music hall, Gatti acquired a restaurant in Westminster
Bridge Road
, opposite The Canterbury music hall. He
converted the restaurant into a second Gatti's music hall, known as
"Gatti's-in-the-Road", in 1865. It later became a cinema. The
building was badly damaged in the
Second
World War, and was demolished in 1950.
In 1867, he acquired
a public house in Villiers
Street
named "The Arches", under the arches of the
elevated railway line leading to Charing Cross station.
He opened
it as another music hall, known as "Gatti's-in-The-Arches
". After his death his family continued to
operate the music hall, known for a period as the Hungerford or
Gatti's Hungerford Palace of Varieties.
It became a cinema in
1910, and the Players'
Theatre
in 1946.
By 1865 there were thirty-two music halls in London seating between
500 to 5000 people plus an unknown, but large, number of smaller
venues.In 1878 numbers peaked, with seventy-eight large music halls
in the metropolis and 300 smaller venues. Thereafter numbers
declined due to stricter licensing restrictions imposed by the
Metropolitan Board of
Works and
LCC, and because
of commercial competition between popular large suburban halls and
the smaller venues, which put the latter out of business.
Variety theatre
A new era of '
variety theatre' was
developed by the rebuilding of the London Pavilion in 1885.
Contemporary accounts noted :
One of
the most famous of these new palaces of pleasure in the West End
was the Empire,
Leicester Square
, built as a theatre in 1884 but acquiring a music
hall licence in 1887. Like the nearby Alhambra this theatre
appealed to the men of leisure by featuring alluring ballet dancers
and had a notorious promenade which was the resort of courtesans.
Another
spectacular example of the new variety theatre was the Tivoli in
the Strand
built
1888-90 in an eclectic neo-Romanesque style with Baroque and
Moorish-Indian embellishments. "
The
Tivoli" became a brand name for music-halls all over the
British Empire.
During 1892, the Royal English Opera House,
which had been a financial failure in Shaftesbury Avenue
, applied for a music hall license and was converted
by Walter Emden into a grand music hall
and renamed the Palace Theatre of Varieties
, managed by Charles Morton.. Denied
by the newly created
LCC
permission to construct the promenade, which was such a popular
feature of the Empire and Alhambra, the Palace compensated in the
way of adult entertainment by featuring apparently nude women in
tableau vivants, though the
concerned LCC hastened to reassure patrons that the girls who
featured in these displays were actually wearing flesh toned body
stockings and were not naked at all.
One of the grandest of these new halls
was the Coliseum
Theatre
built by Oswald Stoll
in 1904 at the bottom of St Martin's
Lane. This was followed by the London
Palladium
(1910) in Little Argyll Street.Both were
designed by the prolific
Frank
Matcham. As Music Hall grew in popularity and respectability,
and as the licensing authorities exercised ever firmer regulation,
the original arrangement of a large hall with tables at which drink
was served, changed to that of a drink-free
auditorium. The acceptance of Music Hall as a
legitimate cultural form was established by the first
Royal Variety Performance before
King
George V during
1912 at the Palace Theatre. However, consistent with this new
respectability the best-known music hall entertainer of the time,
Marie Lloyd, was not invited, being
deemed too 'saucy' for presentation to the monarchy.
'Music Hall War' of 1907
The development of syndicates controlling a number of theatres,
such as the Stoll circuit, increased tensions between employees and
employers.
On 22 January 1907, a dispute between
artists, stage hands and managers of the Holborn Empire
worsened. Strikes in other London and
suburban halls followed, organised by the Variety Artistes'
Federation. The strike lasted for almost two weeks and was known as
the
Music Hall War. It became extremely well known, and
was advocated enthusiastically by the main spokesmen of the trade
union and Labour movement -
Ben Tillett
and
Keir Hardie for example.The strike
ended in arbitration, which satisfied most of the main demands,
including a minimum wage and maximum working week for musicians.

1907 poster from the
Music Hall
War between artists and theatre managers
Several music hall entertainers such as Marie Lloyd,
Arthur Roberts Joe Elvin and
Gus Elen
were strong advocates of the strike, though they themselves earned
enough not to be concerned personally in a material sense. Lloyd
explained her advocacy:The pressure for greater rewards for music
hall songwriters resulted in the application of
copyright law to musical compositions. This in
turn increased the profitability of the
music publication industry,
and the sale of music in printed form.
The term "Tin Pan Alley
" for the music publication industry gained currency
from the practice of rival publishers of banging together pots and
pans in order to disrupt their competitors' musical
auditions. The music publishers at the time (Feldman,
Francis and Day...) were large, extremely profitable companies.
They sold the right to sing songs to particular artists, and no
other person had the right to sing the songs in public.
Recruiting

May 1915 poster by E.
Kealey, from the Parliamentary Recruiting
Committee
- See also Recruitment
to the British Army during World War I
World War I may have been the high-water-mark of music hall
popularity. The artists and composers threw themselves into
rallying public support and enthusiasm for the war effort.
Patriotic music hall compositions like
Keep the Home Fires
Burning (
1914),
Pack up Your Troubles (
1915),
It's a Long Way to
Tipperary (
1914) and
We Don't Want to Lose You (but we
think you ought to Go), were sung by music hall audiences, and
sometimes by soldiers in the trenches.
Many songs promoted recruitment (
All the boys in khaki get the
nice girls, 1915); others satirized particular elements of the
war experience.
What did you do in the Great war, Daddy (
1916) criticized profiteers and slackers;
Vesta Tilley's
I've got a bit of a
blighty one (
1916) showed a soldier delighted to have a
wound just serious enough to be sent home. The rhymes give a sense
of grim humour (
When they wipe my face with sponges/ and they
feed me on blancmanges/ I'm glad I've got
a bit of a blighty one). Tilley became more popular than ever
during this time, when she and her husband,
Walter de Frece, managed a military
recruitment drive. In the guise of characters like
Tommy in the
Trench and
Jack Tar Home from Sea, Tilley performed
songs like
The army of today's all right and
Jolly
Good Luck to the Girl who Loves a Soldier. This is how she got
the nickname
Britain's best recruiting sergeant - young
men were sometimes asked to join the army on stage during her show.
She also performed in hospitals and sold
War
Bonds. Her husband was
knighted in 1919
for his own services to the war effort, with Tilley becoming Lady
de Frece.
Possibly the most notorious of music hall songs from the
First World War was
Oh! It's a lovely war (
1917), popularised by
male
impersonator Ella Shields.
Decline
Music hall continued during the
interwar
period, but no longer as the single dominant form of popular
entertainment in Britain. The improvement of
cinema, the development of radio, and the cheapening of
the gramophone damaged its popularity greatly. It now had to
compete with
Jazz,
Swing and
Big Band
dance music. Licensing restrictions also changed its character.In
1914 the
LCC enacted that
drinking be banished from the auditorium into a separate bar and
during 1923 even the separate bar was abolished by parliamentary
decree. The exemption of the theatres from this latter act prompted
some critics to denounce this legislation as an attempt to deprive
the working classes of their pleasures, as a form of social
control, whilst sparing the supposedly more responsible upper
classes who patronised the theatres (though this could be due to
the licensing restrictions brought about due to the
Defence of the Realm Act 1914,
which also applied to public houses as well). Even so, the music
hall gave rise to such major stars as
George Formby,
Gracie
Fields,
Max Miller, and
Flanagan and Allen during this
period.
After
World War II, competition from
television and other musical idioms, including
Rock and Roll, caused the slow demise of the
British music halls, despite some attempts to retain an audience by
putting on
striptease acts. During 1957,
the playwright
John Osborne delivered
this elegy:
Moss Empires, the largest British Music
Hall chain, closed the majority of its theatres in 1960, closely
followed by the death of music hall stalwart
Max Miller in 1963, prompting one contemporary to
write that: "Music-halls...died this afternoon when they buried Max
Miller". Stage and film
musicals, however,
continued to be influenced by the music hall idiom.
Oliver!,
Dr
Dolittle,
My Fair
Lady, and many other musicals were influenced by music
hall. The
BBC series
The Good Old Days, which ran for
thirty years, recreated the music hall for the modern audience, and
the
Paul Daniels Magic Show
allowed several speciality acts a television presence from 1979 to
1994. Aimed at a younger audience, but still owing a lot to the
music hall heritage, was the late '70s series
The Muppet Show.
History of the songs
The musical forms most associated with music hall evolved in part
from traditional folk song and songs written for popular drama,
becoming by the 1850s a distinct musical style. Subject matter
became more contemporary and humorous, and accompaniment was
provided by larger house-orchestras as increasing affluence gave
the lower classes more access to commercial entertainment and to a
wider range of musical instruments, including the
piano. The consequent change in musical taste from
traditional to more professional forms of entertainment arose in
response to the rapid
industrialisation and
urbanisation of previously rural populations
during the
industrial
revolution. The newly created urban communities, cut off from
their cultural roots, required new and readily accessible forms of
entertainment.
Music halls were originally tavern rooms which provided
entertainment, in the form of music and speciality acts, for their
patrons.
By the middle years of the nineteenth
century the first purpose-built music halls were being built in
London
. The halls created a demand for new and
catchy popular songs that could no longer be met from the
traditional
folk song repertoire.
Professional songwriters were enlisted to fill the gap.
The emergence of a distinct music hall style can be credited to a
fusion of musical influences. Music hall songs needed to gain and
hold the attention of an often jaded and unruly urban audience. In
America from the 1840s
Stephen Foster
had reinvigorated folk song with the admixture of Negro
spiritual to produce a new type of popular
song. Songs like
Old Folks at
Home (1851) and
Golden Slippers (
James Bland, 1879) spread round the globe, taking with
them the idiom and appurtenances of the
minstrel song. Other influences on the
rapidly-developing music hall idiom were
Irish and European music, particularly the
jig,
polka, and
waltz.
Typically a music hall song consists of a series of
verses sung by the performer alone,
and a repeated
chorus which carries the
principal
melody, and in which the audience
is encouraged to join.
In Britain, the first music hall songs often promoted the alcoholic
wares of the owners of the halls in which they were performed.
Songs like
Glorious Beer, and the first major music hall
success,
Champagne
Charlie (1867) had a major influence in establishing the
new art form. The tune of
Champagne Charlie became used
for the
Salvation Army hymn
Bless
His Name, He Sets Me Free (1881). When asked why the tune
should be used like this,
William
Booth is said to have replied,
Why should the devil have
all the good tunes?. The people the Army sought to save, knew
nothing of the
hymn tunes or gospel
melodies used in the churches, but "the music hall had been their
melody school".
By the 1870s the songs were free of their folk music origins, and
particular songs also started to become associated with particular
singers, often with exclusive contracts with the songwriter, just
as many
pop songs are today. Towards the
end of the style the music became influenced by
ragtime and
jazz, before being
overtaken by them.
Music hall songs were often composed with their working class
audiences in mind. Songs like
My Old Man ,
Knocked 'em in the Old Kent Road, and
Waiting at the
Church, expressed in melodic form situations with which the
urban poor were very familiar. Music Hall songs could be romantic,
patriotic, humorous or sentimental, as the need arose. The most
popular Music Hall songs became the basis for the
Pub songs of the typical
Cockney "
knees
up".
Although a number of songs show a sharply ironic and knowing view
of working class life, no doubt a larger number were repetitive,
derivative, written quickly and sung to make a living rather than a
work of art.
Famous music hall songs
- For a fuller list see Music
hall songs
Music hall songwriters
- Harry Dacre, composer of "Daisy Bell"
- Augustus Durandeau, writer of "If You Want To Know The Time,
Ask A Policeman", "Come Where The Booze Is Cheaper", "Never
introduce yer Donah to a pal"
- Noel Gay, writer of "Lambeth Walk",
"There's Something About a Soldier", "Leaning on a Lamppost"
- Fred Gilbert, composer of "The Man that Broke the Bank At Monte
Carlo"
- Harry Lauder, writer of "Stop your
Tickling Jock", "I Love A Lassie"
- George Le Brunn, writer of "Oh! Mr Porter!"
- Fred W Leigh, composer of "Don't Dilly Dally" and "The Army of
Today"
- Arthur Lloyd, over 100
songs.
- Lionel Monckton, composer of
"Moonstruck", "Soldiers in the Park", "The Pipes of Pan"
- C.W. Murphy, composer of "Has Anybody Here Seen
Kelly?"
- Felix Powell, writer of "Pack up
Your Troubles"
- George Alex Stevens , writer
of "On Mother Kelly's Doorstep", "Mother I Love You", "Chump Chop
and Chips" and "When the Harvest Moon is Shining".
- Joseph Tabrar, writer of "Daddy Wouldn't Buy Me a Bow
Wow"
- Harry Wincott, writer of "The Old
Dun Cow"
Music hall comedy
The typical music hall comedian was a man or woman, usually dressed
'in character' to suit the subject of the song, or sometimes
attired in absurd and eccentric style. Until well into the
twentieth century the acts were essentially vocal, with songs
telling a story, accompanied by a minimum of patter. They included
a variety of genres, including:
- Lions Comiques: essentially, men dressed as a 'toff', who sang
songs about drinking champagne, going to the races, going to the
ball, womanising and gambling, and living the life of an
Aristocrat.
- Male and female
impersonators, perhaps more in the style of a pantomime dame than a modern drag queen. Nevertheless these included some more
sophisticated performers such as Vesta
Tilley, whose male impersonations communicated real social
commentary.
'Stand up', spoken wisecracking acts and double acts with one
performer being prompted and interrupted by a 'straight' partner,
belong to later developments, derived partly from pantomime and
partly from the importation of American comedy styles. The phrases
'I don't wish to know that!' and 'kindly leave the stage!' and some
of today's habits, such as finishing on a song, belong to this
later period. Inter-war radio programmes such as
Band Waggon adapted the music hall and
variety traditions to the new medium, while later, 'The Goon Show'
took radio comedy into the surreal. Early television
variety shows picked up some of the pieces,
but this was at a time when music hall was already on its last
legs. Nearer to today, the spirit of music hall genre has enjoyed a
new kind of life in television's
The
Muppet Show.
Speciality acts
The vocal content of the music hall bills, was, from the beginning,
accompanied by many other kinds of act, some of them quite weird
and wonderful. These were known collectively as
speciality
acts (abbreviated to 'spesh'), which, over time, have
included:
- Aerial acts, of the sort usually seen at
the Circus
- Adagio: essentially a sort of cross between a dance act and a
juggling act, consisting usually of a male
dancer who threw a slim, pretty young girl around. Some aspects of
modern dance choreography evolved from Adagio acts.
- Magic acts and escapologists, such as Harry Houdini.
- Cycling acts: again, a development of a Circus act, consisting
of either a solo or a troupe of trick
cyclists. There was even seven-piece a cycling band called
Seven Musical Savonas, who played fifty instruments between them,
and Kaufmann's Cycling Beauties, a troupe of girls in Victorian
swim wear.
- Ventriloquists, or Vent
acts as they were called in the business.
- Electric acts, using the newly discovered phenomena of static electricity to produce tricks such
as lighting gas jets and setting fire to handkerchiefs through the
performers fingertips.
- Knife throwing and sword swallowing. The most spectacular of
its time was the Victorina Troupe, who swallowed a sword fired from
a rifle.
- Juggling and plate spinning acts. Another variation was
the Diabolo.
- Feats of strength by both
strongmen and strongwomen.
- Fire eaters and other eating acts,
such as eating glass, razor blades, goldfish
etc.
- Wrestling and jujitsu exhibitions were both popular specialty
acts, forming the basis of modern professional wrestling.
- Mentalism acts. Commonly a male
mentalist, blindfolded on stage, and an attractive female assistant
passing among the audience. The assistant would collect objects
from the audience, and the mentalist would identify each by
'reading' the assistants mind. This was usually accomplished by a
clever system of codes and clues from the assistant.
- Mime artists and impressionists.
- Trampoline acts.
- Animal acts: Talking dogs, Flea
circuses, and all manner of animals doing tricks.
- Stilt walkers.
- Puppet acts, including human puppets and
living doll acts.
- Comic pianists, such as John
Orlando Parry and George
Grossmith.
- Cowboy/Wild West acts.
- Shadow puppet acts.
Music hall performers
The
Music Hall Guild of Great Britain and America a London based
theatre charity, strives to care for and restore the final resting
places of Music Hall artistes.
Cultural influences of music hall: Literature, drama, screen,
and later music
The music hall has been evoked in many films, plays, TV series and
books.
- About half of the film Those Were The Days
(1934) is set in a music hall. It was based on a farce by Pinero and features the music hall acts of Lily Morris, Harry
Bedford, the gymnasts Gaston & Andre, G.H. Elliott, Sam
Curtis and Frank Boston & Betty.
- A music hall with a 'memory man' act provides a pivotal plot
device in the classic 1935 Hitchcock
thriller The 39
Steps.
- The Arthur Askey comedy film I Thank You (1941) features old time
music hall star Lily Morris as an ex-music hall artiste now
ennobled as "Lady Randall". In the last scene of the film, however, she
reverts to type and gives a rendition of "Waiting at the Church" at
an impromptu concert at Aldwych tube station
organised by Askey and his side-kick Richard "Stinker" Murdoch.
- The Victorian era of music hall was celebrated by the 1944 film
Champagne
Charlie.
- Charlie Chaplin's 1952 film Limelight, set in 1914 London, evokes
the music hall world of Chaplin's youth where he performed as
comedian before he achieved worldwide celebrity as a film star in
America. The film depicts the last performance of a washed-up music
hall clown called Calvero at The Empire theatre, Leicester Square.
The film premiered at the Empire Cinema, which was built on the
same site as the Empire theatre.
- The Good
Old Days (1953 to 1983) was a popular BBC television light
entertainment programme recorded live at the Leeds City
Varieties
which recreated an authentic atmosphere of the
Victorian–Edwardian music hall with songs and sketches of the era
performed by present-day performers in the style of the original
artistes. The audience dressed in period costume and joined
in the singing, especially the singing of Down at the Old Bull
and Bush which closed the show. The show was compered by
Leonard Sachs who introduced the acts.
In the course of its run it featured about 2000 artists. The show
was first broadcast on 20 July 1953. The Good Old
Days was inspired by the success of the Ridgeway's Late
Joys at the Players'
Theatre
Club in London: a private members' club that ran
fortnightly programmes of variety acts in London's West
End.
- John Osborne's play The Entertainer (1957) portrays
the life and work of a failing third-rate music hall stage
performer who tries to keep his career going even as his personal
life falls apart. The story is set at the time of the Suez Crisis
in 1956, against the backdrop of the dying music hall tradition,
and has been seen as symbolic of Britain's general post-war
decline, its loss of its Empire, its power, and its cultural
confidence and identity. It was made into a film in 1960 starring
Laurence Olivier in the title role
of Archie Rice.
- In Grip of the
Strangler (1958), set in Victorian London, the raunchy
can-can dancers and loose women of the sleazy "Judas Hole" music
hall are terrorised by the Haymarket Strangler, played by Boris Karloff.
- J. B. Priestley's 1965 novel Lost Empires also evokes the world of
Edwardian music hall just before the start of World War I; the
title is a reference to the Empire
theatres (as well as foreshadowing the decline of the British
Empire itself). It was recently adapted as a television miniseries,
shown in both the UK and in the U.S. as a PBS presentation.
Priestley's 1929 novel The Good
Companions, set in the same period, follows the lives of
the members of a "concert party" or touring "Pierrot troupe".
- The parodic film Oh! What a Lovely War (1969), based
on the stage musical Oh, What
a Lovely War! (1963) by Joan
Littlewood's Theatre Workshop,
featured the music hall turns and songs that had provided support
for the British war effort in World War I.
- The popular British television series Upstairs, Downstairs (1971-1975)
and its spin-off Thomas &
Sarah (1979) each dealt frequently with the world of the
Edwardian music hall, sometimes through references to actual
Edwardian era performers such as Vesta
Tilley or to characters on the show attending performances, and
other times through the experiences of the popular character
Sarah Moffat, who left domestic service
several times and often ended up going on stage to support herself
when she did.
- Between 1978 and 1984 BBC
television broadcast two series of programmes called The
Old Boy Network. These featured a star (usually a Music Hall
performer, but also some younger turns like Eric Sykes) performing some of their best known
routines while giving a slide show of their life story. Artistes
featured included Arthur Askey,
Tommy Trinder, Sandy Powell, and Chesney Allen.
- The
modern Players'
Theatre
Club provides a brief impression of contemporary
music hall in the film The Fourth Angel, where Jeremy Irons' character creates an alibi by
visiting a show.
- Sarah Waters's book Tipping the Velvet (1998) revolves
around the world of music halls in the late Victorian era, and in
particular around two fictional "mashers" (drag kings) named Kitty Butler and Nan King.
- Music hall had a profound influence on the Beatles through Paul McCartney, who is himself the son of a
music hall performer (Jim McCartney, who led Jim Mac's Jazz Band).
Many of McCartney's songs are indistinguishable from music hall
except in their instrumentation. When I'm Sixty-Four and
Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da are
two fine examples. Herman's
Hermits, led by Peter Noone, also
incorporated music hall into their repertoire, scoring a major hit
with their cover of the Harry
Champion music hall standard I'm Henery the Eighth, I Am
in 1965 (but Noone's version included only the chorus, not the many
verses of the original).
- In James Joyce's short story
The Boarding House, Mrs.
Mooney's boarding-house in Hardwicke
Street accommodates "occasionally (...) artistes from
the music halls". The Sunday night "reunions" with Jack Mooney in
the drawing-room create a certain atmosphere.
- In Vivian Stanshall and
Ki Longfellow-Stanshall's musical,
Stinkfoot, a Comic Opera,
the lead performer is an aging music hall artiste named
Soliquisto.
- Legendary soul singer Michael
Jackson openly admitted his admiration for music hall
performers such as Charlie
Chaplin.
- Garry Bushell's punk pathetique band, The
Gonads, did rock versions of music hall songs. Many punk pathetique acts were idebted to the
music hall tradition.
Surviving music halls

The Hackney Empire, August 2005
London was the centre of Music Hall with hundreds of venues, often
in the entertainment rooms of public houses. With the decline in
popularity of Music Hall, many were abandoned, or converted to
other uses, such as cinemas and their interiors lost.
There are a number of
purpose built survivors, including the Hackney Empire
, an outstanding example of the late Music Hall
period (Frank Matcham 1901).
This has been restored to its moorish splendour and now provides an
eclectic programme of events from opera to "Black Variety Nights".
A mile to
the south is Hoxton
Hall
an 1863 example of the saloon-style. It is
unrestored but maintained in its original layout, and currently
used as a community centre and theatre.
In the neighbouring
borough, Collins Music Hall (built about 1860) still stands on the
North side of Islington
Green. The hall closed in the 1960s and
currently forms part of a bookshop.
In
Clapham
, The Grand, originally the 1900 'Grand Palace of
Varieties', has been restored, but its interior reflects its modern
use as a music venue and nightclub. The Greenwich
Theatre
was originally the 'Rose and Crown Music Hall'
(1855), and later became 'Crowder's Music Hall and Temple of
Varieties'. The building has been extensively modernised and
little of the original layout remains.
In the
nondescript Grace's Alley, off Cable Street, Stepney
stands Wilton's Music Hall
. This 1858 example of the
giant pub
hall survived use as a church, fire, flood and war intact, but
was virtually derelict, after its use as a rag warehouse, in the
1960s. The Wilton's Music Hall Trust has embarked on a fund-raising
campaign to restore the building. In June 2007 the
World Monuments Fund added the building
to its list of the world's "100 most endangered sites".
Many of these buildings can be seen as part of the annual
London Open House event.
1904 London Coliseum, Matcham theatre with London's widest
proscenium arch
There are
also surviving music halls outside London, a notable example is the
Leeds City
Varieties
(1865) with a preserved interior. This was
used for many years as the setting for the BBC television variety
show, based on the music hall genre,
The Good Old Days.
The Alhambra
Theatre, Bradford
was built in 1914 for theatre impresario Frank
Laidler, and later owned by the Stoll-Moss
Empire'. It was restored in 1986, and is a fine example of
the late
Edwardian style. It is now a
receiving theatre for touring productions, and
opera.
In
Northern
Ireland
, the Grand
Opera House . Frank Matcham 1895, was preserved and
restored in the 1980s.The Gaiety Theatre
, Isle of
Man
is another Matcham design from 1900 that remains in
use after an extensive restoration programme in the 1970s.
In
Glasgow
, the Britannia Music Hall (1857), by architects
Thomas Gildard and H.M. McFarlane remains standing, with
much of the theatre intact but in a poor state having closed in
1938. There is a preservation trust attempting to rescue the
theatre.
One of
the few fully functional music hall entertainments, is at the
Brick
Lane Music Hall in a former church in North Woolwich
.The Players' Theatre
Club is another group performing a Victorian style
Music Hall show at a variety of venues and The Music Hall
Guild of Great Britain and America who stage their own
professional music hall theatre productions.
See also
The term
"Music hall" is also used to describe some large musical venues,
such as the Paris
Olympia
, Radio City Music Hall
, and Music Hall in Cincinnati, Ohio
(see Cincinnati Symphony
Orchestra).
References
Further reading
- Alexander, John, Tearing Tickets Twice Nightly:The Last
Days of Variety (Arcady Press, 2002)
- Bailey, Peter, ed., Music Hall: The Business of
Pleasure, (Milton Keynes, Open University Press, 1986)
- Bergen, Edgar, How To Become a Ventriloquist,
(Mineola: Dover Publications, 2000)
- Bratton, J.S., ed., Music Hall: Performance &
Style (Milton Keynes, Open University Press, 1986)
- Bruce, Frank, More Variety Days: Fairs, Fit-ups, Music
hall, Variety Theatre, Clubs, Cruises and Cabaret (Edinburgh,
Tod Press, 2000)
- Busby, Roy, British Music Hall: An Illustrated Who's Who
from 1850 to the Present Day (London: Paul Elek, 1976)
- Cheshire, D.F., Music Hall in Britain, (Newton Abbot:
David & Charles, 1974)
- Connor, Steven, Dumbstruck: A Cultural History of
Ventriloquism (Oxford University Press, 2000)
- Earl, John, British Theatres and Music Halls (Princes
Risborough, Shire, 2005)
- Garrett, John M., Sixty Years of British Music Hall,
(London, Chappell & Company in association with Andre Deutsch,
1976)
- Earl, John and Sell, Michael (eds.) The Theatres Trust
Guide to British Theatres, 1750-1950 (A & C Black
Publishers Ltd, 2000)
- Green, Benny, ed., The Last Empires: A Music Hall
Companion (London, Pavilion Books Ltd. in association with
Michael Joseph Ltd., 1986)
- Honri, Peter John Wilton's Music Hall, The Handsomest Room
in Town (1985)
- Howard, Diana London Theatres and Music Halls
1850-1950 (1970)
- Hudd, Roy, Music Hall (London, Eyre Methuen,
1976)
- Maloney, Paul, Scotland and the Music Hall, 1850-1914
(Manchester University Press, 2003)
- Mander, Raymond, and Mitchenson, Joe, British Music
Hall (London, Gentry Books, 1974)
- Mellor, G.J., The Northern Music Hall (Newcastle Upon
Tyne, Frank Graham, 1970)
- Mellor, G.J., They Made us Laugh: A Compendium Of Comedians
Whose Memories Remain Alive (Littleborough, George Kelsall,
1982)
- O'Gorman, Brian, Laughter in the Roar: Reminiscences of
Variety and Pantomime (Weybridge, B. O'Gorman, 1998)
- Wilmut, Roger, Kindly Leave The Stage - The story of
Variety 1919-1960 (London, Methuen 1985)
- The V&A Theatre Collections for Music Hall and
Variety
External links