The Music HallHUM 4018

The Old Bedford Music HallWalter Sickert

Gustave Doré

Overview

Some background history Class and the music hall How music hall challenged legitimate

theatre Some performers Social significance of the music hall?

Some History

‘Song and Supper Rooms’ All male: bawdy songs and jokes Amateur nights in pubs – ‘glee clubs’ Travelling theatrical companies

performing at fairs. Extracts from plays, patter, songs. First dedicated music hall opens in

1852

Canterbury Hall, Lambeth, 1852

Rapid development

•  By 1878 there were 78 large music halls in the London.

• 200-300 smaller halls, mainly unlicensed, semi-professional

• Format: song and dance acts; comic and acrobatic /juggling acts; compèred by chairman-comedian.

• Food and drink available throughout – often resulting in disorder

Typical Music Hall scene

Classes of Hall

F. Anstey: LONDON music halls might be roughly grouped

into four classes—first, the aristocratic variety theatre of the West End, chiefly found in the immediate neighbourhood of Leicester Square; then the smaller and less aristocratic West End halls; next, the large bourgeois music halls of the less fashionable parts and in the suburbs; last, the minor music halls of the poor and squalid districts. The audiences, as might be expected, correspond to the social scale of the particular place of entertainment, but the differences in the performances provided by the four classes of music halls are far less strongly marked.

Harper's New Monthly Magazine, January 1891

Regulation and policing

• 1880s code of conduct at the New Sebright Wholesome Amusements Temple:

• No offensive allusion to be made to any Member of the Royal family; members of Parliament; German Princes; police authorities, or any member thereof; the London County Council, or any member of that body; no allusion whatsoever to any religion or any religious sect; no allusion to the administration of the law of the country.

• Bailey, Leisure and Class in Victorian England p.172

‘Order and Decorum’

Cliché of music hall advertising Marks transition to respectability in

1880s Drink not as prevalent – ‘wet money’

no longer such a major source of income;

Strong drink in the auditorium began to be phased out in 1880s, prohibited in 1902 and all drinking prohibited by LCC in 1914.

Popular vs legitimate

Home Office memo 1909: [Music Halls] injure the theatre both

financially and artistically. They withdraw from the theatres many who were tempted by the freedom. The smoking, the promenades and the drinks in the auditorium of the music hall, advantages the theatre cannot have…And they tend to produce a degraded taste for hurried and frivolous and brainless drama…

In Music Hall Performance and Style, edited by J.S. Bratton (Milton Keynes: Open University Press, 1986) p.131

Programme

Programme from August Bank Holiday, 1892

Artistes

Vesta Tilley Male impersonator Music hall family One of the most

popular stars of the day

Grand finale in 1920

Little Tich 4 ft 6 in Ford Madox Ford’s

favourite! Also blackface

comedian Name from

Tichbourne claimant Paid £250 a week for

Australian appearances in 1905

Albert Chevalier

‘Legitimate’ actor Moved into music

halls in coster persona: ‘My Old Dutch’

Developed persona for use in revues, dramas and film

Shows the range of music hall

Some issues for consideration

Class: How is the music hall differentiated

from other types of entertainment? How do music hall artists represent

class? How does the music hall construct

an image of contemporary society?

Some issues for consideration

Gender: What is the effect of the early

segregation of the audiences? Why do you think women in ‘male’

roles (male impersonators, strong women) were such a feature of music hall?

Representation

How does music hall construct itself?

What stereotypical images are used in the culture of the music hall?

How is music hall represented in popular culture – TV, film, fiction etc.?