MUSIC HALL AND VARIETY
by Catherine Haill, V & A
Variety was big business in the 1890s when the East End boasted a number of newly-built or reconstructed Variety theatres including the Queen's Palace of Varieties in Poplar, the Shoreditch Empire, and The Paragon Theatre of Varieties in the Mile End Road. Improved public transport meant that East Enders could patronise West End Halls more easily, but they hardly needed to when the stars travelled to them. Many East End Variety theatres were owned by syndicates who booked the same acts for several theatres.
The elegant architecture of the grand new theatres was itself an attraction. Views of the buildings and star performers illustrated their programmes - sometimes misleadingly, as we see from the programme for the Paragon, 9th October 1893, which features Ada Reeve, Millie Hylton and Little Tich on the cover but not on the bill. The Paragon advertised itself as `The Handsomest Theatre in the World without a doubt'; `The Grandest Place of Amusement in Europe', and `The Best Ventilated Theatre in London'. Designed by the prolific theatre architect Frank Matcham, it featured electric lighting and heating, a lounge and grill room, a conservatory and crush room, mahogany bars and classical sculptures. The turns were typical of those at all the grand Variety Theatres - singers, dancers, comedians, a troupe of horses, a musical sketch, trick cyclists and even an elephant act. To reassure patrons with memories of the more disreputable Music Halls, a programme note stressed that the entertainment was `absolutely free from objectionable features'.
Although Variety developed from Music Hall, the grand palaces of entertainment of the 1890s were a far cry from the drinking halls with entertainment of the 1850s and 1860s such as Wilton's in Wellclose Square, built for John Wilton in 1858 on the site of the concert room of the Prince of Denmark pub, also known as `the Mahogany Bar'. A chairman conducted proceedings; patrons sat at tables and ate, drank and smoked throughout the performance, joining in whenever possible. A critic of 1912 bemoaned the loss of these halls, especially the lack of beer in the auditorium:
`Only at one or two of the ancient houses with licences untouchable, the goodly amber liquor still foams along the stalls. What you might anticipate would happen, has happened; the music-hall public, the happy, rollicking music-hall public, the splendid, jolly chorusing, all British music-hall public, has wilted, withered, faded, died.'
The forerunners of Music Hall were numerous: the early 19th century tavern `free and easy' nights where amateur singers did `turns' to piano accompaniment; the concert halls; the song and supper rooms; the tea gardens and the pleasure gardens. Several pub saloon theatres were established in the East End in the 1820s and 1830s where eating, drinking and smoking were allowed, including the Eagle or Grecian Saloon in the City Road, the Union Saloon and the Effingham Saloon in Shoreditch, and the Albert Saloon and the Britannia Saloon in Hoxton. The Theatres Regulation Act of 1843 however, initiated change. While relaxing the rules on the presentation of drama without music, formerly restricted to the so-called `patent theatres', it banned smoking and drinking in theatre auditoria. Proprietors were forced to choose between becoming theatres regulated by the Lord Chamberlain, or establishments legislated by local authorities where smoking and drinking were allowed, but plays were not. The first music hall as such was The Canterbury Hall in South London, opened in 1852 by Charles Morton at the Canterbury Arms tavern in Lambeth. In 1861 he opened the Oxford in Oxford Street. The number of music halls increased rapidly in London in the 1860s, but although Morton is generally acknowledged as `the father of the Halls', many of their early stars were East Enders who brought the cockney and the costermonger `up West'.
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Subject Terms: Music-halls (Variety-theaters, cabarets, etc.),Motion picture projection,Silent films,Boxing,Impersonation,Imitation,Stage fighting,Jugglers,Keyword Terms: Variety,Empire,Saloon,Palace,Comedian,Comedienne,Bioscope,Serio,Vocalist,Sketch,
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