YESTERDAY'S MUSIC HALL GREATS

Britain has a rich legacy of song and dance men and women who brought joy and escapism to their hard-pressed audiences. Their stage was that of the music hall, hugely popular in the 1880-1940 period, before radio, audio, cinema and TV changed people’s entertainment habits forever. The old songs, in particular, are still widely cherished while the names of their singers sink into obscurity. I want to give these splendid artistes their due.

Marie Lloyd

Let us first recall Marie Lloyd (1870-1923). An Eastender from Hoxton, with a turbulent private life, she was pretty, toothy and bouncy and her act was enlivened by many a villainous wink, sly smile and lurid innuendo. She was omitted from the first Royal Command Performance in 1912 for her “vulgarity” but the public flocked to see her with her most famous cockney song My old Man said foller the Van:

 

My old man said: "Foller the van,

And don't dilly-dally on the way".

Off went the van wiv me 'ome packed in it.

I walked be'ind wiv me old cock linnet.

But I dillied and dallied,

Dallied and dillied;

Lost me way and don't know where to roam.

And you can't trust a "Special"

Like the old-time copper

When you can't find your way home.

Another Eastender was Charles Coborn, although unpopular with his peers for his superior airs. He was immortalised by his The Man who broke the Bank at Monte Carlo:

As I walk along the Bois de Boulogne
With an independent air
You can hear the girls declare
"He must be a Millionaire."
You can hear them sigh and wish to die,
You can see them wink the other eye
At the man who broke the bank at Monte Carlo.

Charles Coborn

             

One of my favourites is Albert Chevalier (1861-1923) who specialised in “coster” songs, a cockney genre requiring some familiarity with rhyming slang – thus Dutch = Duchess of Fife = Wife! Chevalier’s famous song was the sentimental My Old Dutch:

Albert Chevalier

We've been together now for forty years,

An' it don't seem a day too much,

There ain't a lady livin' in the land

As I'd swop for my dear Old Dutch.

It was not only Song, there was also Dance. One of the most famous practitioners was Little Tich (1867-1928), a diminutive 4ft 6in, who defied gravity as he danced his Big Boots Dance acrobatically. My father saw Little Tich in about 1918 and was underwhelmed, not helped by the poor view from his seat in “the gods”.

Little Tich

Another very popular act in the inter-war years was Wilson, Keppel and Betty whose Egyptian Sand Dance audiences found very droll, though I personally found its appeal elusive.

Returning to the songsters, the music hall had a strong line in lady male impersonators of which Vesta Tilley and Hetty King were prime examples. Vesta had the better song in Burlington Bertie although there were several revisions:

I'm Burlington Bertie, I rise at ten thirty

And saunter along like a toff

I walk down the Strand with my gloves on my hand

Then I walk down again with them off

I'm all airs and graces, correct easy paces

Without food so long I've forgot where my face is

I'm Bert, Bert, I haven't a shirt

But my people are well off you know.

Nearly everyone knows me from Smith to Lord Rosebr'y,

I'm Burlington Bertie from Bow.

Vesta the Lady and Vesta in drag

Harry Lauder was knighted in 1919 and much later the same honour came the way of George Robey, the self-proclaimed “Prime Minister of Mirth”. Robey was a comic, and a famous pantomime dame, but in 1916 he starred in the West End musical The Bing Boys are Here singing the delightful duet If you were the Only Girl in the World which became Robey’s signature tune:

If you were the only girl in the world
and I were the only boy
Nothing else would matter in the world today
We could go on loving in the same old way
A garden of Eden just made for two
With nothing to mar our joy
I would say such wonderful things to you
There would be such wonderful things to do
If you were the only girl in the world
and I were the only boy.

There were other acts which would not pass muster these days, notably the blacked-up minstrel singer G.H.Elliott, (1882-1962) known embarrassingly as "The Chocolate Coloured Coon". His song was another good one, The Lily of Laguna:

She's ma lady love, she is ma dove, ma baby love,
She's no gal for sittin' down to dream,
She's de only queen Laguna knows;
I know she likes me, I know she likes me
Because she says so; she is de Lily of Laguna,
She is ma Lily and ma Rose.

Minstrel G H Elliott

Australia had produced Nellie Melba and Don Bradman but rather more popular with the music hall denizens was Ozzie Florrie Forde, a mainstay of music hall for 40 years until 1940. She made ‘em sing-along in honour of the Hampstead Heath pub with Down at the Old Bull and Bush:

Come, come, come and make eyes at me

down at the Old Bull and Bush,

Da, da, da, da, da,

Come, come, drink some port wine with me,

Down at the Old Bull and Bush,

Hear the little German Band,

Da, da, da, da, da

 Just let me hold your hand dear do

 Do come and have a drink or two

 down at the Old Bull and Bush.

Florrie Forde

My final artiste is Bud Flanagan, whose career also took him to films and radio, Bud was one half of Flanagan and Allen, though his partner Chesney Allen was rather anonymous. The pair joined up with 4 others, Nervo and Knox and Naughton and Gold to create The Crazy Gang, who held hilarious slapstick court at the Victoria Palace theatre in London from 1931 onwards. When I visited London in the late 1940s and early 1950s a visit to the Crazy Gang was an unmissable treat. King George VI was a great fan too. Flanagan and Allen’s special song was Underneath the Arches, sung by two tramps in moth-eaten furs;

Bud Flanagan

Underneath the arches, I dream my dreams away
Underneath the arches on cobblestones I lay
Every night you'll find me, tired out and worn
Happy when the daylight comes creeping, heralding the dawn
Sleeping when it’s raining and sleeping when it's fine
I hear the trains rattling by above
Pavement is my pillow no matter where I stray
Underneath the arches, I dream my dreams away.

Go on, sing along!


SMD
21.01.14
Copyright Sidney Donald 2014