FALLEN STABS

Manawatu Times, Volume LIII, Issue 6545, 29 February 1928, Page 2

FALLEN STABS

DECLINE OF MUSIC HALLS A song which our fathers in their heady youth sang the chprus used to inquire, "Where are the boys of the old brigade?” Where are they ih 1927 where are the audiences which used t 0 roar at the lion comique and weep at the serio, what has become of the taste for the ' entertainment of Dan Leno and Marie Llovd? “Variety today,” it was announced at the meeting of a music hall charity,-“ is about at its lowest ebb .... There are very few variety shows running, and. the state of the profession is appalling.” Twenty-five years ago the music .hall was the entertainment of all tho world if ■ not invariably of his wife (says the London Daily Telegraph). To hear Dan Leno’s new patter or Marie Lloyd Is .new songs was- obligatory. They drew tho million and the epicures. There is none now to wear Dan Leno’s shoes, and where shall we look for' a comedian who can wink like Mario Lloyd? But tho old music hall, to do it justice, was not a place of stars and -vacancy. Men might forsake their scats while a patriotic songster blared defiance, or the little nightly -lose of sentiment).was administered. But the small fry were nono _so bad. i How often in the corusciations of modern revue or comedy have we re-. membered with a sigh the back-chat artists of tho past The tumblers,; tho'jugglers, the eccentrics, tho odds and ends were surely very pleasant stuff—or is it that *we contemplate them thorugh tho mirage of a time when “everything in the garden was lovely?” But wo are not to be convinced, as some of tho pessimists say, that the glory of the music hall has departed because England breeds no

more comedians. The stage still has drolls who can hold a big audience 10 and 20 minutes at ,a time with their personal .fun. What more; was asked of the generation of Lcno? The moderns spend their time in revue and musical comedy, and when wo see. the bill of a variety house in the' suburbs or the country it is revue also, unless , tho place has gone into tho pictures. Some experts say that tho music hall has declined and fallen because ;the masses spend their money on the movies and tho minority want the set-backs of revue. This is to describe jyhat has happened, not to explain why it happened. There are suggestions that ‘ tho million prefer tho pictures -because it gets more for its money; the seat being cheaper, a man sees more performances for the same cost. That may bo tho root of tho matter. Yet surely the man who wants to hear and see a good comedian would not be satisfied with seeing a film, not though it were Mr. Chaplin’s. Tho living presence is all. Perhaps a generation has arisen which is without the taste for personality. It is a dismal prospect.