TASTES CHANGE

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 928, 22 March 1930, Page 25

TASTES CHANGE

Music Hall Disappearing from English Cities VARIETY IS DEAD Among the changes which London, and in fact all the bigger cities of England generally, have undergone in the post-war years there are few which have caused more surprise than the rapid decline in public fav- ! our of the music hall. The "halls,” as they were described, j seemed to be firmly established in the : affections and habits of the multitude. Their “stars” shone with an effulg- ! ence by comparison with -which the leading lights of the legitimate drama were pale and ineffectual. A Dan Leno and a Marie Lloyd : liad myriads of enthusiastic admirers i where the Irvings and the Terrys | could only count hundreds. In the : days when theatrical salaries scarcely amounted to more than a municipal scavenger can now command, the topj liners of variety used to draw weekly emoluments equal and sometimes

superior to those of a Cabinet Minister. Bessie Bellwood and Lottie Collins and Vesta Tilley were queens in their world and the “Pav.” and the Tivoli and the Empire and the Alhambra were wont to have “full houses” every night.

Nor did that quartet of West End houses represent more than a moiety of the resorts of a similar class to be found throughout the metropolis. Every neighbourhood boasted its own special hall. There were the Oxford, in the street of that name, the Middlesex iri the purlieus of Drury Lane, the Old Thatched House in Holborn and the Metropolitan in the Edgeware Road and a score more each with a local clientele which could be counted upon with certainty. Now all these have gone or are going. The Empire and the Alhambra are both cinema palaces, the Middlesex is no longer in existence and the Oxford is a tea shop. The Metropolitan and one or two others still carry on in the old style, but they are surrounded by cinemas and their ultimate disappearance is only a matter of a short time.

Not so many years ago—just a little before the war, in fact —Sir Alfred Butt built near Victoria station a palatial hall which was designed to be one of the last strongholds of vaudeville. It was called the Victoria Palace of Varieties, and for some years it has been a gold mine to its shareholders. Now it is in the market. At any rate, Sir Alfred Butt has stated that he will not refuse any reasonable offer for it. Vaudeville, he thinks, has had its day. The reasons for his belief are threefold: there is not the same demand for variety as there used to be, the old-fashioned turns no longer make the same appeal to the more sophisticated audiences of the present day, and there is the growing competition of the picture theatres, and particularly the "talkies.” In the whole of Central London there now remain only three houses which can be put in the category of music-halls, the Coliseum, the Holborn Empire and the Palladium; and in all three, modern revues and special attractions which are in no sense characteristic of vaudeville, properly so called, are usually the features of the programmes. "Old-fashioned variety is dead,” lamented Billy Merson, who was at one time a favourite on the music hall stage. "The public demand is all for speed. Years ago I, for instance, used to do a turn lasting forty minutes. Now the most popular turns are limited to a quarter of an hour. In the old. days one could book up a town for months. Now one is lucky to get a five weeks’ run. Owners of circuits have no settled policy. One week it is revue, another it is musical comedy, then straight plays and so oil There is an enormous amount of distress in the profession in consequence. There is a certain vogue at the moment for the music hall songs of long ago, but the public of today would have no use for the music hall programmes of the nineties and first years of the century.” It cannot be said that many tears are being shed over the demise of variety, except by those performers whose interests are directly affected. The public wants something better than the red-nosed comedian and the "swaggering toff,” who wanted to "biff” a policeman; and it has lost its taste- for the skittish .creatures — in what were then abbreviated skirts —who sang such chaste ditties as: “In her hair she wore a white camelia, "And dark blue was the colour of her eye.” -6

Nevertheless, it is recalled that the old music hall stage produced no small number,, of real artists, among whom Dan Leno, Albert Chevalier, Vesta Tilley, Marie Lloyd and Eugene Stratton and Little Tich, Charles Coburn, Gus Glen, Marie Loftus and Charles Godfrey will be specially remembered. The Actors’ Federation in Sydney staged Channing Pollock’s drama, “The Fool,” recently. Funds were for the benefit of*the members of the federation. Other productions will follow. The Rev. Walter E. Bentley, for many years a well-known Shakespearian actor in America, is at present in Christchurch. He is the founder of the Actors’ Church Alliance. Mr. Bentley went on the stage in IS SO as a super in Sir Henry Irving’s Company. Sunny Jarman, the American musical comedy star who married Mr. F. Francis, an ex-Guards officer recently, will do a world cruise with her husband in his yacht. Mr. Francis resigned his commission in the Guards when he became engaged. Isobelle Lorigan will make her last appearance with the Auckland Little Theatre Society in “The Man They Buried” on April 2. She will sail for England at the end of April to try her luck on the London stage. Everyone will wish this courageous little lady every success. Muriel Starr’s statement of.affair3 disclosed that in private life she is Mrs. Muriel Johnson, and that her liabilities are £3,000, £2,550 of which is owing to J. C. Williamson, Ltd., £350 to certain persons for stage dresses, and £l5O to the income-tax commissioners. Her assets were under £SO, and consisted mostly of her wardrobe.