Vaudeville

Radio Record, Volume VI, Issue 21, 2 December 1932, Page 6

Vaudeville

Radi io Variety A ‘vaudeville show will be broadcast by 2YA on Wednesday, December 7, which will compare favourably with any programme heard at the old Palace or Tivoli, omitting, of course, items impossible of broadcast, such as the juggling of Paul Cinquevalle, the feats of strength of Eugene Sandow, the conjuring and illusions of Chang, or the daring "tableaux vivants" that roused the ire of Mrs. Ormiston Chant.

T comes as a shock to the modern mind to learn that vaudeville has its roots in customs and entertainment over 500 years old. True to its powers of survival, "age cannot wither nor custom stdle, its infinite variety |" _ Casting round for origins we learn that it is, as the name implies, of French origin, and means a country ballad from the Old French, "vau" (French "vol"), "de Vire," or Valley of Vire, a town in Normandy. The term vaudeville was originally applied to a country song of like kind with those written by Oliver Basselin, of the valleys of iVoux de Vire, in Normandy, in the fifteenth century. These songs, which were satirical, had for their subjects. love, drinking, and passing events, ‘They became very popular, and were spread over France. The peculiarity of their character lived after their origin was forgotten, and plays, interspersed with songs of this description, came to be called vaudeville. So there is nothing new under the sun after all, The topical song still survives after five centuries of use-the satire, the love, the drinking, and the topicalities still flourish like the bay tree-vaudeville minus these ingredients would not be vaudeville; and as under the skin we are primitives almost to a man, we seldom fail to respond to the appeal of these simple and what ought to be innocent delights. ITTLE more than eighty years ago the first _ miusic-hall was opened by Charles Mor-ton,-and the lifetime of one music-hall singer, Charles Coborn, the institution we now term vaudeville has come up from a thing of full tankards, low smoke-filled rooms, crowded and expectant male audiences, listening with rapture to the poor stuff that passed for entertainment in the good old days. Morton changed all this, and hy the time the ’sixties were ushered in bigger places were needed for the growing audiences that saw in the lion-comique and the serio-comic female performer a Subject for gossip for weeks on end. Musichalls (in the words of Mr. Willson Disher) were being born in litters. : new industry was horn almost overnight, and a demand set tm for performers. Of all the serios of the old days the one with the most characteristic career was Jenny Hill, known as the "Vital Spark." Her father, according to H. G. Hibbert, was a -cabminder, hanging about a rank in Marylebone. She worked in an artificial flower factory until given the part of the legs of a goose in a pantomime at the Westminster Aquarium, She was apprenticed to a North Country publican for seven years to learn the trade of a serio-comic singer, while making herself useful asa household. drudge. "On market days," says Mr. Hi b bert, "the farmers would sit over their cups till 1 or 2 in the morning. While

ere they lingered, the poor little serio-comic singer and dancer must be ready to take the stage of the "free and easy." And at 5 a.m. she must be alert to scrub floors, polish pewter, or bottle beer, at which she hecame quite an adept. At noon, the performances began again." ePENNY HILL married an acrobat, who taught her, not too kindly, his trade. While barely out of her teens she was waiting, with a baby in her arms, in the offices of music-hall agents. One agent, to get rid of her, sent her with a note to the manager of the Pavilion. It ran: "Don’t trouble to see bearer. I have merely sent her up to get ‘rid of her.

She’s troublesome." it had the erect Of moving the manager to give her a chance. She had an immediate success, which she did not live long to enjoy. Her early hardships and the "lessons" her husband had given her in acrobatics, brought about a premature old age. At 40 she had to leave the stage, and she died six years later (1896) with nothing left of the large sums she had earned. " Such a chilhood compared with that of present-day "queens of vaudeville" seems like a page from life in the Middle Ages. Happily it is a chapter of -history closed for ever. . The present generation know little or nothing of the vaudeville stars of ‘the past, although a few greybeards or near greybeards wax eloquent over Billy Williams of the "velveteen jacket," .R. G. Knowles of the "white trousers." Georgse Lashwood,

the "immaculately-dressed one’; Harry Frogson, the Englishman who captured Paris before he finally conquered London; Eugene Stratton, of "Little Dolly Daydream": fame, the "White-eyed Kaffir" with, his song of "The Blind Boy"; Harry Champion with a dial and voicespf brass (lately died etat 72) Gus Elen and Albert Chevalier, true ‘Costers both; T. EE. Dunville and Mark Sheridan, who both, alas, found suicides’ graves; Dan Leno and "Bertie" Campbell, Charles Whittle and George Formby "fra’ Lancashire," and half a hundred others. Among the ladies were Vesta Tilley, male impersonator; Marie Lloyd, with her amazing magnetic personality; Vesta Victoria, "Waiting at the Church’; Victoria Monks, "one of the people’; Lottie . Collins, who was made by "Ta-ra-ra-boom-de-ay.". We may have no Little Tich or Arthur Roberts to-day, but we have Chapham and Dwyer, Alexander and Mose, and dear old John Henry. » Gracie Fields takes the place of artists like Florrie Forde. . oo A. Norman Long plays his own accompaniments with all the charm of a Leslie Harris, Barclay Gammon or Mel B. Spur, Flotsam and Jetsam are unique, Will Fyffe is funnier than ever, Harry Tate is still with us, Will’Hay and his "scholars" are priceless, Elsie and Doris Waters are a ‘particularly able pair, and Harry Gordon and Bransby Williams continue to delight us with their-art. (Continued. on: page 18.),

Vaudeville_Radio Variety

.. ',(Gontinued from page 6.) _ All things considered, as good a yau(leville. show can be heard from reeords over the air as ever thrilled London in the gay ’nineties. : . "Radio variety" is universally popular, although its limitations render impossible the type of performance :that was witnessed by one old lady who at her first variety show grew very excited over the marvellous feats of the magician. When he covered a newspaper with a heavy flannel cloth and read the print through it she grew a little nervous.. He. then doubled. the cloth and again read the letters accurately... This was.more than she could stand and, rising in her seat, she said: "I’m going home. This isn’t a place for a lady in a thin cotton dress!"