Turned Out Nice Again Read online

  Gibbons made emollient noises about extra pay for matinees, and closing the extra theatre, but these turned out to be time-buying manoeuvres while he consulted other proprietors about how best to screw more work out of the turns. Before long, aided by the newly formed Variety Artists’ Federation, the whole profession was on strike. Marie Lloyd handed out leaflets to highlight the reasons for the industrial action, while Gus Elen could be found picketing outside the Canterbury, singing an adapted version of his song ‘Wait Until the Work Comes Around’:

  If yer don’t get stars,

  The public stop out!

  That’s a’ argyment what’s sensible and sound

  Get yer stars back – pay your bandsmen

  Treat your staff a bit more handsome

  Or your dividends will never come around.19

  The stars’ decision to come out on strike was a magnanimous gesture. The likes of Lloyd were earning £80 a week, at a time when a skilled labourer wouldn’t expect to earn much more than that in a year. When managers attempted to squeeze more out of their performers, it was the lowest-paid – such as the pit musicians, some of whom were on as little as £1 a week – who had it worst. With the involvement of the big names, the strike proved very effective. An arbitrator was appointed, work was resumed, and in June 1907 an improved contract was offered, including payment for matinees and more reasonable barring clauses. The episode gained the VAF members the nickname ‘Very Awkward Fellows’, but it forced managers to ease off in their exploitation of talent.

  For all the improving efforts made by Stoll and others during the latter years of the nineteenth century, the music hall was still not regarded as respectable. In particular, by the mid-1890s, the Empire and the Alhambra theatres on Leicester Square had developed reputations as dens of vice. The Empire’s promenade, it was said, was full of gentlemen with little or no interest in the show and ladies who were happy to offer other distractions at a price. The reputation was largely unjustified. As early as 1866, the Alhambra’s manager had told a Parliamentary Select Committee that approximately 1 per cent of his 3,500-strong audience were prostitutes, and that it was impossible to stop them buying tickets for shows.20

  It fell to Mrs Laura Ormiston Chant, the Mary Whitehouse of her day and a fully paid-up member of the great and good with connections in the Liberal Party, to order a clean-up. When, in October 1894, Empire proprietor George Edwardes applied to the London County Council for a new licence as a matter of routine, Mrs Ormiston Chant blocked it ‘on the ground that the place at night is the habitual resort of prostitutes in pursuit of their traffic, and that portions of the entertainment are most objectionable, obnoxious, and against the best interests and moral well-being of the community at large’.21

  In particular, she objected to the suggestive, flesh-coloured tights worn by the ballet dancers on stage. A Miss Shepherd, one of the Empire dancers, spoke up for her colleagues, stating that ‘their lives were as pure and honourable, and their calling as respectable, as those of Mrs Ormiston Chant and her friends’, adding that her work at the Empire had allowed her to ‘make the last days of her widowed mother happy’, which moved some of those present to cheer. Mr T. Elvidge, secretary of the Theatrical and Music-Hall Operatives Union, also spoke up, estimating that the closure of the Empire would affect, ‘directly and indirectly . . . not fewer than 10,000 working people’.22 Mrs Ormiston Chant, who had visited the Empire five times, and claimed she had been accosted frequently by men who mistook her intentions and availability, remained unconvinced.

  Edwardes declared the Empire closed on 26 October 1894, citing the regulatory mess. However, it was eventually decided to award the licence on condition that the serving of drinks in the auditorium should cease, and that the promenade should be ‘abolished’. In practice, this meant that it was to be hidden from the auditorium by a temporary canvas screen. Very temporary, as it transpired. On the night of the grand reopening, it was torn down by promenaders, including the young Winston Churchill. Fragments were then carried out into the London night. The public had given Mrs Ormiston Chant a very robust answer.

  The music hall finally achieved a measure of legitimacy on 1 July 1912 at the Palace Theatre, on London’s Cambridge Circus. It was, as Sir Oswald Stoll said, the night when ‘the Cinderella of the Arts’ finally went to the ball: the first Royal Variety Performance. There had long been music hall fans in the ranks of the royal family, in particular King Edward VII, who took his love of stage folk further than most – actress Lillie Langtry being one of his mistresses. However, the normal procedure had been to summon favoured performers for a private ‘command’ performance at a royal residence. Dan Leno had been a particular favourite. In the fields of opera and ballet, royal galas were well established, and it was finally decided to extend the same patronage to variety.

  Almost all of the big names of the day were present, if not in a performing capacity then as a walk-on in the ‘Variety’s Garden Party’ finale; among them were coster comedian Gus Elen, ‘blackface’ performer G.H. Chirgwin, illusionist David Devant, the Australian comedienne Florrie Forde, musical theatre star Lupino Lane, Scottish singer Harry Lauder, comedian George Robey and the acrobatic Delevines. There were two notable absentees. Elen’s counterpart Albert Chevalier was omitted for unknown reasons, while Marie Lloyd was not invited for the sin of being too vulgar. It has been suggested that it was at least partially a payback for her vocal support of the 1907 strike. Lloyd responded in a typically robust manner, by declaring that all of her performances were by command of the British public.

  1912 was also the year when the music halls came under the jurisdiction of the Lord Chamberlain for the first time, clearing up a decades-old anomaly and allowing one-act plays to be presented in variety bills. Unfortunately, 1912 was also to be the peak of music hall, its rise checked by the enforced hiatus of the First World War. The last of London’s great variety theatres had already been built, with the opening of the Matcham-designed Palladium in 1910. The form of the shows was also changing, with the old order of a chairman introducing a disparate selection of turns being replaced by packaged, star-led shows.

  The first generation of entrepreneurs and proprietors had given way to a new breed. Walter Gibbons’s interests had formed the basis of the General Theatres Corporation, which was taken over by the fledgling Gaumont-British movie outfit in 1929. In charge of GTC was George Black, the Birmingham-born son of an early cinema entrepreneur, who had come to London in 1928 to take the job. When GTC took over the Moss circuit in 1932, Black’s empire (or rather Empires) expanded massively, making him just about the most powerful man in entertainment at the time. Only slightly less exalted was his general manager Val Parnell, the son of ventriloquist Fred Russell. Sir Oswald Stoll held onto his circuit until his death in 1942, when he was succeeded by the superbly named Prince Littler.

  The Moss/GTC and Stoll circuits were known as the ‘number one’ halls, and below them was a clear hierarchy for performers to scale or descend according to fashion and favour. Leading the ‘number twos’ was the Syndicate Halls circuit. ‘Syndicates were second-rate, really, although they had very, very influential theatres like the Metropolitan, Edgware Road and the Empress, Brixton, etc.,’ explains Peter Prichard. Each circuit had bookers, who carved fearsome reputations among the talent. ‘The booker at Moss Empires was Cissie Williams, [it was] Miss [Florence] Leddington at Syndicates, and at Stoll’s, it was Harry Harbour’s father [Sam Harbour], then Harry Harbour.’23

  Among the stars that the new variety bosses brought forward was Harry Tate, who would be one of the hits of the second Royal Variety Performance in 1919, and a major draw until his death in 1940. He was the doyen of sketch comedians with routines such as ‘Motoring’, ‘Golfing’, ‘Fishing’ and ‘Selling a Car’, in which, accompanied by a cheeky young boy who was too clever for his own good (portrayed, at one point, by a young Hughie Green), he played a clueless, yet devious buffoon with an all too mobile moustache. In reality, Ta
te was clean-shaven, and the moustache was a prop, clipped to his nose, allowing him to wiggle it, milking every last drop of laughter from a situation.

  Later came the Crazy Gang – consisting of Bud Flanagan and Chesney Allen, Jimmy Nervo and Teddy Knox, Charlie Naughton and Jimmy Gold – who were to take up residency at the London Palladium for much of the thirties, transferring to the Victoria Palace after the Second World War. None of this success was expected, however, when the group was formed in a fit of pique by George Black. Black was all-powerful, and thought nothing of tying up most of his major talent with a blocking clause stating that, following an appearance at one of General Theatre Corporation’s West End houses, an act could not appear at any other central venue. He kept the acts he really wanted in work and thus prevented them appearing for Stoll or any rivals. Everyone involved was happy, including the Glaswegian double act Naughton and Gold. However, when Charlie Naughton and Jimmy Gold returned from an Australian tour in 1931, they found themselves outside the barring period and in a position to accept an approach from Stoll to play his Alhambra in Leicester Square. Their agent pointed this out to Black suggesting that if he could guarantee them a week at the Palladium, they wouldn’t take the Stoll offer. Black responded by giving them their week in Argyll Street, as long as they didn’t mind sharing the bill with Nervo and Knox, not to mention Billy Caryll and Hilda Mundy, who appeared on that first bill, but didn’t become part of the famous gang. Furthermore, the show would not consist of their usual, separate acts. All three turns would work together. The week commencing 7 December was to be ‘Crazy Week’.24

  Naughton and Gold went crazy. They were generally wary of the whole set-up and particularly suspicious of Jimmy Nervo and Teddy Knox, whom they had suspected of stealing their material in the past. Moss Empires’ general manager Val Parnell mollified Naughton and Gold, and the booking went ahead. Naughton and Gold were very much the senior partners, having been together as an act since 1908. Jimmy Gold was the writer of the pair, coming up with a lot of the material. Charlie Naughton was, in Roy Hudd’s recollection, the ‘little, pot-bellied butt of all the sketches . . . He never had much to say but just walking on as Spartacus or Friar Tuck or Thisbe was enough.’25 Unfortunately, recordings of their work haven’t aged well, and they come across as a typical, fair-to-middling, cross-talking double act of the era:

  GOLD: Here we are, Charlie, here we are. Loch Ness.

  NAUGHTON: Loch Ness, we’ll soon catch this monster.

  GOLD: I think it’s a myth.

  NAUGHTON: A myth?

  GOLD: You know what a myth is?

  NAUGHTON: Oh yes, a moth’s sweetheart.

  GOLD: Not at all, it’s a beast, a monster. Now you know what a monster is?

  NAUGHTON: Yes, I married one.

  GOLD: It isn’t a woman I tell you, it’s a beast.

  NAUGHTON: That’s the wife all right.

  GOLD: It’s a big fish, and I know all about big fish. My father had a fish shop in Aberdeen.

  NAUGHTON: Haddie? [A pun on finnan haddie, a smoked haddock dish popular in Aberdeen.]

  GOLD: Yes he had.

  NAUGHTON: Yes, and I know all about fish, and I know about fish roe, such as cod roe, hard roe, soft roe and Rotten Row.

  GOLD: Rotten Row’s not a fish.

  NAUGHTON: It’s a pla[i]ce.26

  Nervo and Knox were a decade younger than Naughton and Gold and had been together since only 1919.27 Both were acrobats by training, and at this point in their career were best known for their slow-motion wrestling act. As if this weren’t enough talent on one bill, Nervo and Knox insisted on bringing in ‘Monsewer’ Eddie Gray, juggler, prankster, wearer of the most expressive false moustache this side of Harry Tate, and the true inventor of Franglais.

  Black’s main motivation was to make life difficult for Stoll, but ‘the results genuinely surprised him . . . the theatre was packed’.28 Repeat bookings followed, and in June 1932, another act was added to the formula. Bud Flanagan and Chesney Allen were singers of sentimental songs and purveyors of corny jokes rather than knockabout comedians. Apart from concerns that their presence would slow the show down, Bud Flanagan’s pushiness, born of an absolute knowledge of his own worth, irritated Nervo, Knox, Naughton and Gold. Parnell again smoothed things over and the incumbents began to accept Bud and Ches. So did the audiences, and the new line-up was even more successful than the original. The sketches were important, but the main thing was the interplay between the comedians, frequently violent and disruptive as it was. ‘Buckets of water and paste fell on performers’ heads in the middle of their act,’ remembered Maureen Owen in her history of the Crazy Gang. ‘Audiences were asked to laugh at the spectacle of one person causing bodily injury to another or breaking up a skilled act.’29 The audiences didn’t care for health and safety and so, over the next decade, the Crazy Gang became the biggest stars in variety, as well as great favourites of the royal family, continuing the long line of patronage.

  Meanwhile, the ‘Cheeky Chappie’ Max Miller, in a suit made from what appeared to be a pair of curtains, stood slightly stooped by the footlights, and conspired with the audience to continue the legacy of bawdiness left by some earlier music hall performers. Even Miller’s racier jokes seem tame by today’s standards, such as the one about the girl of 18 who swallowed a pin, but didn’t feel the prick until she was 21. Just to be safe, though, he made sure the audience knew what they were getting with the equivalent of the modern broadcaster’s ‘strong language’ disclaimer. He offered them the choice between the white book (clean jokes) and the blue book (his more risqué material). They always chose the blue book.

  Aside from pure comedy acts like Miller and the Crazy Gang, show bands were also carving out a niche for themselves by incorporating a comedic element in their act. Jack Payne and Henry Hall both went from being hotel bandleaders to national figures in the early years of broadcasting. They capitalized on this fame with touring shows, while shrewd Lancastrian Jack Hylton and bluff, matey Londoner Billy Cotton took their dance bands onto the variety stage. Hylton’s main calling card had been his recording associations with HMV and Decca, while Cotton had begun his bandleading career at the Palais, Southport in 1925, where he had popularized a dance craze called the Black Bottom. By 1928, his band was resident at the newly opened Astoria in London’s Charing Cross Road, and was also recording for the Regal label, and Cotton himself was on his way to becoming a household name.

  Not all of the talent was home-grown, though. In 1933, Duke Ellington’s orchestra headlined at the London Palladium, followed in 1935 by Louis Armstrong, known as Satchmo (short for ‘Satchelmouth’). Although the sanitized jazz of the British dance bands was popular, the authentic item was still too advanced for mass consumption at this point. ‘The great British public stayed away in their thousands,’ recalled musician and scriptwriter Sid Colin in 1977. ‘For the jazzers, the tour became a pilgrimage, and they followed Satchmo from theatre to theatre, often watching and listening marooned in a desert of empty seats.’30

  Until the early twentieth century, live entertainment was the only type available, but the all-powerful bookers eventually had to contend with competition, which came initially from cinemas. The earliest movie shows had been items in variety bills, but films soon justified their own dedicated buildings and a new approach to showmanship. In the larger, plusher picture palaces, such as the four Astorias built in the inner London suburbs at Brixton, Streatham, Finsbury Park and on the Old Kent Road in the late twenties and early thirties, variety acts played second fiddle to the latest sensations from Hollywood. By 1939, there were an estimated 5,500 cinemas in Britain, although the peak of cinema attendances was not reached until 1946, with 1.6 billion, or 31 million patrons weekly. When, in the twenties, broadcasting entered the fray, the variety world viewed it more as a threat than an opportunity.

  Since its foundation in 1922, the BBC’s stated raison d’être has been to educate, inform and entertain.31 For much of its early
history, however, entertainment was emphatically the junior partner. Until 1927, ‘BBC’ stood for British Broadcasting Company; it was a private business, set up by a consortium of radio manufacturers so that their customers would have something to listen to on their crystal sets. It might have been in the best interests of these parties to make programming as populist as possible, but the new venture was both tightly regulated by the General Post Office (the government agency responsible for telecommunications) and subject to the iron will of its general manager, John Charles Walsham Reith. A son of the manse to whom religion remained vitally important throughout his life, Reith was a Scot by birth, an engineer by training and didactic by inclination.

  Acrobats, jugglers and other visual performers could hardly be expected to make much of an impact on the new medium of sound broadcasting, but Reith’s distaste for levity meant that, at first, comedians hardly figured either, with the schedules consisting largely of talks and music. At the lighter end of programming, the dance bands employed at the major London hotels were early to the microphone, most notably Carroll Gibbons and his Savoy Orpheans – which was an easy job for the outside broadcast team, the Savoy hotel being next to the BBC’s studios in the Institute of Electrical Engineers building at Savoy Hill. Not much further away was the Hotel Cecil, where Jack Payne’s band had the residency. In February 1928, Payne joined the Corporation as its director of dance music and his band became the BBC Dance Orchestra.