'The music hall ...had no place for reticence; it was downright, it
shouted, it made noise, it enjoyed itself and made the people enjoy
themselves as well.' W.J. MACQUEEN POPE
Music Hall lies at the root of all modern popular entertainment. With
stars such as Marie Lloyd, Harry Lauder and Dan Leno, it reached its
glorious, brassy height between 1890 and the First World War. In the
first book on this subject for many years, Richard Anthony Baker whisks
us off on a colorful and nostalgic tour of the rise and fall of British
music hall.
At the beginning of the nineteenth century people sang traditional songs
in taverns for entertainment. This was so popular that rooms started to
be added to inns for shows to be staged, and, before long, songs were
being specially composed and purpose-built theaters were springing up
everywhere.
Britain's working class had, for the first time, its own form of public
entertainment and its own breed of stars. The color and vitality
attracted serious writers and artists, as well as the future Edward VII,
and music hall became simultaneously the haunt of the working classes
and the avant-garde.
Including stories of a clergyman who wrote music-hall sketches, a hall
in Glasgow where luckless entertainers were pulled off stage by a long
hooked pole, and Cockney dictionaries that helped Americans understand
touring British performers, this book is a hugely engaging slice of
social history, rich in humor, tragedy and bathos.
