My Old Man: A Personal History of Music Hall

The former Prime Minister takes a remarkable journey into his family past to tell the richly colourful story of the British music hall in this Theatre Book Prize-shotlisted history.Music hall was one of the glories of Victorian England. Sentimental, vulgar, class-conscious, but always patriotic and on the side of the underdog, it held a mirror to the audiences’ hopes and fears, and sometimes the general absurdity of life.Vast, smoke-filled auditoriums were packed night after night in nearly every town and city in Britain. The most popular performers, such as Marie Lloyd, Vesta Tilley and George Robey, were among the highest paid and most celebrated figures in the land.Thi…