My Old Man: A Personal History of Music Hall

My Old Man: A Personal History of Music Hall
John Major

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.This was the world that John Major’s father Tom entered at the age of 21 as a comedian and singer. In My Old Man, the former prime minister uses his father’s story as a springboard for telling the entertaining history of the music hall, from its origins in Elizabethan times through to its heyday in the nineteenth century and eventual decline with the rise of radio and cinema in the twentieth century.Packed with colourful anecdotes about the great performers of the day, this warm-hearted history conjures up a lost age.

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Dedication (#u7d2b65db-34ec-5f6b-b39e-e51127a2107f)

In loving memory of Tom, Gwen and Kitty, and of my brother Terry, whose ambition in life was to see this book written

Contents

Cover (#u633c1021-12c9-5dbb-bbb9-daa8eabcae28)

Title Page (#ulink_d4499b81-d75d-5d90-b7c3-a4c8020ae6df)

Dedication (#ulink_ae6a5c40-1bab-5552-b0c5-6097f5485a17)

Leaving the Stage (#ulink_15b377a6-bf55-57a7-b12c-df06420f9fc5)

1 The Road to Music Hall (#ulink_bff2854c-dc7a-5a27-bfb4-86f796940971)

2 The Basement and the Cellars (#ulink_f8fc8a55-7041-57bf-8fb7-beb502d49d47)

3 At the Fringe (#ulink_2efe2f70-ac90-5bf5-a60c-9c88bc2e1052)

4 The First Pioneer (#ulink_90ef281d-cf25-5a0a-bd03-805ff5bb9d01)

5 Explosion (#ulink_67fa6e0e-38e9-5c2a-950f-1be7aaa513ea)

6 The Swells and the Costers (#ulink_b3f17b3e-e6c3-557a-90cd-cdf34333f248)

7 The Serio-Comediennes (#litres_trial_promo)

8 Marie Lloyd (#litres_trial_promo)

9 Dan Leno and Little Tich (#litres_trial_promo)

10 The Comic and the Minstrel (#litres_trial_promo)

11 The Cross-Dressers: Girls Who Were Boys (#litres_trial_promo)

12 Top Hats and Black Faces (#litres_trial_promo)

13 The Business of Pleasure (#litres_trial_promo)

14 Warp and Weft (#litres_trial_promo)

15 The Exotic and the Bizarre (#litres_trial_promo)

16 Amusement of the People (#litres_trial_promo)

17 The Literati and the Artists (#litres_trial_promo)

18 Enterprise and Outrage (#litres_trial_promo)

19 Overseas Music Hall (#litres_trial_promo)

20 Music Hall War (#litres_trial_promo)

21 Tom and Kitty (#litres_trial_promo)

22 The Seeds of Decline (#litres_trial_promo)

23 World War I (#litres_trial_promo)

24 Aftermath (#litres_trial_promo)

Index of Songs (#litres_trial_promo)

General Index (#litres_trial_promo)

List of Illustrations (#litres_trial_promo)

Acknowledgements (#litres_trial_promo)

Author’s Note (#litres_trial_promo)

About the Author (#litres_trial_promo)

Other Works (#litres_trial_promo)

Picture Section (#litres_trial_promo)

Copyright (#litres_trial_promo)

About the Publisher (#litres_trial_promo)

Leaving the Stage (#u7d2b65db-34ec-5f6b-b39e-e51127a2107f)

‘Who is to write the history of music hall? What a splendid theme …’

JOHN ROBERTSON, HISTORIAN (1856–1933)

In March 1962, I sat with an old man as he lay dying. He was barely conscious, with familiar half-smiles dancing across his well-worn and gentle face, but I knew where he was in his imagination – where he wanted to be. The lights were bright. A boisterous audience was cheering. Aged eighty-two, and over thirty years since he had left it, he was back on the stage. In life he had few possessions, but he died a richer man than most, with a song in his heart and joy in his soul.

He was my father, Tom.

The men and women who entertained so royally are all dead. They are gone, but not quite forgotten. We know some of their names, and some of their songs, but few people now living saw them onstage. Their magic is now the stuff of myth and legend.