Music Hall Memory Box
The Enduring Legacy of Music Halls
We have a lot to thank music halls for! We may not always acknowledge it, but many of the entertainment styles and customs that we enjoy today evolved directly from the halls. Stand-up comedy, comedy sketches, the comedy singer, acrobatic shows, ventriloquism and magic shows were all popularised on the halls during the 19th century. Indeed, the very idea of incorporating many diverse entertainment forms into one show (also known as variety) was born on the halls.
The annual Royal Variety Show, Britain's Got Talent, and other variety shows, such as Tonight at the London Palladium, which we enjoy as a society, only exist because of the cultural precedent set by music halls. Likewise, some of our most celebrated cultural icons of the 20th century, including Charlie Chaplin, Gracie Fields, Morecambe and Wise, Laurel and Hardy, Tommy Cooper and Norman Wisdom, to name but a few, either began their careers on the halls or were influenced by them in performance style.
The songs born on the halls continue to be reinterpreted for new audiences, and customs we take for granted, such as a compère (also known as a Master of Ceremonies), and expressions, such as 'Your numbers up', are all legacies of the halls and their direct descendent, variety theatre. Even, the very quintessentially British phenomenon that is Pantomime was popularised on the halls. Our Victorian forefathers routinely went to see a pantomime every winter, just as many of us in Britain still do today.
Though the experience of going to a music hall declined in British society with the advent of television, the customs and entertainment style of the halls, proved very adaptable. As you will discover below, variety shows transitioned onto radio, and later television.
So, next time you watch the Royal Variety Show, go to a pantomime or watch a stand-up comedian live, spare a moment to reflect on the long history behind variety performance, which began on the music halls of the 19th century.
Radio
It's That Man Again was a variety programme that aired from 1939 to 1949 on the BBC's Forces Programme. It has been widely accredited with sustaining British morale throughout the Second World War. The same humour and variety entertainment that had sustained Britain through the First World War did so again in the Second World War, but this time people were entertained in their own homes.
Click to hear a clip from an 1940 ITMA show
Variety Bandbox was a variety show that was transmitted every Sunday evening on BBC radio on the Light Programme (now BBC Radio 2) from 1941 to the early 1950s. It launched the career of many variety stars, including the comic actor Frankie Howerd.
Educating Archie was a comedy/variety show featuring ventriloquist Peter Brough and his doll Archie Andrews. It ran on the BBC's light programme from 1950 to 1958, and despite it bizarrely featuring a ventriloquist on the radio, it was very popular with audiences.
Television
The Good Old Days was an extremely popular television programme that aired on the BBC from 1953 to 1983. It recreated the atmosphere of the Victorian and Edwardian Era music halls for new audiences. The old-time songs were performed, alongside contemporary variety acts, such as Morecambe and Wise. In a sense, it merged the past with the then present. Audience members may have dressed in Victorian or Edwardian outfits, but contemporary artists were familiarising an old art form with new generations, and so, continuing the legacy of variety and creating a new chapter in its history.
Mr Peter Charlton, Music Hall historian explains how The Good Old Days inspired a revival of music hall shows in local communities.