Kevin Berry recently outlined his ideas to revive music hall shows, to offer coaching in the period style, to alert the younger generation to their heritage, to provide scholarships, set up exhibitions, lectures, masterclasses, workshops and so on and so forth (Forum, February 23, page 9).
But where’s the money coming from? This is all just pie in the sky. No-one under 60 wants to sit through dubiously authentic performances of musty comic songs or to hear jokes a century past their sell-by date. As Darwin said, everything evolves. Nineteenth-century ditties have long been superseded by rag-time, jazz, swing, bebop, skiffle, rock’n’roll, gangsta rap et al and though there are enthusiasts for music hall, just as there are enthusiasts for Morris dancing or collecting beer mats, the Great British public has little interest in a genre once popular with their great-grandparents. The Good Old Days on television, just like The Black & White Minstrel Show, was for and of its time. Don’t try and revivify a corpse. It’s not just dated, it’s dead.
The Music Hall Museum at the Empire, Sunderland, opened with a fanfare some 25 years ago and closed within months. The grandiosely titled National Theatre of Variety at the Grand, Blackpool, seems to be a shop-window for super-annuated Water Rats, so let’s see how long that lasts. The Stage’s report of the ineffably seedy opening event, A Cavalcade of Variety, made one’s toes curl. At the City Varieties, Leeds, music hall is presented for no more than two dozen performances a year - a decade ago it was nearly double that number.
The legendary Players’ Theatre at London’s Charing Cross, for over 65 years the repository of just the kind of phoney nostalgia Kevin Berry imagines we are all crying out for, had its locks changed by the broker’s men four years ago in debt to the tune of half a million pounds. Attempts by various members’ groups to set up elsewhere have come to naught, though not before losing thousands more.
Music halls are fine as an occasional novelty, a once in a while one-night stand, but to believe they can ever become a mainstream attraction to a generation raised on the likes of Robbie Williams, Little Britain and Lee Evans is plain silly. Check out the Edinburgh Fringe this summer, Mr Berry. That’s where you’ll find up and coming performers deserving of your support - and throw your Francis, Day & Hunter back catalogue in the bin.
Michael Kilgarriff
Chairman at the Players
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