Music halls
Music hall was a British theatrical entertainment venue for musical and comic acts that was popular in the early Victorian era. The music hall derives from the 18th-century coffee houses, saloon bars and taverns that existed across Europe.
Music halls provided affordable entertainment. The performers were either amateurs or professional performers and singers. Singing and the comic song were the most common music hall acts. Comic songs often commented on social conditions and working- class life. They were about drinking, debt, husbands and wives, overdue rent and overcrowding in London’s East End.
There were coster comedians like Gus Elen, who performed songs and sketches about being a Cockney and about poverty and cramped houses of the East End. Dan Leno was a comedian who performed different characters of the street life. The Lions Comiques were a parody of the upper classes, fashionably dressed young men who sang about high life, women and champagne. Male impersonations were another popular act in the music hall: Women like Vesta Tilley impersonated male characters. Speciality acts were interspersed between the songs, including ventriloquists, aerial acts, one-legged dancers, acrobatics, jugglers, magicians, cyclists, animal acts and slapstick sketches.
In taverns and coffee houses of 18th-century London, performers were entertaining the audiences by performing songs and informal entertainment while people ate, drank and smoked tobacco.
Music halls originated in the 1840s music saloons. They were a “vital element in working class-culture” (Kift 1996: 2) since they mainly attracted a working-class audience. The atmosphere was relaxed and the audience cheered, booed, talked and socialised throughout the performances. Music halls offered “a mixture of pub gastronomy and social communication with entertainment” (Kift 1996: 2). Music halls provided a new concept for the theatre and entertainment sector. Traditional theatres were more formal with seated audiences and separate rooms for food and drinks. For the working classes, music halls “provided escape” from their work life (Gerrard 2013: 494).
One of the most famous early music halls was The Eagle in London. Marie Lloyd (1870-1922), who emerged as one of the biggest music hall stars, first appeared there in 1885.
The Canterbury Music Hall in Lambeth, London, was the most famous music hall that inspired many others. It was opened in 1852 by Mr Charles Morton, the ‘Father of the Music Halls’ (Gerrard 2013: 493). Up to 700 people were seated at tables and food and drinks were being served throughout the performance. Women were allowed to visit the Canterbury Music Hall and Morton introduced “Ladies’ Thursdays”. In 1855, a new hall with a capacity of 1500 and with chandeliers, a grand staircase and an art gallery was opened. Sam Cowell was one of the most popular performers at the Canterbury Music Hall. He was an actor and a singer of comedy songs. Prostitutes came to the performances looking for customers so that the music halls developed a bad reputation.
Many more music halls opened in London, including Wilton’s Music Hall in 1853, which is the world’s oldest surviving grand Victorian music hall. The biggest music hall stars would perform in several venues in London each night. By the end of the 19th century, performances would last up to four hours and include up to 20 acts. Soon, every town had a music hall and it became the most popular entertainment venue.
In the 1860s, more women started to perform in the music halls. Music halls provided an opportunity for working-class women to earn their own income.
During the 1870s, some music halls changed in order to attract a middle-class audience rather than a rowdy working-class audience surrounded by controversies about alcohol, prostitution, vulgarity, frivolity and promiscuity.
In the early 20th century, the variety theatre and the cinema emerged and gradually replaced the music hall. The golden days of the music halls were over. Until today the influence and nostalgia of the music hall remain.
Sources:
Gerrard, Steven (2013): The Great British Music Hall: Its Importance to British Culture and ‘The Trivial’. In: Culture Unbound Journal of Current Cultural Research 5(4): 487-514.
Kift, Dagmar (1996): The Victorian music hall: Culture, class and conflict, Cambridge University Press.
https://www.historic-uk.com/CultureUK/Music-Hall/
https://sites.google.com/site/thepopularityofmusichall/the-history-of-music-hall
https://www.vam.ac.uk/articles/music-hall-and-variety-theatre#slideshow=15664669&slide=0