Tag: Music Hall and Variety Day

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Time Travel Theatre – Celebrate Music Hall and Variety Day 2023 by watching the Last Night of the Crazy Gang- 61 years ago!

What better way to celebrate Music Hall and Variety Day than with a celebration of the Crazy Gang.

The Crazy Gang “at the races”

The Crazy Gang was a unique combination of three double acts – Flanagan and Allen, Naughton and Gold, Nervo and Knox. Occasionally they were joined by “Monsewer” Eddie Gray (who had been working with various members of the Gang since the twenties). Their compatible styles, combining music, interruptions and knockabout comedy with seemingly unscripted verbal and physical acrobatics, slapstick and rapid-fire visual gags was hugely popular with British audiences for over three decades.

It all started at the London Palladium. George Black, the impresario and Managing Director of the Palladium, had in 1928 revived the Palladium’s reputation as the premier variety house in the UK, with spectacular success. The biggest names in variety appeared on ambitiously mixed bills, and the management were not averse to experimenting- pantomime was tried in 1930, to great success, and became a staple throughout the thirties at the venue, running in extended seasons from December to Easter.

The Crazy Gang came into being by accident. All relatively successful double acts themselves, in 1931 two of the pairs – Naughton and Gold and Nervo and Knox – were booked, together with another double, Billy Caryll and Hilda Mundy, to appear at the London Palladium in the same week. Bud Flanagan recalled that “in 1926, Nervo and Knox were appearing in a show, Young Bloods, in which they interfered with every act on the bill”. By 1931 it was well-known across the business that Nervo and Knox had a reputation for interrupting other people’s acts, and although George Black initially considering cancelling one of the teams, he was persuaded by Val Parnell to let the bookings proceed, allow Nervo and Knox their head – and see what happened!

The bill was promoted as Crazy Week, opening in November 1931 and booked for two weeks. Two weeks became eight months as crowds jammed the Palladium – Crazy Week became Crazy Month – and in June 1932, Flanagan and Allen replaced Caryll and Mundy to create the classic line up that was celebrated for the next three decades. All participants experienced more success together than they had apart, fused in the public mind as a unit.

The Gang played long seasons each year in the 30s at the Palladium in various shows all tailored to their particular style. They also found time to make a number of successful films for Gainsborough Pictures. When the war came, they split, to perform for the troops as three double acts again, so that they could cover more ground. This was a time when Flanagan and Allen’s songs came to the fore and cemented them in the public mind as a key link between the home front and the battle front.

The Gang was persuaded to reunite in 1950 by impresario Jack Hylton (without Chesney Allen who had decided to retired from the stage), they took up residence at London’s Victoria Palace, where they stayed for the next twelve years, presented by Jack Hylton in a variety of vehicles all loosely constructed to allow the Gang’s magic of mayhem to flood across the footlights and keep packed houses well-satisfied. Eddie Gray, a comedy juggler with a hilarious Cockney-French accent who had worked with the team early on in their careers, became a regular addition to the Gang from 1956 onwards.

The Gang’s last show together was entitled YOUNG IN HEART and ran from December 1960 until May 1962, when it was announced that the show would close and the Gang would retire. Although the separate acts continued for a few years, the Gang was gone…

The TV highlight of the week in May 1962

Thankfully for us, ATV filmed the last night of their last show on Saturday May 19th, and it was networked on ITV the following evening as The Last Night Of The Crazy Gang, running 90 minutes. It’s a very special nostalgic night, and there’s a guest appearance by Chesney Allen (who comes up from the audience), and the band in the pit is conducted by producer Jack Hylton himself.

So here, thanks to YouTuber Pete Faint, we can all enjoy The Last Night of the Crazy Gang – and raise a glass to these (sadly) long-gone heroes of Music Hall and Variety

EXTRA: You can read my article about legendary impresario Jack Hylton here

For more information on the Crazy Gang you may enjoy a visit to this specialist site http://www.thecrazygang.co.uk/

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It’s the third Music Hall and Variety Day!

Today is the third Music Hall and Variety Day, where the British Music Hall Society invites people around the UK and beyond to celebrate by posting on social media photographs, postcards, bill posters, programmes, costumes, stories, memories about music hall, the buildings, performers, songs and shows that you may recall or have a link with. And don’t forget the hashtags so others can find your contributions!

For my contribution, below you can enjoy Michael Grade’s excellent History of Music Hall from 2011

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Celebrate “Bawdy but British” Douglas Byng on Music Hall and Variety Day

One of several big-selling compilations of the works of Douglas Byng

Monday May 16th marks the third annual Music Hall and Variety Day, when celebrations of the UK’s wonderful Music Hall and variety heydays proliferate across social media, online, and in-person events too.

This year the British Music Hall Society (instigators of the annual celebration) are reprising last year’s celebration of legendary cabaret star Douglas Byng, which was an in-person event. Now, to make the event more widely available, it is being presented once again, this time as an online Zoom broadcast.

When “Doris, the Goddess of Wind” was featured by Alan Bennett in his hit play THE HABIT OF ART, it reminded audiences of one the long- lost saucy cabaret performers of an earlier time. The writer and original performer of this piece was the popular cabaret, musical and revue star Douglas Byng, usually appearing in drag as one of his gallery of characters encapsulated in song. Naughty, bawdy, saucy, camp, risqué, outrageous – Byng was all of these, and more. Which is why he retained his affectionate relationship and popularity with audiences over a career spanning six decades.

On Monday, 16th May, The British Music Hall Society hosts an online evening telling Byng’s life story, presented by Richard Norman and Keith Fawkes, which is amply illustrated with recordings of the master at work, both on film and on disc. Byng’s debonair drag appearances in revue were described by Noel Coward as “the most refined vulgarity in London”. His records of his own saucy songs sold millions, and he was Britain’s biggest cabaret star for many years in the 20s and 30s.

His full name was Douglas Coy Byng, but “Coy” was the one thing Byng was definitely not. An openly gay performer at a time when this was very much not the norm, Byng’s long career was helped by his versatility in adapting to fluctuating trends after the cabaret scene changed during and after world war two; he found a home in pantomime for thirty years, while he could still be found performing his speciality routines in his eighties.

Now unjustly forgotten, Douglas Byng deserves this celebration and also a renewed recognition as one of the pioneers of LGBT visibility, as well as being a much-loved and very entertaining “turn” for well over 60 years.

DOUGLAS BYNG is an online event, presented by the British Music Hall Society.

Find details and tickets here

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Music Hall and Variety Day 2021 – immerse yourself in Brixton’s fascinating music hall past on a virtual walking tour.

Brixton Empress, a major music hall and variety theatre

Next week sees the annual celebration that is Music Hall and Variety Day and as part of the celebrations, the British Music Hall Society invites you to join them on a virtual walking tour of Brixton, celebrating the role of the area in the history of entertainment in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The event is presented by Tracey Gregory, Chris Beddoe and Sue McKenzie, all of whom are part of the team working on the Brixton Music Hall project researching and mapping  the people and places of Music hall Brixton on the Layers of London website (https://www.layersoflondon.org).

If you saw any of the excellent Brixton Music Hall talks last September (see my previous blog articles here and here) you will remember Tracey, Chris and Sue for their sterling work on those very interesting and informative events, which means that this new event is certain to be worth attending.

The talk will start at 11am on Sunday 16th May 2021. A Zoom joining link will be sent out via TicketSource on the day before the event. Tickets cost £3 for BMHS members and £5 for non-members. You can book your ticket here

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Theatre news – buildings in the spotlight

Palace Theatre, London, Stage Door
London Coliseum, architect Frank Matcham.

I’d guess that we’re all missing visits to our favourite theatres by now. As most will agree, online theatre – while most enjoyable – isn’t the same as “the real thing”. Part of that is the atmosphere created – which is to do with going out and congregating with others to form a unique, never to be repeated audience in a specially built environment that heightens our sense of occasion.

Part of this unfathomable equation is down to the venues themselves, and if you, like me, particularly miss venturing inside our great London theatres, then I have some comforting news for you.

For those of you who have Amazon Prime, may I point you to a lovely series called Great West End Theatres, dating from 2012, in which Sir Donald Sinden pours his caramelised voice all over ten of London’s most prestigious playhouses, giving us a nice potted history along the way. (By a funny coincidence, I remember bumping into Sir Donald as I was coming out of the Noel Coward Theatre, as he was filming this show – and I ruined his take. I must say he was as gracious as always – a lovely man.). There were two series made, I believe, but currently only series one is available.

For those who may prefer a more avant-garde alternative, the Royal Court Theatre- in a very Royal Court type of thing- is real-time livestreaming their auditorium, still with its set up for its interrupted show, SHOE LADY. There’s nothing actually going on there, so if you stay too long it might feel like the world’s longest incoming. However, it serves rather poignantly as a reminder that the glorious spaces, usually hidden away from public gaze, are still there, patiently waiting for our return, as we will.

On a sadder note, NST – Nuffield Southampton Theatres – collapsed into administration last week and is at risk of being sold off to developers, demolished, who knows what may become of it. A petition has been started (gaining 10,000 signatures in just 4 days already), to which I would encourage you to add your names to demonstrate the strength of feeling that every one of our theatres- big or small, local or national, wherever in the world- they all make a difference to people’s lives, and as such, we should stand up for theatres now. It is certain that more theatres will face this fate unless we speak up loudly and quickly, and do whatever we can to help them- even if that’s just signing a petition. Please, do it Now. You can find the petition here

Tomorrow, Saturday 16th May, is the very first Music Hall and Variety Day, celebrating not only the stars and songs that made these forms of entertainment so enduringly popular but also the great buildings that were created for this hugely popular style of entertainment. You can read more about the celebration by visiting the British Music Hall Society website here.

And there’s more – this coming Sunday (17th May) will mark the centenary of master theatre architect Frank Matcham’s death. So expect a good read next week from me – an inside view of how his theatres actually worked.