Harry Lauder

Montage by Judy Leech. Image on front page: Oscar Asche in Kismetby Alick P.F. Ritchie. National Library of Australia, Canberra.

By the beginningof the twentieth century live theatre in Australia was at the height of its popularity and attendances at both ‘cultured’ and ‘popular’ theatre continued to expand. Both Sydney and Melbourne boasted several central city theatres as well as numerous vaudeville and variety halls. International theatre companies regularly performed in Australia and their principal stars added to the popularity of the productions.

World War I had an initial impact on theatre attendance, but numbers soon returned, perhaps as a distraction from the European conflict, and Australian audiences continued to enjoy a wide range of entertainment. More than 350 different plays were staged in Melbourne alone during the war years.¹

Newspapers, leading magazines and journals responded to their readers’ passion for the theatre and gave it considerable coverage with reviews and commentary and most had dedicated ‘theatre critics’ on the payroll. Increasingly, and of present interest, this theatre copy was punctuated with illustrations by a raft of ‘black and white’ artists who plied their craft to portray theatrical personnel, often in unflattering, humorous caricatures and cartoons.

While a few of the artists had more or less regular arrangements with the press, for most their input to the theatrical theme was intermittent and only one aspect of their freelance work in a highly competitive profession. Without question, these artists were fortunate to be working in a time when cartooning and caricatures came of age and their output was prolific.

No newspaper or magazine in Australia in the early 1900s did more to encourage black and white artists than the Bulletin. It employed some of the finest artists of the time, including Will Dyson, Harry Julius, Hal Gye, Jim Bancks, D.H. Souter, Tom Glover and Mervyn Skipper. The Bulletin was where many cartoonists made their start. However, the Bulletin was not alone in nurturing the growing number of freelance black and white artists; Smith’s Weekly, Lone Hand, Sydney Sportsman, Bookfellow, Gadfly, Clarion, and Critic were some of the publications that regularly printed cartoons and caricatures.

Unlike other sections of a newspaper or magazine where illustrations were usually editorially driven, it is probably fair to say that as these artists were adding pictorial comment to written theatrical reviews—usually an actor or a scene—many of these theatrical caricatures and cartoons were included without editorial direction; the ‘black and whiters’ enjoyed a large degree of artistic independence.

There are too many artists in the black and white school of cartoonists and caricaturists to do them all justice, as such the following represent this writer’s personal favourites.

Many would agree that Australia’s greatest caricaturist was the exceptionally gifted Will Dyson (1880–1938). Arguable, some of Dyson’s best work were the numerous theatrical caricatures he drew for the Bulletin around 1904–10 as the magazine’s theatre cartoonist.

Dyson was acclaimed for the penetrating force of his cartoons and caricatures and saw the pretentious theatre personnel as a target for his acerbic penmanship; although it was once said that while he did not often attack the ladies with his pointed crow quill, he did the ‘wicked deed’ now and again.²

A ‘wicked deed’ perhaps, was Dyson’s 1908 sketch of Lady Dunscombe (Nellie Mortyne) in Jim the Penmanat the Theatre Royal Melbourne, where the lady, a decorative titled visitor of some importance, is portrayed with a rather unflattering figure. More sensitive was Dyson’s portrayal of Arthur Greenaway as the hunched and doddery King Louis XI in the musical The Vagabond King, which was produced by J.C. Williamson Ltd. in spectacular style during 1928–1929.

Will Dyson: A rather unflattering portrait of Nellie Mortyne as Lady Dunscombe in Jim the Penman at the Theatre Royal, Melbourne

Bulletin (Sydney), 17 December 1908, p.9

Will Dyson: Arthur Greenaway as Louis XI in the musical The Vagabond King, 1928

National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne

Other Dyson works include that of actor Julius Knight playing Sir Percy Blakeney in The Scarlet Pimpernel, performed at Her Majesty’s Theatre, Melbourne—‘a hero whose tigerish nonchalance gives him the aspects of a drugged prig …’—a description which is perfectly captured by Dyson’s caricature.

Another notable caricature shows ‘Norman: The bold bad man of the Bland Holt Co.’ Albert Norman was a leading actor with the Bland Holt Co. for many years and was well known for playing sinister characters. In fact, one review described him thus: Norman ‘is such a villain as he has been many times before, and the sardonic smile of sin on his countenance is the same old smile’.³ Again, a description well captured by Dyson.

A rare survivor, the original artwork for Leave It to Jane, published in Table Talk, demonstrates the use of sepia wash to achieve the tonal contrasts in the published cartoon, and the application of white touch-up to conceal changes.

Will Dyson: ‘Julius Knight in The Scarlet Pimpernel’

Bulletin (Sydney), 5 November 1908, p.9

Will Dyson: ‘Norman: The bold bad man of the Bland Holt Co.’

Bulletin (Sydney), 19 December 1907, p.8

Will Dyson: Original artwork for Leave It to Jane which was published in Table Talk (Melbourne),
17 June 1926, p.27

National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne

Harry Julius(1885–1938) was another fine caricaturist of the period as well as a most versatile artist—among many pursuits, he was a newspaper cartoonist, writer and illustrator, advertising executive and film animator. But it is his theatrical caricatures for which he is best known—stageland appealed to him as a splendid site for the caricaturist. Julius once remarked that for years he’d had opera glasses on actors with evil intent and it was melodrama and tragic grand opera, not placid modern plays, which moved him as a pictorial satirist.⁴

From around 1907, Julius consistently provided magazines, particularly the Bulletin, with humorous caricatures of performers from across the whole spectrum of the theatre from grand opera to vaudeville and pantomime; his output was prodigious. Julius had the skill of getting fine caricatures in a few lines with unmistakeable portraiture.⁵

There is a wonderful record of some 250 of Julius’ early theatrical caricatures (many of which had appeared in the Bulletin) of most of the prominent stars of the period presented in Theatrical Caricatures, published by the NSW Bookstall Co. in 1912. The book also includes stories on the theatre celebrities by Claude McKay. To view these pen and ink sketches in one collection gives an appreciation of how they would have ‘coloured’ the reviews of current and coming shows which the Bulletin ran in its ‘Sundry Shows’ pages.

One example of Julius’ caricatures includes Annette Kellerman in the glass tank from the Annette Kellerman Show at the Sydney Tivoli. Kellerman was an Australian long-distance swimmer, aquatic and vaudeville performer. Of her Tivoli show it was said: ‘the versatile mermaid has added submarine evolutions, toe dancing and wire walking to an endearing personality, and between them have captured the multitude.’⁶

Another cartoon that appears in the Bulletin illustrates a scene from the light musical comedy High Jinks, produced by J.C. Williamson at Her Majesty's in Sydney in 1915. The Bulletin review, on the same page as the cartoon, noted ‘the fair and willowy Gertrude Glyn as usual looms up in one or two gowns which stun the stalls... C.H. Workman one of the comedians puts up a good plainclothes performance’.

Harry Julius: ‘Annette Kellerman in the glass tank’

Bulletin (Sydney), 16 June 1921, p.42

Harry Julius: ‘High Jinks: Dance Chi-Chi (Gertrude Glyn) and the discoverer of the “High Jinks” perfume (C.H. Workman)’

Bulletin (Sydney), 11 February 1915, p.8

In another, John Coates the English tenor appears as Radames in Aida which played at Her Majesty’s, Sydney. In this caricature, Julius shows ‘John Coates going nobly to his doom, escorted by four stalwart Egyptians. Amneris (Edna Thornton) is grief-stricken’. Of Coates’ performance, the review said, it shows ‘what the portly Yorkshireman can do—when he chooses to exert himself’.⁷

Another cartoon shows a scene from Hamlet at the Sydney Criterion, where Hamlet (Walter Bentley) asks Horatio (W.S. Titheradge) and an inoffensive solder to swear an oath. According to the accompanying review, ‘Walter Bentley has a way of “beefing out” his lines on occasion that compels enthusiasm regardless of the exact meaning of the phrases beefed’.

Harry Julius: ‘Hamlet at the Sydney Cri: Hamlet (Walter Bentley) asks Horatio (W.S. Titheradge) and an inoffensive soldier to swear’

Bulletin (Sydney), 22 July 1909, p.8

Harry Julius: ‘Aida at Her Majesty’s, Sydney: John Coates going nobly to his doom, escorted by four stalwart Egyptians. Amneris (Edna Thornton) grief-stricken’

Bulletin (Sydney), 8 August 1912, p.10

Another prominent black and white artist whose caricatures regularly appeared in the Bulletin during this period was Jim Bancks(1889–1952). His work also featured in Melbourne Punch, Sydney Sun and Sunday Sun. Bancks fame was ensured in particular, with his comic ‘Us Fellows’ which evolved into Ginger Meggs.

Bancks works include Mr Pim Passes By at Sydney Criterion: Ashton Jarry as Mr Pim, ‘only just a passer-by’. Ashton Jarry first came to Australia in 1917 with Ada Reeve and since then performed in several Australian productions. One of his notable performances was as Mr Pim. Jarry also played Count Dracula in J.C. Williamson’s production of Dracula performed at the Sydney Theatre in June 1929.

Jim Bancks: ‘Mr Pim Passes By at Sydney Criterion: Ashton Jarry as Mr Pim, “only just a passer-by” ’

Bulletin (Sydney), 18 August 1921, p. 34

Jim Bancks: ‘Pianist Mischa Levitzki’

Bulletin (Sydney), 9 June 1921, p.14

Other notable caricatures include Mischa Levitzki, the Russian born American based concert pianist who at the Sydney Town Hall was described as ‘the young man with the strong forearms and rubber fingers’ (Bulletin, 9 June 1921), and Scandal at the Sydney Criterion (Bulletin, 26 May 1921) with Kenneth Brampton as Malcolm Fraser, the rejected lover and Maude Hannaford as the heroine, Beatrix Vanderdyke. Hannaford, described as a possessor of good looks, young and ambitious, had quickly become a star of the American stage with successful roles in Redemption and as the leading lady in The Jest.

Oh, Lady, Lady! was one of a number of sensational J. C. Williamson’s musical comedies of the 1920s. The leading lady, Dorothy Brunton was a hit as ‘Faintin’ Fanny a Peel-street pick-pocket; one review said, ‘The New Dot is as impish as the old one was coy and curly’. Her performance is complimented by an outstanding cast, including William Green as Hale Underwood, a man about town.

Jim Bancks: Two characters from the musical Oh, Lady, Lady! at the Theatre Royal, Sydney: William Green as Hale Underwood and Arthur Denton as the detective Cyril Townsley

Bulletin (Sydney), 8 September 1921, p.34 & 15 September 1921, p.36

Continuing with his depiction of stage actors, his 1921 portrait of George Gee in The Lilac Domino perfectly captures the gait of the rubber-legged dancer and comedian.

Of current ‘historical’ significance is Bancks’ cartoon ‘WHEN AT LAST SYDNEY THEATRE RESTRICTIONS ARE LIFTED: Montague Loveslush and his leading lady, Lulu De Vere, the stage’s smartest dressers, present themselves for re-employment’ (Bulletin, 15 May 1919).

This is Bancks’ take on the news on 15 May 1919 that Sydneysiders could go to the theatre again, with their masks off, after months of anti-influenza restrictions.

Jim Bancks: ‘The Lilac Domino at the Sydney Criterion: A goldfish movement by dancer George Gee’

Bulletin (Sydney), 7 April 1921, p.34

Jim Bancks: ‘WHEN AT LAST SYDNEY THEATRE RESTRICTIONS ARE LIFTED: Montague Loveslush and his leading lady, Lulu De Vere, the stage’s smartest dressers, present themselves for re-employment’

Bulletin (Sydney), 15 May 1919, p.36

Hal Gye (1888–1967) was another brilliant black and white artist, principally working in the Bulletin stable, who provided the magazine with theatrical and sporting caricatures and in 1910 replaced Will Dyson as the Bulletin’s theatre cartoonist. Gye drew for numerous other papers and magazines; caricatures of politicians for Melbourne Punch and sporting identities for the Judge, cartoons for the Australian Worker, Vanguard, Referee, Smith’s Weekly, Table Talk and the Sydney Arrow.

Examples of Gye’s Bulletin caricatures include Oscar Asche and Caleb Porter in Count Hannibal at the Melbourne Royal in 1910; the popular Scottish singer and entertainer Harry Lauder on the occasion of his first Australia tour; J.P. O’Neill in the melodrama No Mother to Guide Her at the Princess, 1913; and comedian W.S. Percy as the gaoler in Nightbirds, an adaptation of Die Fledermaus that played at Her Majesty’s in Melbourne during 1912.

Hal Gye: ‘Count Hannibal at Melbourne Royal: Caleb Porter as Father Pezelay [and] Oscar Asche as the Count’

Bulletin (Sydney), 27 January 1910, p.9

Hal Gye: ‘Harry Lauder, at Melbourne Princess’s’

Bulletin (Sydney), 7 May 1914, p.8

Hal Gye: ‘No Mother to Guide Her at Melbourne Princess’s: J.P. O’Neill as Bill Bunce, the bad’un (with a few of his hobbies)’

Bulletin (Sydney), 6 February 1913, p.11

Hal Gye: ‘Nightbirds at Her Majesty’s, Melbourne: W.S. Percy as the Black-Eyed Warder’

Bulletin (Sydney), 28 November 1912, p.10

Mervyn Skipper(1886–1958) became more prominent in the mid to late 1920s with his work often printed in the Bulletin and at one time he was the Melbourne cartoon correspondent for the magazine. Skipper left the Bulletin in 1933 to start his own magazine, the Pandemonium, which ran for 12 issues. Skipper later returned to the Bulletin as the art and drama critic and wrote extensively for Australian magazines including Lone Hand.

Some of his works include The Masquerader at Sydney Royal and The Truth About Blayds, a comedy by A.A. Milne at the Criterion.

Mervyn Skipper: ‘The Masquerader at Sydney Royal: Winnington Barnes as the faithful Brock, and Oliver Bainbridge as Bobby Blessington, a social hack’

Bulletin (Sydney), 10 September 1925, p.35

Mervyn Skipper: ‘The Truth About Blayds at the Sydney Criterion: Irene Vanbrugh and Janet Eccles return from burying a poet’

Bulletin (Sydney), 26 March 1925, p.35

D.H. Souter(1862–1935) had a 40-year association with the Bulletin, with his first cartoon appearing on 23 February 1895. His cartoons were fanciful and loosely described as ‘art nouveau’. Two examples from the Lone Hand magazine are shown below—‘Contralto Dramatique’ and ‘Prima Donna Assoluta.

D.H. Souter: ‘Contralto Dramatique’

Lone Hand (Sydney), 1 July 1907, p.257

D.H. Souter: ‘Prima Donna Assoluta’

Lone Hand (Sydney), 1 August 1907, p.412

Somewhat different in style was Souter’s cartoon announcing the musical comedy, Betty. The musical was produced by J.C. Williamson Ltd. and opened at Her Majesty’s Theatre in Sydney on 22 November 1924. Souter’s sketch shows Edith Drayson (Betty), Field Fisher (Duke of Crowborough), Alfred Frith (Lord Playne), Harold Pearce (Earl of Beverley), Reita Nugent (David Playne) and Harry Wotton (Hillier).

His skill as a black and white artist is also demonstrated by his portrait of Elsie Prince in her role of Judy in the Gershwin musical Lady Be Good, which opened at the St. James Theatre in Sydney on 30 July 1927. The original artwork is in the National Gallery of Australia, Canberra.

D.H. Souter: ‘Elsie Prince as Judy in Lady Be Good’, 1927

National Gallery of Australia, Canberra

D.H. Souter: ‘First Night Impressions (by DHS)’ of Bettyat Her Majesty’s Theatre, Sydney

Country Life Stock and Station Journal (Sydney), 28 November 1924, p.10

Souter, himself, was involved in the theatre and his operetta, The Grey Kimona was staged in Adelaide in 1907. He was also involved with Alfred Hill’s Sydney Repertory Theatre Society.

Tom Glover (1891–1938) was a New Zealand cartoonist who came to Australia in the 1920s and joined the Bulletin in 1922 where his cartoons and caricatures of personalities stamped him as a talented black and white artist.⁸ Prior to this he was cartoonist for the New Zealand Truth and also drew for the Free Lance under the name ‘Tom Ellis’. In around 1925, Glover joined the staff of the Associated Newspapers Ltd. and remained there until his sudden death in 1938.

A good example of his work is his portrait of the theatrical producer George A. Highland, drawn in 1925. Highland came to Australia in 1917 and worked with J.C. Williamson Ltd. He produced Maid of the Mountains in 1921 and many other productions.

Another portrait by Glover was of Tom Clare, the British music hall singer and pianist best known for singing humorous songs. Clare performed in a vaudeville show at the Melbourne Tivoli where it was said he ‘was better when he was less grandfatherly’.⁹

Tom Glover: Theatrical producer George A. Highland, 1925

National Portrait Gallery, Canberra

Tom Glover: ‘Tom Clare, who purveys songs from the piano’

Bulletin (Sydney), 26 March 1925, p.35

In 1925 he captured a good likeness of Allan Wilkie as Malvolio in Twelfth Night. Wilkie and his wife, Frediswyde Hunter-Watts, arrived in Australia in 1914 and worked with Nellie Stewart’s and J.C. Williamson’s touring companies. In 1920, Wilkie established the Wilkie Shakespearean Company, which debuted at Melbourne’s Princess Theatre in September 1920 with Macbeth. The previous year, Glover captured a fine image of showman and cartoonist Bert Levy.

Tom Glover: ‘Twelfth Night at Melbourne Palace: Allan Malvolio Wilkie’

Bulletin (Sydney), 2 April 1925, p.35

Tom Glover: ‘Melbourne Tivoli: Bert Levy, artist, author, journalist, international vaudeville star and good Australian’

Bulletin (Sydney), 18 September 1924, p.35

Ambrose Dyson(1876–1913), another of the artistically talented Dyson family, was essentially a political cartoonist, but occasionally dabbled in theatrical cartoons.

In his cartoon ‘The Tempter’, Dyson combined political and theatrical commentary with a pointed reference on Ada Ward, a former actress who had returned to Australia after ‘finding God’. Ada Ward first performed in Melbourne in 1877 with some success, but after many years performing in London she sensationally left the stage in 1897 to train as a preacher. Ward returned to Australia in 1907 as an evangelist and addressed an audience at the Melbourne Wesley Church on ‘Can an Actress be a Christian’, where she denounced the immorality of the theatre and its ruination of young women.

True to the theatrical theme, another of Dyson’s cartoon was a New Year’s card for 1905 to his theatrical friend the actor manager Bland Holt.

Ambrose Dyson: ‘THE TEMPTER. Miss Ada Ward claims that the actress cannot be a Christian because of the terrible temptations that constantly assail her—AGE.
Dyson’s retort: True, every man in the world will admit that the pretty actress has to encounter fascinations and allurements of which her humdrum stay-at-home sisters can know nothing.’

Bulletin (Sydney), 9 May 1907, p.18.

Ambrose Dyson: New Year’s card to actor-manager Bland Holt, who is depicted tickling the ‘grim old world’ with his cane. Dated 1905.

State Library of Victoria, Melbourne

One of the lesser known Australian black and white cartoonists of the early 1900s is George Dunstan (1876–1946) who drew under the pen name ‘Zif’. Besides the general run of publications, Zif also contributed cartoons to the Sydney Sportsman and the Australian Worker and was chief cartoonist for the International Socialist Magazine. As one of his many attributes, Zif also took to the stage, regularly performing across Australia as a lightning sketch artist, often billed as ‘Chats in Charcoal’.

Illustrative of his style, Zif created a series of cartoons on ‘Suburban Drama’ for the Bulletin in September 1909. One was captioned, ‘East Lynne in the Suburbs’.

George Dunstan (Zif): ‘East Lynne in the Suburbs: Barbara Hare: “Alas! Alas! Why did he pass me over for a baby-faced chit like that?”.’

Bulletin (Sydney), 9 September 1909, p.10

Harry Julius: ‘Zif: The well-known cartoonist, now appearing at the Melrose Theatre. He is the greatest “drawing” card in Australia’

Truth (Perth), 22 March 1913, p.11

Around 1910, Zif produced a series of coloured postcards for the New South Wales Bookstall Co., in their ‘Art Series’. One set of six cards, ‘Theatrical Travesties’ embodied caricatures of ‘theatre types’, a style which typified his work.

George Dunstan (Zif): ‘Theatrical Travesties: The Scalem Dramatic Coy.
LANDLORD: “I want your board money in advance.”
MANAGER: Have you no heart for these poor orphans?”
LANDLORD: Yes, I have a heart, but it takes cash in advance to touch it.”’

Courtesy of Gary Davies

George Dunstan (Zif): ‘Theatrical Travesties: Scene from East Lynne. Owing to circumstances the parts of “Little Willie” and “Francis Levison” had to be doubled.
LITTLE WILLIE: “Why do you cry Madame Vine. I’m not your Little Willie!”’

Courtesy of Gary Davies

Mick Paul(1888–1945), a Sydney cartoonist of the early twentieth century, contributed to the Bulletin, Lone Hand, Comic Australia, Lilley’s Magazine (cover designs) and the Australian Worker. Paul was well-known for his bohemian lifestyle, his socialist views and anti-conscription cartoons and was a foundation member of the Society of Australian Black and White Artists.

Paul’s cartoon, ‘TOO HOT’, offered a social comment on the influenza which devastated Australia around 1919, while ‘NATURALLY’ presents a feminist view on the prevailing gender imbalance in theatre life.

Mick Paul: TOO HOT—The Manager: “This influenza scare doesn’t seem to have made much difference to us—house full every night.” The Star: “No influenza germ could come within a mile of this show – they hate warmth.”

Bulletin (Sydney), 19 December 1918, p.30

Mick Paul: NATURALLY—Flo: “That beast of a stage manager has complained again about us talking on the stage. He wouldn’t do that if we were men.”

Bulletin (Sydney), 7 November 1918, p.30

Bert Levy(1871–1934) described as a clever black and white artist and showman, began his working life as an apprentice scenic artist at the Theatre Royal, Melbourne. A prolific creator, Levy was published in Melbourne Punch, the Mirror, Table Talk, drew cartoons and theatrical caricatures for the Bulletin, was the dramatic critic for the Bendigo Adventurer and cartoonist for the Age, Leader magazine. Levy travelled to America in the early 1900s where he worked for Weber and Fields Music Hall, then the Morning Telegraph while running vaudeville shows in New York.¹⁰

Examples of his work include ‘In a Vaudeville Green Room’, a cartoon which shows several performers waiting in a dedicated space—‘the green room’ before going on stage. Another is of Hugh Ward in The Emerald Isle. Ward was a major figure in Australian theatre as an actor and entrepreneur. He was one time managing director of J.C. Williamson Ltd. and after resigning from that position, formed Hugh J. Ward Theatres Ltd. in partnership with the Fuller brothers.

Bert Levy: ‘In a Vaudeville Green Room’

Lone Hand (Sydney), 1 February 1912, p.299

Bert Levy: ‘Hugh Ward in The Emerald Isle’

Bulletin (Sydney), 28 March 1903 p. 10

Bert Levy: Self-portrait, 1906: ‘As Bert Levy sees himself from the New York Morning Telegraph’

J. Willis Sayre Photograph Collection, University of Washington Libraries, Seattle, USA

By the 1920s, Smith’s Weekly had become the premiere source of cartoons in Australia and unlike other publications their cartoonists were on the pay role, not freelancers. To emphasise this and introduce their staff to the public, the magazine often presented cartoons as composite drawings where all artists contributed; the cartoonists and their characters appeared side by side.¹¹

A variation of the composite cartoon can be seen in the work of, Syd Miller(1901–1983), who joined Smith’s Weekly in 1919 and worked there for some 22 years as a cartoonist and film and stage reviewer.

Miller’s illustrations of ‘Sally in Our Majesty’s’ and ‘Six People Who Make The Flaw’ are examples of his style.

Syd Miller: ‘Sally in Our Majesty’s’, with (from left to right) Hugh Steyne, Gracie Laver, George Gee, Josie Melville (out of and in the kitchen), George Baker, George Lane

Smith’s Weekly (Sydney), 27 January 1923, p.12

Syd Miller: ‘Six People Who Make The Flaw—Mayne Lynton, Frank Harvey, Sheila Helpman, Emelie Pollini, Raymond Lawrence, Nancye Stewart’

Smith’s Weekly (Sydney), 10 February 1923, p. 12

Lance Driffield(1898–1943) was a newspaper and magazine cartoonist and illustrator during the 1920s and 30s, drawing under the pen name ‘Driff’. Driffield started his career as a process engraver and went on to work for the Sunday Times, Truth and Smith’s Weekly.

Typical of his work is the cartoon of Mother Goose which stared Roy Rene and Nat Phillips (‘Stiffy and Mo’), two of the most significant comedians of the period.

Lance Driffield: ‘Mother Goose at the Sydney Hippodrome: Stiffy and Mo try to discover what the Dame would like for supper’

Smith’s Weekly (Sydney), 13 January 1923, p.12

Ray Whiting: ‘Windsor, Edgar and Kellaway, three bright Musical Fellows at the Tivoli Circuit’

Smith’s Weekly (Sydney), 5 April 1924, p.12

Ray Whiting (1898–1975) contributed cartoons to Smith’s Weekly, Table Talk and the Bulletin in the 1920s and 30s and later sketched for the AIF ‘News’ when serving with the 9th Division Camouflage Training Unit in the Middle East during WW2. Arthur Streeton once said his cartoons display a fine decorative sense, good drawing and imagination. ‘Some of the works are weirdly grotesque, and yet they are wickedly like the objects caricatured.’¹²

These qualities are evident in his portrayal of Windsor, Edgar and Kellaway, a brilliant musical trio from the London Hippodrome, and Joe Brennan, Charles Heslop and particularly Oliver Peacock from Mother Goose. Peacock is an interesting figure. He had a long association with the Australian musical stage, playing support roles to Florence Young, Carrie Moore and Dorothy Brunton. Notably, in 1922, he was understudy to Oscar Asche when Asche took Cairo and Chu Chin Chow to New Zealand.

Ray Whiting: ‘Joe Brennan (Mother Goose) and Charles Heslop (Fitzrabbit) in Hugh Ward’s panto, Melbourne Palace’

Smith’s Weekly, 26 January 1924, p.12

Ray Whiting: ‘Mother Goose’s offsider at the Melbourne Palace—Oliver Peacock as Squire Hardflint’

Smith’s Weekly, 26 January 1924, p.12

Alec Sass (Sass) (c.1870–1922) drew for Melbourne Punch and its humorous page between 1896-1912, where he introduced the Sass girl, Sass policeman and Sass johnnie. After working at the New York Journal, Sass joined Smith’s Weekly in around 1921 as an artist and art editor. As art editor he was responsible for teaching staff artists to draw for reproduction on newsprint. Like other Smith’s artists, Sass also drew composite cartoons, a style which is well-illustrated in his cartoon ‘Fooling Around at Fuller’s Panto on a Hot Night’. Another portrait shows an exceedingly stout Oscar Asche in Cairo, which was playing at Her Majesty’s Theatre in Sydney.

Alec Sass: ‘Fooling Around at Fuller’s Panto on a Hot Night’

Smith’s Weekly (Sydney), 7 January 1922, p.10

Alec Sass: ‘Cairo: If Oscar gets any stouter we hope he gets transparent’

Smith’s Weekly (Sydney), 23 September 1922, p.12

Will Donald(1883–1959) was a pioneering cartoonist of the period who contributed to mainstream and socialist newspapers and magazines, including the Bulletin, Quit, Gadfly and the Critic. Donald was one of Australia’s early comic artists.

Examples of his work include a caricature of the Late F.H. Pollock, Lessee Theatre Royal Adelaide. Pollock was an actor and theatre entrepreneur. He acquired the lease of the Royal in 1900 from Wybert Reeve (English actor and impresario) but, following illness, Pollock appointed a manager in his stead. Pollock died in 1908. Interestingly, George Coppin was the first lessee of the theatre.

Another of Donald’s caricatures, published in the Sydney Sun during 1910, depicts Julius Knight and Reynolds Denniston in the romantic drama Henry of Navarre, set in seventeenth century Europe.

His signature profile style is also evident in his caricatures of Victor Loydall and Rupert Darrell in the pantomime Jack and Jill from the Sydney Sun; while his portraits of Oscar Asche and Lily Brayton in The Taming of the Shrew are rare pieces of original artwork.

Will Donald: A caricature of ‘The Late F.H. Pollock, Lessee Theatre Royal Adelaide’

Bulletin (Sydney), 19 November 1908, p.18

Will Donald: ‘Julius Knight as Henry of Navarre and Reynolds Denniston as his faithful watch dog’

Star(Sydney), 13 June 1910, p.7

Will Donald: ‘Victor Loydall as Perks’ and ‘Rupert Darrell as Baron Bounce’ in the pantomime Jack and Jillat the Theatre Royal in Sydney

Star (Sydney), 27 September 1909, p.2

Will Donald: ‘Oscar Asche as Petruchio’ and ‘Lily Brayton “Tamed”’ Drawn during Oscar Asche’s 1909 Sydney Shakespeare season at the Criterion.

National Library of Australia, Canberra

Tasmanian-born Alf Vincent(1874–1915) joined Melbourne Punch in 1895 and a year later he succeeded Tom Carrington as feature artist for the magazine. Vincent joined the Bulletin in 1898 and drew for the magazine until his death in 1915. His style of work was similar to that of Phil May (his mentor) for which he was often criticised by his contemporaries.

Outside the usual run of newspaper and magazine caricatures, Vincent did a fine piece of work in a theatrical souvenir, a pamphlet consisting of twelve sketches (some in colour) of performers in J.C. Williamson’s Comic Opera Co. production of San Toy which premiered on 21 December 1901 at Her Majesty’s Theatre, Melbourne. On the occasion of the fiftieth performance of the show on 8 February 1902, a portfolio of sketches was handed out to every lady visitor.

Alf Vincent: Carrie Moore in the title role of San Toy—“I’m not a littee Boy—I’m a Littee Girl.’ From San Toy: Sketches by Alf Vincent.

State Library of Victoria, Melbourne.

Alf Vincent: Grace Palotta as ‘Dudley’. From San Toy: Sketches by Alf Vincent.

State Library of Victoria, Melbourne

Alf Vincent: ‘Poppy gives Fo Hop a piece of her mind.’ From San Toy: Sketches by Alf Vincent.

State Library of Victoria, Melbourne

Donald MacDonald (Pas)(1862–1945) was one of the finest caricaturists of the early 20th century to freelance his work to several magazines and newspapers in Australia and New Zealand. The scope of his work was not restricted to a particular theme, but he was particularly noted for his caricatures of theatre personnel.

For Sydney Sportsman he contributed studies of well-known theatrical personalities Bland Holt and Julius Grant. Actor-manager Bland Holt, nicknamed the ‘King of Melodrama’, was known for his elaborate stagings of Drury Lane melodramas which he produced at the Lyceum Theatre in Sydney and Theatre Royal in Melbourne. Julius Grant established theatrical enterprises with Bert Bailey and was lessee of King’s Theatre for 15 years. He produced several shows including the record breaking On Our Selection. He also introduced Melbourne audiences to stars such as Oscar Asche and Lily Brayton.

In response to the composer and music teacher Signor Roberto Hazon receiving an address and testimonial from His Excellency the Governor on the occasion of his farewell performance in Sydney, Pas provided a likeness for Sydney Sportsman.

During the 1920s, for Everyone’s, he contributed a sketch of Miss Aylet, ‘Australia’s only trap drummer’ who was performing at Sydney’s Crystal Palace.

Donald MacDonald (Pas): Signor Hazon on the occasion of his farewell to Sydney

Sydney Sportsman, 25 September 1907, p.2

Donald MacDonald (Pas): ‘Julius Grant (Business Manager, Criterion Theatre)’

Sydney Sportsman, 4 December 1907, p.2

Donald MacDonald (Pas): ‘Bland Holt etcetera’, drawn while Holt was performing in the melodrama Women and Wine at the Theatre Royal

Sydney Sportsman,15 March 1905, p.2

Donald MacDonald (Pas): ‘Miss Aylet, Australia’s only trap drummer at the Crystal Palace, Sydney’

Everyone’s (Sydney), 16 July 1924, p.18

Tom Ferry (1891–1954) started his working life as an apprentice with John Sands Ltd. doing lithographic work and before qualifying, he was seconded to work for the Sun newspaper for two years, eventually joining Union Theatres Ltd., drawing and designing posters, advertisements and lobby cards. In the early 1920s Ferry had a casual arrangement with the Sydney Sunday Times to provide weekly cartoons and by 1925 he was the official artist to Fox Films in Sydney.¹³

Examples of his work that appeared in the Sunday Times includes the actors Cyril Gardiner, Frederick Lloyd, Frank Hatherley and Claude Dampier. A drawing he did of visiting English actor Seymour Hicks as Mr William Busby (Old Bill) in the play Old Bill, MP, was published on the programme cover.

Tom Ferry: Frederick Lloyd as Alf in The Man in Dress Clothesat the Sydney Opera House

Sunday Times(Sydney), 29 June 1924, p.24

Tom Ferry: Claude Dampier. who was appearing in revue at Fullers’ Theatre in Sydney

Sunday Times(Sydney), 13 July 1924, p.20

Tom Ferry: Cyril Gardiner in Old Bill, MP

Sunday Times(Sydney), 6 July 1924, p.22

Tom Ferry: Cover of the programme for Old Bill, MP at the Palace Theatre, Melbourne, 20 September 1924, with Seymour Hicks as the title character

Elisabeth Kumm collection

Brodie Mack (1897–1965) combined his cartooning skills with his role as a theatrical business manager. A New Zealander, he initially worked for the Wellington Freelance as a cartoonist before becoming a theatre executive with positions as House Manager for Fullers at His Majesty’s Theatre in Wellington and then with Fullers Opera House in Auckland. Mack later moved to Sydney as Booking Manager for Fullers Vaudeville and Theatre Ltd. He was a founding member of the Society of Australian Black and White Artists in 1924 and did cartoons for Everyone’s, Fuller News, the Bulletin, Aussie, Smith’s Weekly and others.

Examples of his work from Everyone’s included Lee White, ‘the cheerful star of The Girl for the Boy’ at the Sydney Tivoli; and ‘Carter the Great’ (stage name of the American illusionist Charles Carter), who thrilled audiences with his disappearing lion act.

During 1924/24 Mack drew a series of 16 caricatures for Everyone’s titled ‘If Managers Were Artists’. Number 5 in the series depicts JCW theatre manager Tom Holt.

Brodie Mack: Lee White, the cheerful star of The Girl for the Boy, Tivoli Theatre, Sydney

Everyone’s (Sydney), 8 December 1920, p. 10

Brodie Mack: ‘CARTER (not forgetting his lion): The Magic Man at the Sydney Royal’

Everyone’s (Sydney), 16 June 1920, p.11

Brodie Mack: ‘If Managers Were Artists. No.5.’: Tommy Holt, Manager of the Theatre Royal, Melbourne (J.C. Williamson Vaudeville), ‘one of the Leaders of the Tait Navee’

Everyone’s (Sydney), 3 September 1924, p.5

From the early 1900s to the late 1920s the profession of black and white artists was predominantly a male profession, and few women artists were actively involved. There were, however, a number of fine women artists well recognised for their black and white cartoons and caricatures, including Mahdi McCrae, Esther and Betty Paterson, Grace Burns and Ruby Lindsay who were regular but casual contributors to various publications. Later, Joan Morrison and Mollie Horseman were the first women to be employed on the pay roll of Smith’s Weekly.

Typically, the work of these artists, while stylish and amusing, was placed away from the theatrical section of the magazines and appeared randomly throughout, usually as page filler ‘gag’ cartoons or to illustrate ‘women’ stories.

An exception to how the cartoons of women were typically treated was the work of Esther Paterson(1892–1971) who was a student at the National Gallery of Victoria from 1907–1912. A talented artist of street scenes and landscapes, Paterson later applied her skill to commercial art, book illustrating and caricatures/cartoons. Her theatrical caricatures were regularly featured in the Melbourne Punch pre first World War and were prominently featured on the ‘Playgoer’ pages. Her caricatures often featured female performers and her artistic style of her caricatures is markedly different to that of her male contemporaries—her women are more feminine and sensual.

Esther Paterson: Miss Zola Terrill and Ada Reeve

Punch (Melbourne), 7 February 1918, p.37 & 31 January 1918, p.195

Esther Paterson: Maude Fane and Miss Frediswyde Hunter-Watts

Punch (Melbourne), 6 September 1917, p.595 & 12 April 1917, p.595

To be concluded in the next issue.

Endnotes

1. See Elisabeth Kumm, ‘Theatre in Melbourne 1914-18: the best, the brightest and the latest’, La Trobe Journal, No. 97, March 2016

2. Punch (Melbourne), 27 May 1909, p.730.

3. ‘A Life’s Romance’, Bulletin (Sydney), 25 August 1904, p.10.

4. See The Bookfellow (Sydney), 1 July 1913, p.xvii.

5. Lone Hand (Sydney), 1 August 1912, p. 352.

6. Bulletin (Sydney), 16 June 1921, p.42.

7. Bulletin, 1 August 1912, p.10.

8. Argus (Melbourne), 8 September 1938, p.9.

9. Bulletin (Sydney), 26 March 1925, p. 35.

10. See Bert Levy, ‘Bert Levy (by Himself)’, Lone Hand (Sydney), 1 February 1912.

11. Joan Kerr, Artists and Cartoonist in Black and White: The most public art.

12. Argus (Melbourne), 7 August 1934, p.5.

13. See ‘Knights of the Pencil and Brush, No. 3: Tom Ferry’, Everyone’s, 29 April 1925, p.30.

References

‘Black and Whiters IV: Alfred Vincent’, The Bookfellow (Sydney), 1 January 1913, pp. 20–21.

‘Black and Whiters VII: Harry Julius’, The Bookfellow (Sydney), 1 July 1913, p. xvii-xix.

David M. Dow, Melbourne Savages: A history of the first fifty years of the Melbourne Savage Club, Melbourne Savage Club, Melbourne, 1947.

W.E. Fitz Henry, ‘Stories of “Bulletin” Artists’, Bulletin (Sydney), 14 December 1955, pp. 26–28, 32.

Harry Julius, Theatrical Caricatures, with Marginal Anecdotes by Claude McKay, NSW Bookstall Co. Ltd., 1912.

Joan Kerr, Artists and Cartoonist in Black and White: The most public art, National Trust of Australia, Sydney, c.1999.

‘Knights of the Pencil and Brush, No. 3: Tom Ferry’, Everyone’s, 29 April 1925, p.30.

Elisabeth Kumm, ‘Theatre in Melbourne 1914–18: the best, the brightest and the latest’, La Trobe Journal, No. 97, March 2016, pp.6–23, www.slv.vic.gov.au/sites/default/files/La-Trobe-Journal-97-Elisabeth-Kumm.pdf

Bert Levy, ‘Bert Levy (by Himself)’, Lone Hand (Sydney), Vol. 10, No. 58, 1 February 1912, pp. 293–300.

Ross McMullin, Will Dyson: Australia’s radical genius, Scribe, North Carlton, Vic, 2006.

Carol Mills, ‘In Black and White: The little-known Lindsay: Ruby Lindsay’, This Australia, Winter 1984, pp.80-85, available from Women’s Museum of Australia, wmoa.com.au/uploads/the-little-known-Lindsay.pdf

Les Tanner, ‘The Black and White Maestros’, Bulletin (Sydney), 29 January 1980, pp.134–142.

M.G. Skipper, ‘The Art of the Bulletin’, Bulletin (Sydney), 29 January 1930, pp.40–42.

Acknowledgements

Special thanks to Elisabeth Kumm for her advice and comments.

In my childhood in England in the late 1940s and early 1950s, the golden years of music hall were already long gone. Of course there were vestiges that remained―occasionally on the wireless, more regularly at pantomimes and in ‘variety’ shows at still-functioning end-of-the-pier theatres. These featured former stars of the post-First World War decline. Then at the start of the 1960s came Joan Littlewood’s Oh! What a Lovely War, which debunked the nationalistic patriotism which drove so many young men to sign up and give their lives so unceremoniously. It was packed full of music hall songs, several of them popularised by Florrie Forde.¹ 

Young Florrie FordeWhile from a young age getting to know so many of Florrie’s songs, I had no idea that she was Australian―although in fact she had featured her origins strongly in her initial years in Britain before the turn of the century. Nor did I realise that she had been such a major star and that she performed continuously between her debut in Sydney in 1892 and her death in Scotland in 1940―just two years short of a half-century on the stage.

Florrie Forde was born Flora Flannagan, probably at 88 (now 122) Gertrude Street in Fitzroy, Melbourne, on 16 August 1875. Her father, (Francis) Lott Flannagan, was previously a stonemason but by then a publican, born in Ireland.² And in Florrie’s birth certificate, her mother Phoebe Cahill (née Simmons) is said to have been born in the USA. Before Flannagan, whom she married in Melbourne in 1876, Phoebe had been married to Daniel James Cahill (since 1861). With Cahill she had several children, then Lott and Phoebe together had a further nine, only four of whom survived beyond early childhood (Emily b.1868, Francis b.1872, Hannah (Nan) b.1874, Flora b.1875). Flora, the last of the survivors, was named after a sister who had predeceased her.

While her first two husbands were of Irish heritage, Phoebe herself seems to have been Jewish, born in 1846 the daughter of Barnett Simmons and Susan Solomans. Her relationship with Lott Flannagan seems to have been over by the end of the 1870s and in 1883 she married for a third time, declaring herself to be Phoebe Cahill (although Lott Flannagan was still alive―by that time living as a publican in Sydney―and possibly Daniel Cahill too). This time she married a Melbourne-based theatrical and society costumier, Thomas Henry Snelling Ford, who was to take over in 1888 his stepfather’s business (Ford and Son) in Russell Street, Melbourne. Phoebe and Thomas were to have more offspring. While Thomas had a ‘proper job’ in Melbourne, he also moonlighted, playing the banjo in the music halls.³ He also played other stringed instruments―fiddles (which he made) and zithers among them.

That her stepfather played on the halls seems not to have been noticed until recently and it is important in that it will have provided Flora with a practical introduction to the genre. From the start of her performing career, she styled herself Florrie Ford (after her stepfather but initially without an e, which was to be added within six months).

Florrie says that she first went to school at St Peter’s (presumably Eastern Hill), then at St Mary’s Convent (Carlton Gardens). She emphasises that the ‘family’ was as many as nineteen (including all the surviving children of Phoebe’s three marriages) and it has been suggested that several of them (including Flora) were ‘parked out’, so the convent, taking boarders, looks a good bet. And the costumier’s business will have generated the necessary fees.

Florrie will most likely have left school at fourteen―and she writes that she then spent time in her stepfather’s costumier business in Russell Street, where she learned to design dresses―a skill she took into her future performing career.

Clearly, she showed real promise as a singer from childhood. She wrote:

Once I had heard a song I seemed to record the tune in my memory with the precision of a phonograph record.

She described her young voice as contralto, but her mother, having risen in the world, did not see ‘actress’ in her talented daughter’s future. Phoebe insisted that she learn the piano, but Florrie hated it and stopped. ‘Singing made me happy’, she declared.

It is interesting that her first public performances (at 14–15) were to sing for her stepfather’s marionette theatre (another of his talents).

In the latter part of 1891 Florrie left home in Melbourne at just fifteen, travelling to Sydney, intent on a career in the music halls, where she stayed with her older sister Nan (Hannah), recently married to Navy man Alfred Tiltman in Melbourne. Nan and Alfred later transferred to live at the Devonport naval base in southwest England and she and Florrie were to remain close until she died there at 38 in 1912.⁴ 

Apprenticeship in Australia

Florrie Forde spent the first five years of her performing life (aged 16 to 21) ―all of it in Australia―fundamentally learning her trade. These years were mainly spent in seasons of three to six months, alternating between Sydney and Melbourne, with one season each in Brisbane and Adelaide, before travelling to try her luck in London. The majority of these engagements were as a music hall singer―one of a list of performers including all sorts of vaudeville entertainers―appreciated by audiences and critics but rarely headlining. Then Florrie extended her experience―as a singing actress in pantomime and musical comedy.

While much of our knowledge of Florrie’s performing career, both in Australia and in Britain, comes from contemporary newspaper reports, she also wrote a series of memoir pieces for publications, the most wide-ranging of them being ‘My Life Story’, told on a weekly basis in seven parts for Thomson’s Weekly News from 16 February 1916. Particularly revealing are the parts dealing with her early performing years in Australia.

While music hall in Britain had grown up in the second half of the nineteenth century in venues principally developed from pubs, in Australia, it had followed suit, but mostly was situated in theatres with proscenium arches. As a consequence, while every town and city in Britain, indeed many suburbs, had a music hall, in Australia it was mostly confined to the major metropolises.⁵ 

Many reports on the early performances of Florrie Ford (without the e) have 1 February 1892 as the date of her debut – at the Polytechnic Music Hall underneath the Imperial Arcade in Pitt Street, Sydney―and this was the occasion put out in her lifetime in press reports. Yet by the beginning of February that year, Florrie had already performed (from 9 November 1891) with Arthur Gordon’s Grand Variety Entertainments in the ‘middle of Sydney Harbour’ on the SS Alathea. She was one of twenty ‘artistes’ providing entertainment as they went on a ‘grand trip round the harbour’.

In Sydney, young Florrie was most impressed by the English burlesque actress Billie Barlow, learning to imitate her songs and even her walk. Around the same time, Florrie was introduced to (and auditioned with) the Canadian dancer-impresario, Dan Tracey, who gave her a job as a ‘chair-warmer’, a chorus girl, in Tracey’s company at the School of Arts, Pitt Street. This was to turn into a real solo booking with Tracey some months later.

Florrie’s debut at the Polytechnic was not on 1 February 1892, but in fact six weeks earlier (Saturday 19 December 1891), when she sang a ‘serio-comic’ song, ‘Don’t you believe it’―a ‘great attraction’―and later a duet as the Ford Sisters (‘Florrie and Carrie’), ‘See us dance the polka’.⁶ Was ‘Carrie’ her sister Nan, who later in England was a dance teacher, or someone else entirely? Someone else, says Florrie, but who?⁷ 

Florrie Forde with her sister, Photo by Stewart and Co, Melbourne

State Library Victoria, Melbourne

‘See me dance the polka’

At the supposed Polytechnic debut on Saturday I February, Florrie sang with Amy Olive, together as the Bowery Sisters (no more Ford Sisters, it seems), but in fact she also made another debut on the Sunday―with Steve Adson’s promenade concert at the Port Jackson Pavilion at Chowder Bay.⁸ For one shilling, the customers were ferried to that bay, together with a brass band on board, the concert itself being free. In order to ward off the wowsers, these Sunday concerts were labelled ‘Sacred and Classical’ and Florrie was to be a featured performer at them through the following months until early June, while continuing on Saturdays, a ‘great favourite’ with the Polytechnic. Again, on Sundays in early June, Florrie sang in the ‘Sacred and Classical Concerts’ at the Centennial Hall in Walker Street, North Sydney.

However, learning of her daughter’s theatrical exploits in Sydney, Florrie’s mother was devastated and sent Florrie’s brother (was this Francis?) up to Sydney to persuade her to cease and desist before bringing the family into disrepute. According to Florrie, mother thought of theatre folk as ‘poor lost souls, not fit for the society of respectable, decent folk.’ Florrie went home immediately to Melbourne in order to try to persuade Phoebe, and ‘[mother] bravely determined to cast aside all her foolish prejudices’, and be proud of her daughter’s success, if that were to come.

At some point that year, Florrie reports, she was approached by the American co-leader of the Montague-Turner Opera Company, impresario and tenor Charles Turner, who had heard Florrie sing and tried to persuade her to abandon the music hall stage and join his opera company. The Montague-Turner company was regularly on tour through Australia and New Zealand, always seeming to be short on resources, human and financial. Florrie turned him down.

While Florrie was back in Sydney, her mother Phoebe died at forty-six at her home with Thomas Ford in Bourke Street.⁹ Unreported in the Australian press, Florrie performed in a minor role (as a fairy) with Billie Barlow in June 1892 at Her Majesty’s in Sydney in the pantomime-burlesque Randolph the Reckless.¹⁰  This was produced by George Rignold, who was to play such a crucial role in Florrie’s development as a singing actor in 1894–95.

The young Florrie Forde

State Library Victoria, Melbourne

Billie Barlow, 1892, photo by Falk/H. Walter Barnett

Pantomime was to become a major factor in Florrie’s career, although in the future always in lead roles. Born in London in 1863, Billie Barlow had made her name in the operettas of Gilbert and Sullivan in London and New York before touring in Australia (in musical comedy, pantomime and music hall) three times―initially in 1891–93. Florrie was so besotted by Barlow that she took care of Billie’s wigs through the run of Randolph and its successors.

Florrie performed at the Gaiety until mid-August. In late June of 1892, Florrie returned to Melbourne to perform, booked to headline at the Gaiety Theatre with Dan Tracey’s company, opening on Monday 27 June.

On 10 September, Florrie was back in Sydney, this time with Dan Tracey’s other Gaiety company (at the School of Arts in Pitt Street). As before, Florrie juggled two employers―performing for Tracey in the week, while on Sundays going to sing at the Coogee Aquarium, an arrangement that continued through to March 1893. At Coogee, Florrie sang with the Alabama Minstrels ‘in her male impersonations and in her original character “Bubbles”’.

Florrie was married on 2 February 1893 to Walter Bew, an English-born water policeman, at the Mariner’s Church on the Rocks in Sydney. In the New South Wales official register of marriages, Florrie gave her name as Flora Flanagan. And the event was reported in the Free Lance newspaper in Melbourne three years later (on 30 April 1896). They seem not to have co-habited for any length of time, if at all, and the marriage was not mentioned in Florrie’s memoirs of 1916.¹¹ 

There was a special benefit at the Opera House in Sydney (corner King and York Streets) on Friday 3 March 1893 for the manager of the Vaudeville Minstrel and Specialty Company, Alf Hazlewood, featuring some 70+ performers, ‘six shows in one’ according to the advertisement in the Sydney Morning Herald, but in the event, it was Florrie who particularly caught the attention of the Evening News’s reporter:

Miss Florrie Forde sang a witty topical song full of allusions to our late Governor and political situation.

The late Governor of New South Wales was the genial Earl of Jersey, recently returned to London after a somewhat uneventful governorship.

In April Florrie switched to the new vaudeville company at the Alhambra Music Hall (George Street Haymarket), with whom she was to perform over a six-month period until September. Many of the songs she sang at the Alhambra were noted as winners, among them: ‘The Wrong Man’ (sung in England by Marie Lloyd), ‘Oh! Mr Chevalier’, ‘Dear Little Girls’, ‘One of the Light Brigade’ and ‘Life’s Highway’ (sung by Jenny Hill in England). 

By October 1893 Florrie was back in Melbourne with the Alhambra Palace of Varieties at the Opera House. The Lorgnette noted: ‘Miss Florrie Forde at the Alhambra is a worthy successor of Miss Billie Barlow on the Melbourne stage.’

On 21 November, The Sportsman, reported on Florrie’s progress in Melbourne:

There may be nothing very elaborate in the music of ‘After the Ball’, but no one can deny that it is ‘catchy’, very catchy. Since Miss Florrie Forde sang it at the Alhambra Theatre all the lads are whistling it―a sure sign of popularity.

The Melbourne public’s response to ‘After the Ball’ was a sign of things to come for Florrie Forde. Composed by Charles K. Harris, it had been published in America the previous year and is said to have sold over a million copies of the sheet music. She was to record it in London forty-one years later (in 1934).

‘After the Ball’

Harry Rickards

Florrie returned to Sydney in January 1894, this time, for the first time, to perform at Harry Rickards’s Tivoli Theatre. Florrie was introduced in publicity in the Sydney Morning Herald as a ‘serio-comic and descriptive singer and impersonator’, terms not so easy to uncode at this distance, but serio-comic was a regular descriptor for singers who were said to combine (as the phrase implies) the weighty with the humorous.

Born in London in 1843, Harry Rickards was initially a comic singer in the London music halls before travelling to perform successfully in Australia for the first time in 1871. He returned to London in 1876, where he built a reputation as a ‘lion comique’. He was back in Australia in 1885, where in 1893 he was to purchase the Garrick Theatre in the Haymarket, renaming it the Tivoli and establishing himself as its impresario. From 1894 until the time Florrie left Australia for London, Rickards was to be a major influence on her career.

Florrie continued with his company at the Tivoli in Sydney until June 1894 and, as they did not open on Sundays, she returned to perform on those days at the Coogee Aquarium. On 30 April the Tivoli company went to the Theatre Royal in Brisbane, giving a one-off benefit there for Florrie. The Brisbane event was some kind of try-out and Florrie was to return to the Theatre Royal there for a season a year later (opening on Monday 1 April 1895).

In August 1894 Florrie moved on from the Rickards company at the Tivoli to open with Harry Barrington’s Variety and Burlesque Company at the School of Arts in Pitt Street, remaining there through September and early October, before returning to Melbourne with the Cogill Brothers company at the Oxford Theatre.

However, in December 1894 Florrie for the first time took a major role as a singing actress ― in a Christmas pantomime at Her Majesty’s Theatre (at that time Sydney’s finest)―George Rignold’s The House that Jack Built with Florrie as Jack (the first of many Principal Boys to come). In the cast was a soprano who was to become a regular performer with Florrie both in Australia and England―Melbourne-born soprano Florence Esdaile (a pupil of Lucy Chambers). The role was a breakthrough for Florrie―treating her for the first time as a star commodity―and complimentary cabinet photos of her in role were offered to patrons. Reviewing the opening night (22 December), the Australian Star wrote:

Miss Florrie Forde sang and acted splendidly as Jack, and when she had anything to say she spoke her lines well. Miss Forde has a powerful voice and every item she rendered during the interpretation of a very severe part was encored.

George Rignold was a Birmingham-born Shakespearean actor who had been involved in the building of Her Majesty’s Theatre in Sydney in 1887―and was the lessee and impresario until 1895. Florrie was able, working with him on theatrical productions, to develop her nascent acting skills. She also befriended the famous English actress Kate Bishop, who was temporarily retired from the stage in order to bring up her talented young daughter Marie Lohr.¹² Bishop designed Florrie’s costume as Jack.

George Rignold

State Library Victoria, Melbourne

The young Marie Lohr, 1903, photo by H. Walter Barnett

Following the pantomime, she was retained to perform in a double bill at Her Majesty’s in February 1895: the drama Black Eyed Susan by Douglas Jerrold, followed by a burlesque, Susan with Two Lovely Black Eyes. In the drama George Rignold played the seaman William, a role he had acted extensively in London, while Florrie was to play the same role in the burlesque. The Sydney Morning Herald reported:

Miss Florrie Forde’s confidence and aplomb enabled her to act cheerily and well as William, and she was very properly encored for the rattling song (with chorus), ‘At Four O’Clock in the Morning’.

However, the Herald critic’s praises did not extend to Florrie’s singing: ‘… she must learn to modulate her voice and to sing from the head, as the chest fortissimo throughout an entire piece is apt to become monotonous.’ Was this the first negative feedback for Florrie on her vocal capabilities? And perhaps the last? It was certainly not something she took to heart, her many later recordings being dominated by her distinctive chest voice.

Around February/March 1895 rumours started to circulate (doubtless prompted by her) that Florrie was planning to ‘go home’―to try her luck in London. In the event, two years were to pass before she was to leave, the months filled with more performing work, principally in Sydney and Melbourne, but also taking a season each in Brisbane and Adelaide.

She opened on Monday 1 April 1895 at the Theatre Royal in Brisbane with the Concert Variety and Ballad Company, the season running for some six weeks. One of her colleagues there was a singer with a famous five-octave range (contralto-mezzo-soprano extending up to top F), Ada Colley. Born at Parramatta, and with a career that started in opera but migrated to the music hall, Ada made the journey to England a few months before Florrie, in January 1897. 

Ada Colley

Florence Esdaile

State Library Victoria, Melbourne

In May and June 1895 Florrie sang with Frank M. Clark’s Empire Company at the Bijou Theatre in Melbourne, but by the end of June she had returned to Sydney and Harry Rickards’s company at the Tivoli, where a colleague was Florence Esdaile again. In October she moved with Rickards’s Tivoli company to his Melbourne theatre, the Opera House.

That Christmas, Florrie took a major role with Charles B Westmacott’s company at the Theatre Royal in Sydney as a Gaiety Girl in Pat, or the Bells of Rathbeal―not so much a panto, more a musical comedy―the score originating from half a dozen different composers, the play by Harry Monkhouse. This extended her skills as an actress once more and led on to more theatrical work with that company, Florrie taking the role of Jenny Wibbles, a coster girl, in The Work Girl, a melodrama with songs from London, which was followed by The Enemy’s Camp, where she had a smaller role, Clairette. The latter transferred in April to the Theatre Royal in Melbourne. The dancing in both shows was choreographed and led by Beanie Galletly (wife of baritone Hamilton Hill), who was to become a close friend and business associate of Florrie in England.

In the remaining ten months before she embarked for London, Florrie worked continuously in Harry Rickards’s Tivoli companies―in Melbourne, touring in Ballarat, Bendigo and Geelong, then Sydney and then (with Wybert Reeve’s company) at the Theatre Royal in Adelaide. On Tuesday 22 December 1896 there was a Tivoli benefit for Florrie at the Opera House in Melbourne, the star attraction (aside from her) being the ‘White Eyed Kaffir’, G.H. Chirgwin. Born in London in 1854, Chirgwin was a star performer, combining the black-faced minstrel fashion with cockney material. He and Florrie performed on the same Tivoli bill in Melbourne and Sydney through January to early March.

G.H. Chirgwin

SS Gulf of Bothnia

Her apprenticeship complete, it seems that Florrie left Australia (from Sydney or Melbourne?) in the second half of March 1897. She had been encouraged to take this step both by Rickards and by Chirgwin. She tells us that she sailed on the Gulf of Bothnia, mainly a cargo ship with a handful of passengers, arriving in London on 19 May 1897. As Australian poet Victor Daley put it:

They leave us – artists, singers, all―
When London calls aloud,
Commanding to her Festival
   The gifted crowd.¹³

What would the future hold for Florrie Forde?

Getting established in Britain (and Ireland)

While the exodus of talented Australians―principally to London, but also to Paris, Leipzig, Vienna and elsewhere in Europe―had been going on for decades, with musicians and singers, artists and writers, the flood increased dramatically after Nellie Melba’s triumph in 1887 in Brussels. Among them were other pupils of Mathilde Marchesi in Paris, including Frances Saville, Amy Sherwin, Ada Crossley, Amy Castles, Florence Young, Frances Alda and Evelyn Scotney; plus pupils of other singing teachers in Paris and London, including Lalla Miranda, Margherita Grandi, Peter Dawson and Walter Kirby; among pianists, the best went to Leschetizky in Vienna, the finest violinists to Ševčík in Prague.

But Australian singers who came to ply their trade in Europe were not solely working in the opera houses and concert halls. Many were clearly destined for the more egalitarian music halls, which were overwhelmingly located in Britain.

The Australians who rose to stardom in British music halls in the first decade of the new century included comic singers Albert Whelan and Billy Williams, the ‘living statue’ La Milo (Pansy Montague), champion swimmer Annette Kellermann, ‘the world’s greatest liar’ Louis de Rougemont and (above them all) Florrie Forde.

La Milo, photo by Bassano, London

Louis de Rougemont, 1898, photo by H. Walter Barnett

But there were also classically-trained Australian singers who, unable to get regular work in classical venues in Britain, turned successfully to the halls, including Alice Hollander, L’Incognita (Violet Mount) and baritone Hamilton Hill, and four others who had performed with Florrie on bills in Australia―Syria Lamonte, Ada Colley, Florence Esdaile and her sister Stella Esdaile, all sopranos. Many of them were to feature in Britain on the same bills as Florrie.¹⁴

Florrie carried with her on the voyage to London a letter of introduction to Mr Charles Morton. Morton, often called ‘the father of the halls’ had transformed the Canterbury Arms in Westminster Bridge Road into a music hall in 1852-54, later taking over the Palace Theatre at Cambridge Circus.¹⁵ His programs were by earlier pub standards high quality and Morton introduced ballet and opera into his bills.

Charles Morton

Not wasting time, Florrie went to see Morton the Monday after she landed and had an audition with him at the Palace two weeks later. Unusually, performing for an audience of one, Florrie was afflicted with stage-fright. But Morton reassured her and asked her to start again. He liked her but was clear that her style was not suited to his theatres and she should go try her luck with ‘syndicate halls’.

She did just that and was about to audition with Harry Lundy, when Harry Rickards, on one of his regular trips from Australia, met up with Lundy and was surprised to learn that he was about to audition Florrie. ‘Is she any good?’ Lundy wanted to know. Any good? ‘She’s the Marie Lloyd of Australia,’ said Rickards. The outcome was that Florrie was given a contract at £8 a turn, starting with an opening night in London at three different ‘syndicate’ halls on the evening of August Bank Holiday.

Previously published summaries of the performing career of Florrie Forde assert that she made her debut in London on Monday 2 August 1897 (August Bank Holiday) at three different music hall venues in the capital―the South London Palace, the London Pavilion and the Oxford. And this is indeed the case. But not mentioned is that she had performed through the previous month in Britain―first at Oswald Stoll’s Empire Theatre in Cardiff (from 2 July) and then (from 10 July) at the Star Palace of Varieties at Barrow-in-Furness in the far north-west of England.

Oswald Stoll

Harry Lauder

Of her Cardiff debut, the Music Hall and Theatre Review reported that it had been an unusual evening. The audience ‘could not cease applauding … there was more applause on Monday than I have ever heard at Mr Stoll’s splendid hall.’ And he/she went on to note:

Florrie Forde, an Australian vocalist, sang a couple of songs in capital style, they were catchy songs, and the refrains were taken up most enthusiastically.

On the same bill in Cardiff was the celebrated Scottish singer-comedian Harry Lauder. The Era reported more modestly that the audience at Barrow had given Florrie a ‘flattering reception’. Altogether a highly encouraging start to Florrie’s new life in Britain―and with her famous three London debuts in one evening yet to come.

The three London debuts on August Bank Holiday 1897 were: the London Pavilion (on the corner of Shaftesbury Avenue and Coventry Street at Piccadilly Circus) with Dan Leno, James Fawn and Vesta Victoria; the Oxford (corner of Oxford Street and Tottenham Court Road (again with Dan Leno); and the South London Palace (London Road, Lambeth). Two venues in the heart of the West End of London (theatreland) and one in Cockneyland. All went well. The Daily Telegraph reported on her turn at the Oxford:

Miss Florrie Forde from Australia … has a fascinating appearance, good enunciation and a finished style.

The Oxford Music Hall, Oxford Street

The London Pavilion, Piccadilly Circus

An accolade for the still twenty-one-year-old. In reality, Florrie had a cold and was afraid that she would be unable to perform, something that doesn’t happen in Australia, according to her. Anyway, ‘cold or no cold, they gave me a good reception.’ It must have been good enough as Florrie was given a five-year contract with the Moss and Stoll circuits.

She continued at the three London music halls through August and September before opening on the south coast at the Empire Theatre in Brighton, returning to the capital in October, this time to Norton’s Canterbury Theatre, south of the river on Westminster Bridge Road. On the same bill at the Canterbury were G.H. Chirgwin, the White-Eyed Kaffir (who had encouraged her move to London when they performed together in Australia), comedian R.G. Knowles (who will have seen Florrie perform there), Charles Godfrey and the young George Robey. Alongside the Canterbury, Florrie also appeared at the Paragon Theatre in the Mile End Road in the East End of London.

Florrie’s re-acquaintance with R.G. Knowles was fortuitous in that he agitated on her behalf, recommending her for the pantomime he was about to appear in at Birmingham. However, this was not to be―Moss and Stoll held her to her contract with their music halls―so she had to wait a year before making her debut in Britain in pantomime.

Several of the London halls that Florrie had performed in between August and November 1897 were controlled by ‘the syndicate’, managed by George Adney Payne (1846–1907)―the London Pavilion, the Oxford, the South London Palace, the Metropolitan, the Canterbury and the Paragon in the Mile End Road.

George Adney Payne

Well-established by this time in London, Florrie returned to major regional cities, opening first in late November in Liverpool at the New Empire Theatre in Lime Street (owner Edward Moss) with coster comedian Gus Elen, followed by Glasgow (with her Australian colleague Florence Esdaile), Newcastle, Hull, Sheffield and Birmingham.

At the end of January 1898, Florrie came back to London, again appearing at several music halls―the Hammersmith Theatre of Varieties, the London Pavilion (again), the Oxford (again), the Metropolitan (in the Edgware Road, Paddington) with the great Marie Lloyd, and the London Theatre at Shoreditch with Katie Lawrence.

Marie Lloyd

Gatti’s Hungerford Palace of Varieties: Second Turn of Miss Katie Lawrence, Walter Sickert, 1887-88

Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney 

Altogether Florrie Forde’s first six months in Britain had started with a bang and had steadily built her reputation as a promising top-flight music hall artist, both in London and in several major towns and cities of England and Wales. In a piece that was to foreshadow so much of Florrie Forde’s emerging career, the Echo in London (on 11 March), reviewing her recent appearances, observed:

This week at the Oxford she celebrates on the virtues of the worker’s daughter. The song in question is unambitious, but it boasts of a good chorus. And Miss Florrie sings it with gusto, and in her blue tights makes as gallant a figure as Miss Harriet Vernon.¹⁶ 

In the remaining months of the century―from April 1898―Florrie established a pattern that was to serve her well going forward. She toured outside London for several months, followed by months back in the capital, where she performed nightly at three or even four halls. And over the Christmas season, she was ‘principal boy’ in a major pantomime either in London or in the regions.

In April she made her debut in Scotland at the Empire Palace in Edinburgh (with the famous beauty Lily Langtry, a mistress of the Prince of Wales, also on the bill),¹⁷ followed by Empire Theatres at Newcastle and Liverpool (with Langtry again), and Empire Palaces at Sheffield and Birmingham. All of these theatres were part of the burgeoning provincial network run by Edward Moss.

Back in London in May, Florrie made a return south of the Thames to the Canterbury, where a star-studded cast included Dan Leno, Lily Langtry and her Australian compatriot Florence Esdaile. On the same nights she was at the Tivoli (with Leno, Vesta Tilley, Eugene Stratton, George Robey and the ‘Jersey Lily’), and at the Paragon in the Mile End Road and (later) the London in Shoreditch. Of Florrie at the Paragon, the Era reported:

Miss Florrie Forde, looking very handsome in a principal boy’s costume, sang in an interesting fashion of the humble love of a coster, of a girl who is quite good enough for him.

At the turn of the century, the infinite gradations of the British class system were still being rehearsed in East End music halls. Notices in newspapers started to appear regularly stating that Florrie was fully booked until 1900.

In mid-August, Florrie left London again, briefly this time, for more Empire theatres belonging to Moss―at Nottingham and Cardiff (where she had made her UK debut), But in September she was back in London at the three theatres where she had made her London debut: the Oxford, the South London and the London Pavilion. Sharing the bill with her was a galaxy of music hall stars, including Dan Leno, George Robey, Charles Coborn, and two she had previously shared the bill with, in Australia, Billie Barlow and G.H. Chirgwin.

Remaining in London in October, Florrie performed with Marie Lloyd at the Collins, and also at the Metropolitan in Edgware Road, before leaving for the Palace Theatre at Manchester and the Empire Palace at Leeds. Booked for the first time in Britain as principal boy for a major pantomime, Cinderella, at the Shakespeare Theatre in Clapham, she started rehearsals in mid-December, where she was to be ‘sprightly and charming’.

Cinderella at the Shakespeare

The South London Press, 28 January 1899, p.5

However, Cinderella at Clapham was not the bed of roses she might have anticipated. Handed the script, she learned her part as principal boy and was disappointed that it contained only three rather indifferent songs. And she was not thrilled with her costumes. It gradually became apparent to her that both the management of the theatre and her performing colleagues regarded her as an untried beginner―a potential dud―and worked effectively to sideline her. In the event, of course, she was triumphant and over time she was given more and better songs and dialogue.

The last year of the century continued the pattern for Florrie. Cinderella at Clapham closed early in February, followed by a week at the Lyric in Dublin, ‘storming all hearts’, her debut in Ireland. Did she make play of her (part) Irish ancestry there?

Then came four months in London, playing at most of the top music hall venues with the greatest stars of the day. First came the Collins, the Metropolitan and the London at Shoreditch, then the Tivoli, the Canterbury and the Paragon, and finally the London Pavilion, the Oxford and the South London―she was back to where she had started. The Era reported of Florrie at the Pavilion that she ‘proclaims in song her intention of becoming a society lady.’ Some hope! Regular co-performers on her bills were Dan Leno, George Robey, G.H. Chirgwin and Bransby Williams.

And on 9 May 1899 a special performance was given at the Oxford to greet the touring Australian cricketers – with Alma Obrey, Florence Esdaile, Billie Barlow and Florrie all performing.¹⁸ The St James’s Gazettereported: ‘… as a mark of honour most of the performers wore the Australian colours―green and old gold.’

From July to early October Florrie returned to a demanding weekly regime through Moss’s northern circuit of Empire Theatres―Edinburgh, Glasgow, Newcastle, South Shields, Leeds, Hull, Bradford, Liverpool, Birmingham, Sheffield and Manchester.

However, in October 1899 the Boer War broke out in South Africa and music hall programs were adapted to reflect patriotic priorities―sometimes with the inclusion of a recitation of Kipling’s specially written poem, ‘The Absent-Minded Beggar’.¹⁹  Florrie was now back in London at her usual venues, before starting rehearsal in December for her next pantomime―Cinderella again, but this time at the Grand in Newcastle.

In December, Edward Moss and Oswald Stoll merged their chains of theatres, many of them at that time outside of London, forming a virtual monopoly of regional music halls and its emerging mutation, ‘variety’. Stoll was to run the business, Moss Empires Ltd, which in time expanded its London presence and overall had more than 50 venues.

To be continued...

Endnotes

1. I saw the film when it came out in 1969; Oh! What a Cast: Maggie Smith, Dirk Bogarde, John Gielgud, John Mills, Kenneth More, Laurence Olivier, Jack Hawkins, Corin Redgrave, Michael Redgrave, Vanessa Redgrave, Ralph Richardson, Ian Holm, Nanette Newman, Phyllis Calvert, Edward Fox, Susannah York, John Clements …

2. Lott Flannagan sold his stonemasons business in Williamstown in 1872, taking the United Service Club Hotel in Gertrude Street Fitzroy with its ten rooms; he had been declared insolvent in 1869 and was again in 1882, by which time he was lessee/publican at the United Service Club Hotel at Castlereagh Street in Sydney

3. Table Talk (Melbourne), 12 February 1903, p.14

4. The Royal Australian Navy only became independent from the Royal Navy in 1901 (the year of federation)

5. It has been estimated that in 1875 there were 375 music halls in London and 384 in the rest of England; in 1888 there were 473 in London

6. The managing director at the Polytechnic was John Saville Smith, who had previously been the husband and manager of soprano Frances Saville; she took his name, having been Frances Simonsen

7. A likely candidate is another beginner on the halls, contralto Carrie Ford

8. On the same bill at Chowder Bay was the ‘serio-comic’ singer Alma Obrey (and husband Bob Baxter), who was to reappear frequently with Florrie in Australia and Britain; Obrey had arrived in Melbourne from London in late 1889 and returned to London in 1896

9. Was Phoebe pregnant again?

10. Florrie revealed her role in Randolph the Reckless in a brief memoir in The People’s Journal, 21 March 1914; the epithet was later used to characterise the Australian writer Randolph Bedford

11. Perhaps Florrie suspected that Bew’s former wife Eleanor Jane Rogers from 1882 (Harrison, p.11) was still alive?

12. This writer saw Marie Lohr as Lady Bracknell in Half in Earnest at the Belgrade, Coventry in 1958

13. ‘When London Calls’ by Victor Daley: first published by The Bulletin, 8 December 1900

14. Another Antipodean who appeared in Britain with Florrie was New Zealand-born siffleur (whistler) Borneo Gardiner

15. Currently home to Harry Potter and the Cursed Child

16. Harriet Vernon was a veteran music hall and pantomime artist, famous for her figure in tights

17. Or was she Langtry’s fake music hall double?

18. 1899 was the first cricket tour of England by Australia to include five test matches; the Australian team included Victor Trumper (his test debut), while for England the first test at Trent Bridge saw the last appearance of W.G. Grace and the first of Wilfred Rhodes

19. ‘The Absent-Minded Beggar’ was written by Kipling in October 1899 as a patriotic piece with the specific aim of raising funds for British soldiers and their families.

Bibliography

Alomes, Stephen, When London Calls: The Expatriation of Australian Creative Artists to Britain, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1999

Anderson, Gae, Tivoli King: Life of Harry Rickards Vaudeville Showman, Allambie Press, Sydney, 2009

Bailey, Peter (ed.), Music Hall: The Business of Pleasure, Open University Press, Milton Keynes, 1986

Bratton, JS (ed.), Music Hall: Performance and Style, Open University Press, Milton Keynes, 1986

Brisbane, Katharine (ed.), Entertaining Australia: The Performing Arts as Cultural History, Currency Press, Sydney, 1991

Brownrigg, Jeff, The Shamrock and the Wattle: Florrie Forde The World’s Greatest Chorus Singer, National Film and Sound Archive, Canberra, 1998 (CD booklet)

――, ‘Melba’s Puddin’: Corowa, Mulwala and our Cultural Past’, Papers on Parliament 32, Canberra, 1998

――, Florrie Forde (1875–1940), Australian Dictionary of Biography, Supplement, 2005

Cheshire, D.F., Music Hall in Britain, Farleigh Dickinson University Press, Cranbury NJ, 1974

Colquhoun, Edward and Nethercoate-Bryant, KT, Shoreham-by-Sea: Past and Present, Sutton Publishing, Stroud, 1997

Dawson, Peter, Fifty Years of Song, Hutchinson, London, 1951

Disher, M. Willson, Winkles and Champagne: Comedies and Tragedies of the Music Hall, Batsford, London, 1938

Djubal, Clay, ‘Florrie Forde’, Australian Variety Theatre Archive, forde-florrie-23122012.pdf (ozvta.com), 2012

Felstead, S. Theodore, Stars who made the Halls, T. Werner Laurie, London, 1946

Gaisberg, F.W., Music on Record, Robert Hale, London, 1947

Green, Benny (ed), The Last Empires: A Music Hall Companion, Pavilion/Michael Joseph, London, 1986

Harrison, Keith, Florrie Forde: The World’s Greatest Chorus Singer, The City of London Phonograph and Gramophone Society, London, 2022

Irvin, Eric, Dictionary of the Australian Theatre 1788–1914, Hale & Iremonger, Sydney, 1985

Kilgarriff, Michael, Sing Us One of the Old Songs: A Guide to Popular Song 1860–1920, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1998

Laver, James, Edwardian Promenade, Edward Hulton, London, 1958

Macqueen-Pope, W., The Melodies Linger On: The Story of Music Hall, W.H. Allen, London, 1950

Mander, Raymond and Mitchenson, Joe, British Music Hall: A Story in Pictures, Studio Vista, London, 1965

Martin-Jones, Tony, ‘Florrie Forde: Her Early Life in Australia’, Florrie Forde: her time in Australia (apex.net.au), 2020

Martland, Peter, Recording History: The British Record Industry 188801931, Scarecrow Press, Plymouth, 2013

Neill, Roger, Melba’s First Recordings, Historic Masters, London, 2008

――, ‘Going on the Halls’, unpublished, part of uncompleted dissertation, Goldsmiths College, London, 2013

――, ‘Re-discovering Syria Lamonte: Pioneering Recording Artist’ (online), Re-discovering Syria Lamonte: Pioneering Recording Artist - Theatre Heritage Australia, 2023

――, The Simonsens of St Kilda: A Family of Singers, Per Diem Projects, King’s Sutton, 2023

Short, Ernest, Fifty Years of Vaudeville, Eyre & Spottiswoode, London, 1946

Upward, Penelope, Florrie Forde: The Girl from Fitzroy (play), unpublished, nd

Van Straten, Frank, Tivoli, Thomas C. Lothian, Melbourne, 2003

――, Florence Young and the Golden Years of Australian Musical Theatre, Beleura, Mornington, 2009

――, ‘Fabulous Florrie Forde’, Stage Whispers, Fabulous Florrie Forde | Stage Whispers, 2013

Wilmut, Roger, Kindly Leave the Stage: The Story of Variety 1919–1960, Methuen, London, 1985

Woollacott, Angela, To Try Her Fortune in London: Australian Women, Colonialism and Modernity, Oxford University Press, New York, 2001

Acknowledgements

Thanks (for help of various kinds) to Christine Davies and colleagues (Templeman Library, University of Kent), Elisabeth Kumm, Tony Locantro, Tony Martin-Jones, Penelope Upward, Sophie Wilson

Scottish vocalist. Born 4 August 1870, Edinburgh, Scotland. Married Ann Vallance, 19 June 1891. Died 26 February 1950, Strathaven, Lanarkshire, Scotland.

On stage in England and Australia. Popular Scottish comic singer.

Riley/Hailes Scrapbook, pages 173, 305.

On 20 December 1913, the American Musical Burlesque Company, headed by Bert Le Blanc, Dave Nowlin and Harry Burgess, commenced their second season at the Palace, opening with A Day at the Races, which kept the house in stitches until 30 January. The next evening The Grafters returned, followed by The Speculators on 14 February 1914. For the final week of the season, 21–27 February, the company presented a double bill of The Grafters and A Day at the Races.

As audiences were laughing and enjoying themselves, they would have been unaware of what the coming year would have in store. On the theatre front, things looked rosy with return seasons by many of the old favourites anticipated, but overseas the political situation was very gloomy.

Sheet music cover for the Land of Nod Waltz from The Land of Nod, published by Alberts Music Stores, Sydney, [1914]

National Library of Australia, Canberra

Sheet music cover for “When It’s Apple Blossom Time in Normandy” from The Land of Nod, published by Allans & Co., Melbourne, [1914]

National Library of Australia, Canberra

With the departure of the American funsters, William Anderson’s residency at the Palace continued with the first Sydney production of the pantomime extravaganza The Land of Nod. Written by the prolific songwriting team of Frank R. Adams and Will M. Hough, with music by Joseph E. Howard, the show had been a big hit in Chicago in 1905, with Mabel Barrison, Alma Youlin and William Norris, where it ran for five months. However, it did not do so well in New York in 1907, when it played just 17 performances. As a fairy-tale set in a kingdom made of cards, it is now seen as an “early Wizard of Oz type story”.¹

The Land of Nod had already been produced in Melbourne as the Christmas attraction at the King’s Theatre, where it played for ten weeks or 71 performances, with Anna McNabb as Bonnie and Ruth Nevins as Jack of Hearts. In addition to the American principals, New Zealand-born Tom Armstrong who played the Man in the Moon, was also responsible for composing the song “In the Shade of My Bungalow” (which had been included in the Chicago production). Many old favourites such as Maud Chetwynd, Priscilla Verne and Tom Cannam also appeared.

The musical reached Sydney amid a blaze of publicity, so much so, that “the Palace Theatre was far from big enough to hold all who wanted to see the opening of the piece”.² Although the spectacle did not disappoint, the Sunday Times noted “the smallness of the stage did much to spoil the beautiful scenic settings, and the producer had evidently gone through some of the big ensemble scenas with a blunt axe”.³In addition to a multitude of “pictorial and mechanical features” including “The Electric Hurricane Devastation of the Card Palace of the King and Queen of Hearts”, “The Wonderful Rubber Girl” and “The Startling X Ray Gowns”, the show comprised some twenty-five song and dance routines.

At least five of the songs were from the original 1905/1907 productions—“Love’s Contagious”, “The Belle of Bald Head Row”, “Same Old Moon” and “You Can’t Keep a Good Man Down”, written by the show’s composers; “When It’s Apple Blossom Time” by Mellor, Gifford and Trevor; and the previously mentioned “In the Shade of My Bungalow” by Tom Armstrong and Don Matthews—while the remainder were interpolated numbers—“The Sleepy Pyjama Girl” by Robert Wade;. “Kill That Bear!” by Earle C. Jones and Charles N. Daniels; “Hello! Melbourne Town” by Stanley Murphy and Henry I. Marshall; and “Australia for Mine” by Arthur Don, to name a few.⁴

The Land of Nod packed the Palace for six weeks, closing on Thursday, 9 April 1914. The following night, Good Friday, the motion picture Atop of the World in Motion was screened for one night only.⁵ 

From The Bulletin (Sydney), 2 May 1914, p.8

From The Bulletin (Sydney), 2 May 1914, p.8

On Easter Saturday, 10 April, Allen Doone returned to Palace having just concluded a sold-out season in Melbourne. He commenced his Sydney stint with a revival of the patriotic Irish drama The Wearing of the Green. From the moment he stepped back on to the stage, he was greeted by a “storm of applause”, and this enthusiasm continued for the full eight weeks of his season. On 25 April he revived Molly Bawn, and on 2 May, the old Dion Boucicault sensation drama The Colleen Bawn. Unfortunately for Doone, following the first night of The Colleen Bawn, he was ordered by his doctor to rest his throat, and H.R. Roberts took his place as Myles-na-Coppaleen. Roberts was said to have played the role “nearly 1000 times”.⁶ Doone’s reappearance on Saturday, 9 May, was met by a crowded and enthusiastic house.

A week later, 16 May, the company presented a brand-new play, The Burglar and the Lady by Langdon McCormick, for the first time in Australia. Described as being “off the beaten track of the ordinary Doone play”, it featured two well-known fictional characters, Raffles and Sherlock Holmes, with the former outwitting the later following a series of robberies. As Raffles, Allen Doone “succeeded in making this dare-devil, winning character all that the heart of the most fastidious matinee girl could desire”, while Onslow Edgeworth as Holmes “invested the role … with all the tradition of mystery and grim consistent lack of humour usually associated with this gentlemen”.⁷ Overall the piece was proclaimed a success by the press: “The Allen Doone company as a whole rose to the new opportunities which were thus given”, and as the Referee noted, Doone and Edna Keeley (who played the lady) “both retained just a suggestion of the Irish brogue”.⁸ “Mr Allen Doone takes the part of Raffles, and he played the piece with his accustomed zeal and freedom. He was in good voice, for he sang a new song, ‘Old Erin, the Shamrock, and You’.” ⁹

In America, this play had received its premiere in Trenton, New Jersey, in October 1905, as a vehicle for the boxer turned actor James J. Corbett. The piece proved popular on tour for several years, and in 1914, Corbett reprised his role of Raffles in a motion picture adaptation.¹⁰In 1915, Australians had the opportunity to see Corbett in the film—and in real life when he toured for Hugh D. McIntosh’s Tivoli circuit.

The Burglar and the Lady played until the end of the season on 29 May 1914, with Doone announcing his planned return to the Palace on 7 November with a host of new plays, including The King’s Highway, Dick of the Dales, O’Shea the Rogue and a new version of Robert Emmett.¹¹

“Miss Ethel Buckley (Bess) among the Mexicans at the Palace Theatre”. Scene from Bess of Arizona

From The Sun (Sydney), 31 May 1914, p.15

Robet Inman, leading man with the Dix and Baker company

From The Australian Screen

With the theatre now under the management of Dix and Baker (a theatrical partnership between New Zealander Percy R. Dix and Sydney-based Reuben S. Baker registered in 1912), the next attraction was Bess of Arizona starring Ethel Buckley, a young actress who as the wife of George Marlow, had previously been seen at the Palace in her husband’s company. The new piece, a four-act drama set in America, was an entirely original work, written by John Morrison and Frank Edwards. It had been given its premiere in Newcastle on 16 May 1914 following a single copyright performance on 9 May.

As Bess, the cowgirl, pre-publicity informed “she’s a dead game sport; she never stops to ask fool questions, but goes right in and brings home the bacon.” ¹²

Ably supported by Robert Inman as the hero, C.R. Stanford as the Sherrif, and John Cosgrove as the proprietor of a shanty, the play promised much, and the opening night reviews were generally enthusiastic:

Despite its obvious defects and glaring improbabilities, there are thrills from curtain to curtain in the new melodrama, and Messrs Dix and Baker are to be congratulated on the success of their initial Sydney venture.¹³

The play attracted an enthusiastic opening night audience, and although the bills acknowledged the “wonderful reception”, Bess of Arizona held the stage for just one week. The following Saturday, 6 June, Ethel Buckley revived one of her former successes, Lured to London, in which she played Natty, the Hero of the London Slums. The drama was withdrawn the following Friday, which also marked the end of the season.

 

National Film and Sound Archive, Canberra

Harry Lauder with his wife

Frank Van Straten collection

Next, on Saturday, 13 June 1914, the film of The Silence of Dean Maitland was presented under the continued direction of Dix and Baker. The film received a private viewing at the Criterion Theatre on 9 June prior to its public opening at the Palace. Produced by the Fraser Film Company, it was an adaptation of the novel by Maxwell Gray, directed by Raymond Longford, with Harry Thomas as the Rev. Cyril Maitland. As noted by Pike and Cooper in their 1980 guide to Australian feature films:

Its presentation [at the Palace] was unusually elaborate: music accompaniment was provided by a grand organ and chimes, with a children’s choir of fifty voices; as the drama rose to the climax of the dean’s last sermon, Longford’s camera moved into a close-up of his face, and an actor stepped onto the stage to deliver the sermon in synchronization with the Dean’s lips.¹⁴

The film received two screening a day for a week, and was followed on 20 June by another film, Nero and Agrippina, a two-and-a-half-hour epic from the Gloria Company of Italy.¹⁵ It played twice daily for a week.

On Saturday, 27 June, the Palace hosted a “Good-bye to Harry Lauder”. Harry Lauder was a Scottish performer, and his songs and character skits were enormously popular. He had been brought to Australia by J.&N. Tait for a 28-week tour of Australia and New Zealand, commencing in Melbourne on 11 April 1914. According to newspaper reports, Lauder, who was known as the “Scotch Dickens” was being paid £25,000 for the tour.¹⁶ In addition, a “star” combination of vaudeville artists from London, New York and Paris had been engaged to support him. Described as “short and sturdy, with a strong and rugged face that gleams with kindly intelligence and humour”, when he was not playing one of his characters, he was invariably dressed in a dark green tartan representing the clan Macleod.¹⁷

Lauder’s first Sydney season opened at the Theatre Royal on 27 May to 26 June, transferring to Palace for four farewell nights and two matinees. On his final night in Sydney, he told his audience: “I have been very happy in Sydney. Nothing has been left undone by my friends to make my visit to this beautiful city as enjoyable and comfortable as possible. I am sorry to be going away, but no matter wherever I may go I can never hope to meet more appreciative audiences.” ¹⁸ To commemorate the event, a flashlight photograph of the audience was taken.¹⁹

While Lauder was making his farewell to Sydney, Australians received the news that Archduke Franz Ferdinand, heir to the Austro-Hungarian Empire, had been assassinated in Sarajevo—an event that was to result in the Britain declaring war on Germany on 4 August. And as a result, Australia was also at war.

Maud Allan in The Vision of Salome, 1908. Photo by Foulsham & Banfield. National Portrait Gallery, London.

Meanwhile, at the Palace, audiences highly anticipated the arrival of Canadian dancer Maud Allan. Dancing bare-footed, bare-legged, and bare-armed, her dancing style, which was entirely new, had attracted controversy. In addition to dances set to music by Mendelssohn and Schubert, she also presented the spectacular Vision of Salome, composed by Marcel Remy, which featured a special stage setting designed by Joseph Harker and painted by Harry Whaite and George Dixon. The Bulletin had a bit of fun at Maud Allan’s expense:

The famous Salome Dance, which has been Maud’s fortune, is carefully melodramatic, and, with its fine setting, gory accessories and music, requires less mental effort on the onlooker’s part. The trifling bead and chiffon costume resists the whirlwind dancing so well that one suspects it was rigged by a female sailor with long experience of typhoons.²⁰

Frank St Leger conducted a thirty-five-piece orchestra, and Russian brothers Leo, Jan and Mischel Cherniavsky, previously seen at the Palace in 1908, performed works by Chopin and Liszt. Presented by William Anderson, by arrangement with W. Angus MacLeod, the season was set to run from 4–10 July 1914.

On Tuesday, 7 July, Allan’s foot slipped while dancing the Vision of Salome and as a result she was ordered to rest by her doctor. With performances cancelled, replacement dates were announced for 11 July, with two special matinees on Wednesday 15 and 22 July, but as her injury did not improve, the whole season was abandoned. It was announced that she would continue with her tour and return to Sydney at a later date.

Due to the season being truncated, William Anderson lost heavily, taking the step to sue Maud Allan for breach of contract and claiming £1000 in damages. During the trial, which was held before Mr Justice Ferguson and a jury at Sydney’s Banco Court in late October, Anderson alleged that Allan’s injury was overblown and that he believed her to be “suffering from bad tempter”. Maud Allan contended that the stage floor was unfit for dancing and that although it had been patched up, it was still inadequate, and as a result, she had slipped and dislocated her semi-lunar cartilage. Evidence by medical specialists supported her claim and in line with a condition of the contact, “that if serious illness rendered the fulfilment of the contact impossible it should be null and void”, the jury returned a verdict in her favour.²¹

Under William Anderson’s direction, the Palace quickly instigated a season of films, beginning with Tess of the Storm Country²² on 18 July, followed by Inheritance of Hatred on 25 July. The first film, which starred Mary Pickford as the heroine, had already been seen in Sydney, and as a result of its continued popularity, extra sessions were given on 30 and 31 July. Inheritance of Hatred, which was being screened for the first time in Australia, featured Mari Carmi, and was produced by the Cines Company of Italy.²³

Leroy, Talma, and Bosco, 1914. Photo by Fruhling Studios, Adelaide. Potter & Potter Auctions, Chicago.

The 1 August, E.J. Carroll took over the lessee of the theatre, presenting Leroy, Talma, and Bosco, billed as the “World-Famous Magicians”. Servais Le Roy was a Belgian magician, Talma (nee Mary Ann Ford) was the English-born wife of Leroy and also an accomplished magician, while Leon Bosco provided the comic relief. The trio had previously performed at the Tivoli Theatre under Harry Rickards’ management in 1906. Now, with themselves as the headliners, they presented a full show that also included Warner and White, American society dancers; Santo Santucci, “The Wizard of the Accordion”; and “The Unknown”, a protean juggler. The main illusion during the Sydney season was “Nero, or Thrown to the Lions”, whereby a Christian maiden (Talma) is captured by Nero (Leroy) and thrown to the lions, but through a “superhuman feat of magic” manages to escape their clutches. To dispel the misconception that the lions were not real, a cage holding the two lions was placed on display in the Palace vestibule during the day so people could see the animals up close.²⁴

Over the course of their four-week season Leroy, Talma, and Bosco played to “splendid houses”. They presented many new tricks, including the patriotic illusionary tableau “The Glory of France”. Due to the magicians’ success, at the conclusion of their Palace season, they transferred to the Little Theatre for a series of farewell performances.

Beaumont Smith

From The Australian Screen

 

From The Bulletin (Sydney), 3 September 1914, p.8

With war declared, the introduction of war-themed dramas began in earnest when the newly formed partnership of Beaumont Smith and Louis Meyer presented The Clash of Arms by Edward White on 29 August. Described as a “highly realistic war drama” in four acts, it featured a strong cast headed by William F. Grant, Reginald Wykeham, Cyril Mackay and May Congdon. The story, which dealt with “the present great struggle”, provided a possible outline of events to come:

The first acts shows England at the declaration of war, the second occurs on the German-French frontier, the third is at British Army headquarters, and the fourth depicts a field telegraph station at work with the battle ranging outside.²⁵

Though some reviewers felt that by depicting scenes of carnage on the battlefield, the play was overtly manipulative in stirring up patriotic fervour—“The patriotism that needs rousing by pictures of disgusting brutality is a sorry sort of patriotism”, wrote the Sun ²⁶—others such as the Sunday Times declared it to be “the right play at the right time”.²⁷ Though reviews were mixed, the audience response was said to be “immense”. This may have been something of an exaggeration as the play was withdrawn after just four nights, The Newsletter surmising that “The people are not war mad, though the daily papers endeavour to whip up the jingo spirit [and] The Clash of Arms, specially written to please the patriotic, was a miserable failure”.²⁸ It was replaced by another play from the Smith and Meyer stable.

UK-based theatre entrepreneur Louis Meyer ran the Strand and Garrick Theatres in London, and following a meeting with the entrepreneurial Beaumont Smith arranged to tour his plays to Australia. Smith had worked as a journalist (Gadfly, Bulletin, Lone Hand) prior to becoming secretary and press agent for William Anderson. In 1911 he set up his own production company, successfully touring a show called Tiny Townthroughout Europe, Australia, South Africa and Canada. He had also had a hand in adapting On Our Selection for the stage.²⁹ Like Smith, Meyer was a man of many talents. A skilled black and white artist, he contributed to Pick-Me-Up and London Opinion, becoming art editor and joint manager of the last-named journal. Since 1910, he had enjoyed success as a theatre producer, beginning with The Woman in the Case starring Violet Vanbrugh. He had also dabbled in playwrighting, translating the play The Real Thing from the French.³⁰

Louis Meyer, 1913. Photo by Bassano.

National Portrait Gallery, London

William F. Grant in Mr Wu, as seen by cartoonist Harry Julius

From The Bulletin (Sydney), 16 July 1914, p.8

Mr Wu, an “Anglo-Eastern drama”in three acts by Harry M. Vernon and Harold Owen, had already been seen at the Adelphi Theatre in Sydney on 11 July 1914 when it inaugurated the partnership of Smith and Meyer. The play’s popularity in London was enormous, having opened at the Strand Theatre on 27 November 1913. With matinee idol Matheson Lang in the title role, it would run until 28 November 1914, amassing 404 performances.³¹

As the Sydney Morning Herald noted:

Last night the play was revived at the Palace … when the big situations again held the audience firmly. The cast is practically the same as played the piece so effectively at the Adelphi Theatre, and playgoers who missed it then may see it now to advantage in the smaller house.³²

As noted above, the main parts were played by the same actors, notably William F. Grant as Mr Wu, the Oxford educated Chinese businessman, who kills his own daughter after learning she is to have the child of an Englishman, and then seeks revenge on the young man and his father who runs a company in Hong Kong.

The two principals William F. Grant (who had also played the lead in Clash of Arms) and May Congdon, who played Mrs Gregory, had been in Australia before: Grant in the early 1900s in Trilby with Tyrone Power and Ben Hur; and May Congdon with Meynell and Gunn’s company, appearing in The Fatal Wedding and other dramas. Cyril Mackay who played the young man, had previously been seen at the Palace in February 1913 in The Bushgirl opposite Eugenie Duggan.

Mr Wu played until 11 September 1914. At the matinee the Palace held the first of many benefits in aid of the war effort. This one, the Red Cross Stage Children’s Matinee, saw the Auction of Eight Boxes by Reg Wykeham and H.R. Roberts; with another matinee for the same cause on 17 September.

Next the theatre hosted the screening of Josephine,³³ a film about Empress Josephine, which played twice daily from 12–18 September.

William Anderson’s Specially Organised Dramatic Company made a welcome returned on 19 September with an old-fashioned melodrama, The Face at the Window by E. Brook Warren, first performed in London in 1899 and in Australia by Anderson’s company in 1903. With this production, Robert Inman was reviving his original role as Paul Gouffet, the detective, with Vera Remee as the leading lady. A lurid melodrama, the opening night attracted a crowded house:

Though there appeared to be some trace of hurried rehearsal, “The Face at the Window” was, on the whole, adequately presented, and Miss Vera Remee carried off the palm as the heroine, Marie de Brisson, her interpretation of the part being natural and convincing. Miss Connie Martyn furnished an admirable sketch of Mother Pinau, the old and relentless hag who has charge of the Rogues’ Retreat. Mr Robert Inman, as the self-contained Detective Gouffet, was quite up to his usual standard, and had much to do with the success of the sensational scene in the Rogues’ Retreat, and the subsequent fight on the housetops. As Delgado (The Wolf) Mr Carl C. Francis presented in clearly defined lines all the attributes of the melodramatic villain.³⁴

It played until 2 October 1914.

Ethel Dane as Kiki in The Glad Eye, London, 1911. Photo by Fousham & Banfield.

Author’s collection

Sheet music cover for “The Colleen That I Marry”, sung by Allen Doone in his new play, The Bold Soger Boy

National Library of Australia, Canberra

On the 10 October, the Smith-Beaumont partnership launched their next major play direct from London: The Glad Eye, a farcical comedy in three acts by Jose G. Levy, adapted from the French of Paul Armont & Nicholas Nancey. Like many French farces to come before (and after), The Glad Eye concerns a pair of wayward husbands who pretend to go on a balloon flight in order to escape a boring trip to the country with their wives.

The leading actress, Ethel Dane as Kiki, the Parisien milliner, reprised the role she had played in London for almost 500 performances, firstly at the Globe, transferring to the Apollo and then to the Strand Theatre from November 1911.³⁵ An entirely new company of players was engaged to support her in Australia, including Tom Shelford (Gaston) and H.J. Ford (Maurice) as the husbands, with Dorothy Whittaker (Lucienne) and Alice Hamilton (Suzanne) as their wives. In London these roles had been played by Lawrence Grossmith, H. Marsh Allen, Auriol Lee and Daisy Markham.

Ethel Dane was an Australian who acted as Emily Spiller prior to her departure for England in 1902. This was the first representation in Sydney, the comedy having already played a five-week season in Melbourne. The Glad Eyewould go on to enjoy many revivals over the next few years.

The Sydney Sportsman neatly summarized the plot and reaction of the audience:

There was standing room only, and very little of that when “Sportsman” called in to see the fun on Saturday night. It is a performance that gets off the marks as if it were wearing a pair of running shoes, and fairly races with hilarity at full speed from barrier to winning post. The merriment circles around the ludicrous efforts of two gay husbands, who are endeavouring to escape the boredom of a trip in the country. Probably no other two husbands caused such an amount of laughter since husbands were invented. The company, both masculine and feminine members, are a fine crop of comedy dispensers.³⁶

The final engagement for the year was Allen Doone and his company, returning as promised on 7 November. He commenced his season with a brand-new play, The Bold Soger Boy, originally written by Theodore Burt Sayre for Andrew Mack and performed by him for the first time in 1903. Set in an American military camp, albeit with numerous Irish characters, the story involved the thwarting of a German spy. The play also gave Doone the opportunity to sing several new songs: “The Colleen That I Marry”, “The Rose of Old Kerry” and “The Kerry Guards”.

There can be no doubt that the new play, “The Bold Soger Boy”, has achieved an instantaneous success in Sydney. The play itself is interesting, but its appeal would be a good deal less had its interpretation less humour and elan. … Needless to say, Mr Allen Doone plays the gallant lieutenant, and plays it with all his wonted grace and conviction. One is not surprised at his capturing the heart of the fair Helen, delightfully impersonated by Miss Edna Keeley, whose acting is performed with charm and naturalness.³⁷

Two revivals followed: A Romance in Ireland from 28 November, and Sweet County Kerry from 12 December.

To be continued

Endnotes

1. Stubblebine, p.129

2. The Sun (Sydney), 1 March 1914, p.4

3. Sunday Times (Sydney), 1 March 1914, p. 6

4. These songs were all published in Australia by either Allans & Co. or Albert’s Music Store and may be found in the collection of the National Library of Australia.

5. Internet Movie Database, https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0002039

6. Advertisement, The Sun (Sydney), 3 May 1914, p.10

7. The Sun (Sydney), 17 May 1914, p.4

8. Referee (Sydney), 20 May 1914, p.15

9. Australian Town and Country Journal (Sydney), 20 May 1914, p.45. The song “Old Erin, the Shamrock, and You” was composed by Robert S. Vaughan and Edna Williams, a copy of which may be found at the National Library of Australia (not digitized).

10. Sherlock Holmes on the Stage, p.49. See also Internet Movie Database, https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0003730

11. Sunday Times (Sydney), 17 May 1914, p.27

12. The Bulletin (Sydney), 28 May 1914, p.8

13. Sydney Morning Herald, 1 June 1914, p.5

14. Pike & Cooper, pp.66-67

15. Internet Movie Database, https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0188942

16. Various, including Bairnsdale Advertiser, 10 February 1914, p.2

17. Sydney Morning Herald, 31 March 1914, p.12

18. Daily Telegraph (Sydney), 2 July 1914, p.15.

19. Ibid. Curiously, this photo does not seem to have been published. A similar photo taken to commemorate Lauder’s 32nd (last) performance at the Melbourne King’s Theatre, 8 May 1914 is in the collection of the Australian Performing Arts Collection, Arts Centre, Melbourne.

20. The Bulletin (Sydney), 9 July 1914, p.8

21. See Daily Telegraph (Sydney), 24 October 1914, p.15, 27 October 1914, p.7, 28 October 1914, p.7 & 29 October 1914, p.3. Maud Allan’s return Sydney season was at the Theatre Royal, 25–30 October 1914.

22. Internet Movie Database, https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0004681

23. Internet Movie Database, https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0963329

24. The Sun (Sydney), 23 August 1914, p.14

25. Evening News (Sydney), 29 August 1914, p.3

26. The Sun (Sydney), 30 August 1914, p.9

27. Sunday Times (Sydney), 30 August 1914, p.6

28. The Newsletter (Sydney), 26 September 1914, p.2

29. Australian Dictionary of Biography, https://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/smith-frank-beaumont-beau-11722

30. The Stage (London), 4 February 1915, p.19

31. Wearing, p.241. The Mr Wu was performed at the Strand Theatre, 27 November 1913-29 August 1914, transferring to the Savoy Theatre, 31 August 1914-28 November 1914. The role of Wu Li Chang was also played by Frank Royde.

32. Sydney Morning Herald, 4 September 1914, p.10

33. Internet Movie Database, https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1112704

34. Sydney Morning Herald, 21 September 1914, p.4

35. Wearing, p.109. The Glad Eye opened at the Globe Theatre, 4 November 1911-23 December 1911, transferring to the Apollo Theatre, 26 December 1911-31 August 1912, transferring then to the Strand Theatre, 2 September 1912-30 January 1913.

36. Sydney Sportsman, 14 October 1914, p.3

37. Sydney Morning Herald, 9 November 1914, p.5

References

Australian Dictionary of Biography

Dan Dietz, The Complete Book of 1900s Broadway Musicals, Rowman & Littlefield, 2022

Internet Movie Database, www.imdb.com

Eric Irvin, Australian Melodrama: Eighty years of popular theatre, Hale & Iremonger, 1981

Amnon Kabatchnik, Sherlock Holmes on the Stage: A chronological encyclopedia of plays featuring the great detective, Scarecrow Press, 2008

Allardyce Nicoll, English Drama 1900–1930: The beginnings of the modern period, Cambridge University Press, 1973

Andrew Pike & Ross Cooper, Australian Film, 1900–1977, Oxford University Press in association with The Australian Film Institute, 1980

Eric Reade, The Australian Screen—A Pictorial History of Australian Film Making, Lansdowne Press, Melbourne, 1975

Donald J. Stubblebine, Early Broadway Sheet Music: A comprehensive listing of published music from Broadway and other stage shows, 1843-1918, McFarland & Company, Inc., 2002

J.P. Wearing, The London Stage, 1910–1919: A calendar of productions, performers, and personnel, 2nd edition, Rowman & Littlefield, 2014

Newspapers

Trove, trove.nla.gov.au

Pictures

National Library of Australia, Canberra

National Portrait Gallery, London

State Library Victoria, Melbourne

With thanks to

Rob Morrison