Strella Wilson

My earliesttheatrical memories are being taken by my mother and grandmother in the 1940s to sit in the stalls at matinees at the Tivoli Theatre in Sydney to see the variety shows which they presented twice daily.  I was born in June 1937 so I would not have been more than a toddler, but I can still recall the chorus line of beautiful girls wearing fishnet stockings and I was particularly fond of Jenny Howard, who sang the comic repertoire of Gracie Fields as well as other popular songs. I am fairly sure that the local comedians George Wallace and Jim Gerald were in those shows but I cannot recall their acts although I do remember acrobats and jugglers, and performers who balanced on tight-ropes or slack-wires. There were also three microphones on stands across the front of the stage that rose up vertically when required and then subsided again back into their holes in the stage like snakes from a snake-charmer’s basket. These always intrigued me!

The one act that impressed me the most was the American-born Music Hall star Ella Shields, who was making a return visit to Sydney in March 1947. Immaculately dressed in men’s white tie and tails, with her silver-grey hair cropped in male fashion, she stood alongside a grand piano and sang songs like ‘If you knew Susie’, ‘Let Bygones be Bygones’ and ‘Cecilia’.  Then as a separate act, in front of a painted backcloth representing the Thames Embankment in London, shabbily dressed, she performed her immortal signature song: ‘Burlington Bertie from Bow’. She sounded neither male nor female, but her voice had a unique quality that captured one’s imagination and made her one of the greatest stars of her era. She made a number of gramophone records and can be heard on YouTube singing ‘Burlington Bertie from Bow’

Theatre program for the Tivoli show Laugh and Be Happy, starring Ella Shields

Australian Performing Arts Collection, Arts Centre Melbourne

French strip-tease artist Micheline Bernardini

State Library of New South Wales, Sydney

I continued to attend the Tivoli throughout the 1950s and saw stars like Tommy Trinder, Gus Brox & Myrna, Micheline Bernardini (a French strip-tease artist who first introduced the ‘Bikini’ two-piece swim suit), and Chico Marx (of Marx Brothers fame from the movies), whose comedy matched his cheeky piano playing. But in 1960 I travelled to London where I have lived ever since. My memoirs of theatre-going, working for a major record company and playing piano professionally for Music Hall and Variety can be found on Theatre Heritage Australia under the title The Adventures of an Australian in London: A Double Life in Music.

So much for my early memories of Variety. But, thanks to Trove, I can say with absolute certainty that the first stage musical I ever saw was White Horse Inn at the Theatre Royal, Sydney, between December 1942 and April 1943, when I would have been about five-and-a-half years old. I recall that when we entered the stalls to take our seats we noticed that the auditorium had been decorated to resemble a picturesque Austrian inn, like the real White Horse Inn on the lake in St Wolfgang in Upper Austria. The show starred Strella Wilson and Don Nicol and I was completely entranced by the singing and the dancing, but especially impressed by the scenic effects. The First Act ended with a rainstorm and a real curtain of water fell across the front of the stage. Then at the very end of the performance, what turned out to be a central revolve in the middle of the stage went slowly through a complete revolution to reveal the scenes we had seen earlier in the show. These theatrical wonders made such an impression on me that I can still remember them to this day. Many years later I visited the real White Horse Inn (Weissen Rössl) on the Wolfgangsee in Austria, which was reached by a ferry across the lake, but nobody was singing any songs or dancing and it was a bit of a disappointment!

Tommy Trinder with Toni Lamond at the Tivoli

State Library of New South Wales, Sydney

Max Oldaker as the Red Shadow in The Desert Song, with Joy Beattie

Tait Family collection

After White Horse Inn, I have another memory of a stage musical at the Theatre Royal, which is The Desert Song starring the inimitable Max Oldaker and Joy Beattie, in late 1945. For some odd reason, the scene that sticks in my mind is when the Red Shadow, to demonstrate his strength to Margot, breaks a sword over his knee. From the ‘crack’ that it made when it snapped, the property sword was obviously made of wood, but instead of spotting that a real sword would have been made of metal, the thought that entered my eight-year-old brain was that this must have been an expensive show to run as they needed a new sword for every performance!

But then it was Annie Get Your Gun with Evie Hayes in 1948 that really hooked me on musical theatre and I have written more about this in my memoirs.

Flyer for the 1942/43 revival of White Horse Inn at the Theatre Royal, Sydney. SB&W Foundation, Sydney.

Jack o’haganwas the most famous Australian popular songwriter of the early-to mid-twentieth century, responsible for many of our nation’s most beloved and enduring songs—‘Along the Road to Gundagai’, ‘Where the Dog Sits on the Tuckerbox’ and ‘Our Don Bradman’ among them.

Jack was also a pop singer, music publisher, actor, playwright, radio celebrity and advertising ‘mad man’—a chief influencer at the leading edge during a time of great technological change. His work was recorded by the greats of his era—Peter Dawson, Richard Tauber, Stéphane Grappelli, Liza Minnelli, Vienna Boys Choir, Slim Dusty, and many more—and recognised as a major cultural, historical and aesthetic contribution with an MBE in 1973, the National Film and Sound Archive’s online Jack O’Hagan gallery, and a hefty representation in the NFSA Sounds of Australia Collection.

Jack published around 183 popular and dance songs and film themes in Australia and internationally more than 204 times, alongside around 260 theatrical songs, advertising jingles and a national anthem contender—a soundtrack for a nation between two World Wars, through the Jazz Age and Great Depression, from horses to Holdens.

But it has been largely forgotten that the theatre was his ‘incubator’ and grand passion.

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Jack was born in 1898 and brought up in a hotel in Fitzroy. His father died when Jack was only four and his mother, Alice, took over as publican. As a single mother, where Alice went, Jack went. She was an avid theatregoer and took him to every musical comedy possible, following J.C. Williamson’s (JCW), the largest theatrical company in the world at the time, which owned and leased many theatres, toured well-known actors, singers and dancers, and Harry Rickards’ Tivoli, one of the largest individually owned music hall businesses in the world.

Jack and Patrick O’Hagan, c.1902

Gilbert Collection

Alice and Jack O’Hagan, c.1910

Gilbert Collection

As a young man Jack was immersed in Bourke Street entertainments, pantomime, musicals and vaudeville. He saw Melbourne’s finest shows, some many times over, collecting multiple copies of souvenir programs from pantomimes and musicals from the time he was five years old.

Jack ‘used to shrivel up in the seat’ with fear when English actor Loring Fernie played Captain Hook appeared in Peter Pan. He was less terrified by JCW’s pantomime, Sinbad, and The Spring Chicken at Her Majesty’s, which he saw twice. At nine, he was enthralled as two Americans rescued a Dutch girl locked up by her father in The Red Mill at the Princess Theatre. That’s the tip of the iceberg—he saw The Merry Widow at least eight times. As Jack said, ‘There was a certain quality about the theatre then. No one could produce a show better than J.C. Williamson. I was a theatre man—we all were in those days’.¹ John Hetherington wrote:

‘He did not know it, but he was studying then for his future career, laying the foundations of the craftsmanship which was to put him in the front line of Australian popular song-writers’.²

Jack went home and played the songs he heard in these shows by ear, with extraordinary recall, and performed the hits of the day at the pub. At around 18, he dabbled as an actor in the light entertainment of St Kilda Beach shows in The Quaints and the English Pierrot’s and aspired to be on the stage, but songwriting was in his blood and songwriters were the rock stars of their day.

Without the benefit of radio or recording, the only way to have new songs heard was to place them in theatrical productions or live performances. Most imported shows were localised by inserting songs and sketches that would appeal to the audience, who, with luck, would go home with an ‘ear worm’ and rush down to Allan’s Music in the morning to pick up the very latest sheet music to play at home.

At twenty, Jack formed a songwriting partnership with musician Henri Penn (nom de plume Henry Carson) from the Belgian Concert Party. Like other songwriters, they imitated the Tin Pan Alley composers’ passion for exotica and published their first song ‘Oh! Those Honolulu Girls’ in 1918, which Jack performed at a St Kilda Beach show.

Jack had a decided advantage in a competitive marketplace. In 1919 he was offered his dream job as a professional manager or song-plugger for Allan’s Music. His job was to promote Allan’s catalogue. Over the years he built a phenomenal network of local and touring actors, singers, performers and producers, including musical comedy star Gladys Moncrieff, comedian Roy Rene, visiting US Jazz Bands and famous American lyricist, librettist and theatrical producer Oscar Hammerstein II. Author and arts historian Frank Van Straten recalled, ‘He seemed to have known everybody that I ever mentioned in the local entertainment industry. He knew them all personally and he had the most extraordinary memory—people like Ernest Rolls, the Taits, Tallis, all the radio personalities.’³

The value of this network cannot be underestimated. The Tait Brothers and George Tallis formed the management team at JCW, Ernest C. Rolls provided Jack’s theatrical opportunities from the Great Depression to the late 1930s’ and, as Jack’s publisher, Allan’s Music were more than delighted if he placed his own songs in local productions.

Jack was reputedly the first to write songs, as opposed to orchestral themes, for silent movies, which were presented as an overture or as a short sketch staged before the film commenced. He wrote several for Paramount’s big silent films, all overseas productions.

‘Anatol (Luckless Anatol)’ (1921), with words and music by O’Hagan and arrangements by Allan’s’ musical director, experienced pianist and composer Frederick Hall, was played as an overture for Cecil B. DeMille’s silent movie The Affairs of Anatol at Melbourne Town Hall and then around Australia. It was sensational and was his first big hit.

The evocative lyrics, quickstep rhythm and gorgeous, enchanting melody of ‘In Dreamy Araby’ (1921) became an international hit. It was written for The Sheik, an epic Paramount Super film directed by George Melford. The story, based on Edith Maude Hull’s best-selling romance novel, told of the handsome sheik and abductor of the beautiful British Lady Diana, who, despite his passion, kept her virtue and fled from the desert tent-palace, only to be captured by bandits. As the sheik rescued her, true love was assured, and so was Rudolph Valentino’s superstar status.

The Sheik was presented at Melbourne Town Hall on 25 February 1922. An elaborate prologue, a hair-raising dramatic sketch with painted scenery replicating the interior of the Arabian chief’s desert home, launched Jack’s song, which was recorded in London by F.W. Ramsay around 1923 and reputedly by Jack Hylton’s Band. Jack sang it beautifully himself in the short film Jack O’Hagan Vocalist Composer in 1931.

Jack wrote 11 songs for cinema from 1921-22 and performed his own popular songs on stage in Melbourne, Adelaide and Sydney. At the same time, Jack’s songs were being placed in theatrical productions.

Jack and Henry Carson appropriated the ‘going back home’ theme, popular after the destruction and terrible loss of life during the Great War. ‘I’m Gonna Hit the Trail to Maryland’ was their first song hitched to theatrical shows. Male impersonator and vaudeville star, Nellie Kolle, sang it at the Bijou and Jack, in his element, sang it himself in William Anderson’s Babes in the Wood, a panto staged at Her Majesty’s on Christmas Eve 1921.

‘Along the Road to Gundagai’ was released at the end of the year, so the obvious choice was to place it in Christmas and New Year holiday season shows. ‘Gundagai’ was first performed for a live audience on 23 December 1922 in J. & N. Tait’s comedy pantomime The Forty Thieves at King’s Theatre, Melbourne and in Sydney, in a score dominated by American tunes. It was sung by big star and ‘Principal Boy’, Mona Magnet. Jack knew that if a song took off in a pantomime it was halfway to being a hit. He explained how they managed the segue, ‘You could get away with anything in a panto. One moment Mona was in the heart of Arabia, then she simply stepped forward and said, “Perhaps I would rather be along the road to Gundagai”. She gave a marvellous rendition and kicked the song off.’⁴

Jack found fame pre-radio and pre-recording in Australia by placing songs in theatrical performances such as J. & N. Tait and Bailey & Grant pantomime Sinbad the Sailorin 1922; Rockets revue and Pretty Peggy musical comedy in 1923; On Our Selection and Primrosecomedies in 1925; pantomime Aladdin and comedies Tell Me More and The Sentimental Bloke in 1926; and comedy Six Cylinder Love and the Patchwork Revue in 1927. Jack’s big break came when Frank Neil’s Comedians produced Tell Me More at the Palace Theatre in 1928, placing 10–11 of his songs, followed by 17–19 placed in the Fred Blackman/JCW comedy Turned Up in 1929.

During the Depression years JCW focused on revivals of old shows using sets and costumes in storage in Little Bourke Street, which saved an enormous amount of money. They did, however, stage the new local pantomime The House That Jack Built at Theatre Royal in 1931, with matinees every day at 2 pm and evening performances at 8 pm. Jack and his mates, English actor and ‘dame’ Arthur Stigant, principal ‘boy’ Sadie Gale and comic genius Roy Rene harked back to earlier days of pantomime, with loose plot and dialogue held together by songs. The Argusreported:

The songs are excellent; ‘Strolling Through the Tulips’ will probably cause more corns than any other fox-trot song introduced by way of the Melbourne stage … This was not by any means the only song to linger in the memory. When Melbourne people waltz O’Hagan’s ‘swinging’ will serve instead of the traditional one-two-three in dancing lessons until some other catch tickles the public ear.⁵

Jack’s published contributions—‘Strolling Through the Tulips’, ‘The Swing Song’, ‘Rambling Down the Roadway’ and ‘Carry On’—were featured in the program. The big finale, foxtrot ‘Carry On’, was an international hit and a great morale-booster released at the height of the Depression. It was placed in almost every Christmas pantomime in London and became one of Jack’s most recorded compositions. It was Number One for six months in England, where 14 to 17 recordings⁶ were made by big bands. Sadly, Australian big bands passed it by.

Jack’s greatest theatrical success was played out in Melbourne’s Princess and Apollo theatres, with colourful producer Ernest C. Rolls, who captured the imagination of the public with spectacular shows and extravagant stagecraft. Jack believed Rolls, born Josef Adolf Darewski in Austria in 1890, had a ‘touch of genius’.

Jack composed songs for Rolls from 1932 to 1935 and appeared in his dazzling shows as a singer at the microphone and sometimes as an actor in bit roles. Despite difficulties—and there were many—the Rolls/O’Hagan collaboration was a highly successful musical partnership. However, it was common for producers to take ownership of most songs used in their shows, which meant very few were recorded.

Their first venture, the extravagant pantomime Dick Whittington and His Cat, premiered at Princess Theatre on Christmas Eve in 1932 and enjoyed an enormously successful season through to 30 January.

Dick Whittington and His Cat, 1932

Gilbert Collection

Sheet music cover for ‘Carry On’

Gilbert Collection

Honi Soit, a co-production with JCW, premiered at the Princess Theatre on 11 February 1933 and was the first of four revues that Jack collaborated on with Rolls.

Revues were typically built around a theme and included comedy, specialty acts, musical scenes with chorus and ballet, elaborate sets and extravagant costumes. Honi Soitwas breathtaking, with beautiful showgirls and a glorious ballet, along the lines of the famous Folies Bergère. The title, short for French ‘Honi soit qui mal y pense’, meaning ‘Shame upon him who thinks evil of it’. It is also motto of the British Order of the Garter, the highest order of chivalry founded in 1348, which added pizzazz.

Honi Soit was one of the early semi-nude revues in Melbourne. Rolls followed the French music hall tradition of parading gorgeous girls in opulent scenes wearing fabulous headdresses and little else and, naturally, they were very successful. Beautiful blonde ‘Adagio Dancers’, L’Etoile and Laurence, performed in hip-hugging ballet shorts with bare chests, breasts titillatingly obscured by graceful poses. Don Nicol created the program cover illustration, a nude female artist’s model and neatly moustachioed artist, all terribly French. Book and lyrics were credited to Rolls, Gray and O’Hagan, with numbers by Berlin and Foucher/Helmer/Krier, a special ballet by Maurice Guttridge and additional lyrics and music by Jack. In fact, Jack wrote 12 to 14 songs for the show.

Honi Soit, 1933

Gilbert Collection

Tout Paris, 1933

Frank Van Straten Collection

Their next big ‘French’ revue was Tout Paris. Rehearsals ran for 16 hours a day over three weeks. It played at the Princess Theatre, Melbourne from 10 June to 19 August, Adelaide in September, Brisbane in October and Sydney’s Criterion in February 1934, to rave reviews.

The book was by Rolls and Clarkson Rose, an English West End star comedian, composer, writer and female impersonator supplied by JCW, with music by Jack O’Hagan. Stars included Rose and his wife, singer Olive Fox; London comedians and revue artists Ambrose Barker, Jocelyn Yeo and Peggy Wynne; and Australian stars Jan Kowsky (the stage name for dancer Leon Kellaway), Jack Kellaway and his wife Sylvia,⁷ both fresh from roles in Cassanova at the London Coliseum. The Sunday Mail reported:

The production is a remarkable tribute to the fecund brain of Mr. Ernest C. Rolls and his thorough mastery of stagecraft and to the dramatic ability of Mr. Clarkson Rose... Between them, it truthfully may be said they have assembled a collection of scenes of spectacular beauty strongly reminiscent of the Arabian Nights. The music and lyrics, which are the joint work of Mr. Rolls and Jack O’Hagan, are as delightfully exhilarating as the general presentation is colourful.⁸

Jack insisted the music and lyrics were all his, but Rolls took possession and Jack was credited only for ‘additional music and lyrics’.Rolls claimed he was part composer of the song that closed Act 1, the magnificent and extraordinary ‘Birth of a Melody’, published by Allan’s. Rolls never wrote a bar but Jack reluctantly agreed to 25 per cent each for Rolls and O’Hagan and the usual 50 per cent to Allan’s. He desperately needed the money.

Rhapsodies of 1935

Frank Van Straten Collection

Vogues of 1935

Frank Van Straten Collection

Rolls’ next spectacular revue, Rhapsodies of 1935,a title provided by Jack, premiered on 2 February at the Apollo and enjoyed a tremendous four-month run, followed by a month at West’s Theatre, Adelaide, in August. Rolls took credit for the book but this time attributed all lyrics and music to Jack, with arrangements by Maurice Guttridge. Jack had a hand in writing some of the sketches. Nudes were shown with great subtlety—back lit, silhouetted, quick tantalizing flashes of girls, barely clad or in transparent costumes, before lights went dark—provocative without being offensive.

The show was brimming with stars. Top billing went to Roy Rene, by then star of Cinesound’s Strike Me Lucky(1934).⁹ The enormously popular Austrlian soprano Austral Groves Wilson (stage name Strella Wilson), was a very well-known Australian lead actress in grand opera, light opera and musical comedy, and star of Whitehorse Inn and The Vagabond King.

Hot on its heels, Vogues of 1935 premiered on 1 June at the Apollo to a full house with leads Jennie Benson (Rolls’ wife), Thea Phillips and Gus Bluett. It was a very ambitious production, with 24 stars leading a cast of 180 and employing hundreds of artists, musicians, stagehands, electricians and scene painters. Rolls commended himself in the program for giving so much work to Australian performers but, according to Jack O’Hagan and vaudeville star Charles Norman, often didn’t pay or seriously underpaid them.

Rolls took credit for the book, O’Hagan full credit for music and lyrics and Guttridge for arrangements. Ballets were choreographed by Buddy Roberts, Sydney Montigue and Jan Kowsky, and scenery designed by Joan Scardon. Program notes written by Rolls were generous:

There is a big demand in America and England for Jack O’Hagan’s song hits. It is a fact that a genius generally fails to receive the credit due to him in his own country. Overseas the name of O’Hagan ranks with Irving Berlin and other song writers of the popular variety … Ernest C. Rolls is considered in theatrical management throughout the world to be one of the keenest judges of a song hit. It is a tribute, therefore, to Jack O’Hagan, that he has been selected to write the lyrics and music of most of the numbers in the past three Rolls’ shows, and now in this production … His sales have, so far, reached the two million mark. Eighty songs have been published. Jack has written five hundred, all told!¹⁰

Flame of Desire, 1935

Frank Van Straten Collection

Strella Wilson

Frank Van Straten Collection

Jack also wrote the entire score for a visually gorgeous musical comedy, the Ruritanian romance Flame of Desire, an extravagant operetta with five American stars—Ethelind Terry, Nellie Breen, William O’Neal, Lester Allen and Bert Matthews.

Rolls’ opening speech planted the seed that Flame of Desire was as good as any overseas production. He swept the audience up in his enthusiasm.

The story unfolds as two Americans, Adam Sweet and Oscar Low, played by comedians Bert Matthews and Lester Allen, descend by parachute, are mistaken for financial advisors and immediately begin to promote a lottery. Handsome Captain Carl scorns beautiful Princess Marietta of Serovia’s acceptance of foreign Prince Frederick’s hand to save her struggling country. He casts off his uniform to become rebel leader and President of the Republic, a political coup d’état in partnership with the princess, perhaps financed by the lottery. The first act held most of the musical comedy gags and high drama. The chorus, ballet and soldiers were brisk and breezy, Princess Marietta light and bright, the story full of glamour of romance with a conventional happy ending. The Herald wrote:

Brilliant production of an Australian musical romance worthy of world presentation. An anti-depression tonic rich in colour, story, music, humour and dancing.

When Mr. Ernest C. Rolls, replacing Maurice Guttridge for the one item, lifted the conductor’s baton at the Apollo on Saturday night, and led the orchestra into the swirling, haunting overture, an audience of first night, not easily impressed, settled more comfortably into their seats anticipating original entertainment. The curtain raised and ‘Flame of Desire’ unwound, as a stage production of great charm; rich in harmony and spectacle, it won an enthusiastic reception.

This musical comedy, with its book, lyrics, music, orchestration, settings, costumes and ballets, all written or designed by Australians, makes stage history in Melbourne. It should win both a record season at the Apollo and success in London and New York.¹¹

Some critics felt it lacked a cohesive script and slid into a revue format in Act 2 but conceded the upsides were lack of vulgarity and brilliant staging, with 12 magnificent scenes from the opening in the courtyard of the royal palace to the elaborate ballroom finale, exaggerated by mirrors placed at the back of the stage. The Age reported:

Once having recovered from colour-blindness, induced by the opening courtyard scene … the senses are quickened by the artistic beauty of the garden scene as the ballet dances in a gorgeous scheme of lighting which reveals ivory flesh tones, blue feet dancing in an atmosphere of diaphanous green. The effect is truly magnificent. Then, finally, the producer unfolds his surprise in the second act, the ethereal purple and green interior of a cathedral, changing swiftly to the lightness, colour and gaiety of wedding celebrations, beautiful in blending tones of apricot.¹²

The show closed at midnight and flowers handed up were ‘so numerous and brilliant that they made a veritable garden of the stage’.¹³ Jack and librettist John Gray shared the final curtain, profoundly relieved as they bowed before the wildly appreciative audience. The Argus reported that there was ‘enough entertainment of high calorific value to roast the coldest critic to a cinder’ and wrote:

If you have an appetite for red-hot romance, served up in a Ruritanian kingdom, where brave uniforms and royal intrigues count more than statesmanship, and if digestion is helped by copious draughts of music, by turn turbulent and honey sweet, this is the show that will gratify the heart’s desire. Mr. Ernest C. Rolls … pleaded with members of his audience to judge the piece, which was written and composed by Australians, by the same standards that they would apply to a musical comedy from London or New York. There was no call for apologies for its authorship. The Harry Grahams of the play world have not produced a more attractive ‘book’ than that contrived by Mr. J.L. Gray and Mr. Rolls, nor have the Irving Berlins of this amusing age composed music any sweeter than that invented by Mr. Jack O’Hagan.¹⁴

On stage, Ethelind Terry struggled with vocal demands and by mid-November the role of Princess Marietta was handed over to Strella Wilson, who reinvigorated the show and inspired the cast to do better. Jack’s tuneful songs revealed the fine qualities of her rich voice and in turn she brought humour and glamour to the production, new warmth to ‘Song of Serovia’ and charm to melodious duets ‘Song of Love’ and ‘Some Day Sweetheart’ with William O’Neal. 3AW broadcast Act 1 of the show live from the Apollo’s stage on 25 November.

After seven weeks of good houses, Rolls decided to end Flame of Desire on 7 December and take it to Sydney for Christmas, but the venue arrangement fell through and there was no chance to return to the Apollo. Frank Van Straten wrote, ‘It’s more likely that Flame of Desire was running at such a substantial loss that Rolls had no alternative but to summarily dump the show, its cast and its crew’.¹⁵

The O’Hagan’s held a ‘wrap’ party at home. Strella sang the big songs from Flame of Desire as Jack played piano. The crowd of musicians and entertainers was raucous. Neighbours resigned themselves to another sleepless night.

Jack wrote and placed songs for a few more revues with Rolls’ involvement—Around the World (1935), A Waltz Dream (1939) for Australia and New Zealand Theatres for JCW, supervised by Rolls; and London Casino Revue Folies D’Amour(1939) for JCW Jack also wrote Romany Road, his own potted musical comedy for the Tivoli in 1944.

Around the World,1935

Frank Van Straten Collection

London Casino Revue, Folies D’Amour, 1939

Elisabeth Kumm Collection

Records to date show Jack composed 58 published and 158 unpublished songs for theatrical productions throughout his career. Twenty-three were recorded on disc and 12 on piano rolls.

Around 100 of those songs were written for Rolls between 1932 to 1935—at least seven for pantomime, around 70 across spectacular revues, and a huge score of 24 for a musical comedy Flame of Desire.¹⁶

It must be remembered that Jack did all of this while working full time at Allan’s Music in the 1920s; while running his own publishing business in the early 1930s; and while working full time as a broadcast writer, announcer and performer at 3AW from 1934 onwards. He burnt the midnight oil.

Jack’s phenomenal theatrical contribution is rarely remembered because most of these songs were never recorded or published, and some appeared under pseudonyms, but, regardless, it’s a significant legacy to Australian theatrical heritage.

Endnotes

1. J. Hansen, ‘Few Regrets for Jack O’Hagan’, Southern Cross, 12 September 1984, cover & p.16

2. J. Hetherington, ‘He’d never heard of The Road to Gundagai’, The Herald, 28 October 1950, p.13

3. Author’s interview with Frank Van Straten, 2013

4. ‘Out and About with Batman, Turn that old pianola’, The Bulletin, 8 January 1972, p.6; ‘Jack O’Hagan, The Australian Troubador’, Readers Digest, May 1974

5. ‘Music and Drama’, The Argus, 27 December 1930, page unknown

6. Jack at times mentioned 14 recordings and at other times 17 recordings. Not all have been traced to date.

7. Sylvia Kellaway was incorrectly noted in the Tout Paris program as Jack Kellaway’s sister

8. ‘Tout Paris’, Sunday Mail, 1 October 1933, p.13

9. Roy Rene’s first and only film

10. Vogues of 1935 program, author’s collection

11. ‘Enthusiasm at Apollo First Night’, The Herald, 21 October 1935, p.18

12. ‘Music Stage & Film, Premiere of Australian Musical Play. Mr. Rolls Conducts Overture’, The Age, 21 October 1935, p.10

13. ‘The Woman’s World, “Flame of Desire”’, The Herald, 21 October 1935, p.13

14. ‘The Apollo, New Musical Romance, “Flame of Desire”‘, The Argus, 21 October 1935, p.4

15. Frank Van Straten, Hanky-Panky, the Theatrical Escapades of Ernest C. Rolls, Australian Scholarly Publishing, 2020, p.115

16. It’s difficult to be absolutely accurate as attributions to composers are not always clear—producers often took ownership of copyright, and some songs were placed in more than one show.

‘Over the Moon’ by H.M. Brock, designed for the front cover of the programs for the D’Oyly Carte Opera Co.’s 1919–1920 season at the Princes Theatre, London. Courtesy of David Lovell.

James Hay, dated 1923. Photographer unknown. British Library, London.

On 1 july 1958, in Brighton, England, a 73-year-old single gentleman passed away in the town’s General Hospital. The death certificate records that he died of cerebral arteriosclerosis, a thickening of the arteries that supply the brain which would have undoubtedly caused a degree of dementia. The fact that the ‘occupier’, a member of the hospital administration, registered the death suggests that no family or friends were there, or even knew of his passing. Furthermore, that the certificate states Occupation Unknown confirms that very little was known about him. No grant of probate was ever recorded, so either his estate was not large enough to need one, or possibly he died intestate.

He was Peter James Hay; an Australian classical singer who had once lived at the swankiest of addresses—a bachelor pad on London’s Pall Mall, had studied with the great Polish tenor Jean de Reszke, had sung with Tetrazzini, and had for a number of years been a principal tenor of the celebrated D’Oyly Carte Opera Company.

There is much we don’t know about his later life or how he came to die in such lonely circumstances in Brighton, but his early life is better documented.

His father, Peter Hay, was a Scottish sheep farmer who had arrived in South Australia in the early 1880s. With his wife Sarah Ann (née Hair) he bought a small farm in Luton near the town of Clare, SA. In that remote rural setting Peter James was born on 21 August 1885. When appearing in The Gentle Shepherdin Scotland many years later, he would recall his early life: ‘My grandfather was a Presbyterian Minister in Edinburgh, but he emigrated to Australia, and there my father took up sheep farming. I remember as a wee laddie minding the sheep, and another recollection which remains with me very clearly is that of my grandfather rocking me on his foot as a tiny child, and singing many of the old airs and melodies reminiscent of the tunes which run through The Gentle Shepherd. I never saw a train until I was fourteen years of age, so you may imagine how remote we were from the busy highways of life.’¹ His father too would sing his young son to sleep with songs of Scotland, something Hay would later acknowledge as the root of his musical ability. ‘I owe all my success to my father, who gave me an appreciation of the best in music, and taught me the right idea of singing.’²  He recalled that his father had a fine tenor voice, and trained his son in the old Scottish folk songs. His guiding principle was expressed in these words: ‘The author of the song is the man who wrote the words.’ Even when Hay was at the height of his career, after years of training, it was noted that he sang with a noticeable Scots burr. It can be heard on the only recording that survives of him singing, a recording of D’Oyly Carte’s HMS Pinafore in which he sings the role of Ralph Rackstraw.

When Hay was 14 years old the family moved to Western Australia, where amongst other musical pursuits, he became a choirboy at Perth Cathedral. ‘On leaving school I went into business, but I used to devote all my spare time, and some of my time that was not spare, to music, the only thing in which I was interested. As a result, I occupied many different positions for only brief spaces of time—much to the annoyance of my father. He died when I had been at work for a year or so, and I found myself obliged to think seriously of my future.’³

His first singing teacher in Perth was a man called Lardeth, thereafter he studied with Mr. J.B. Huntingdon of whom he spoke glowingly in later years, declaring that throughout his subsequent studies in London and Paris and with the great Jean de Reske, ‘no alteration was ever considered necessary in the foundations of the art imparted at this Perth master’s hands.’⁴

Soon after his father’s death, Hay left Perth for Melbourne, but before he went, he gave a final recital at the Boulder Mechanic’s Institute. There was a good ‘front’ house for the concert, but, as the Kalgoorlie Miner reported, ‘the program did not contain the lighter items that appeal to a goldfield’s populace, and consequently there was poor attendance in the back of the hall’⁵ Those that attended certainly couldn’t complain of being short-changed, since the program was astonishingly long, concluding with ‘Take a Pair of Sparkling Eyes’ from The Gondoliers.

Amy Sherwin, dated 1898. Photo by London Stereoscopic and Photographic Company.

State Library of New South Wales, Sydney

Jean de Reszke, photographed by Benque & Co., Paris in 1892

Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, Boston

Hay arrived in Melbourne with nothing but a letter of introduction and a reputation for being hopeless at business and for wasting his time on music. ‘Then we’ll try you at music,’ said a benevolent Scotsman to whom he was introduced and who soon took him under his wing. ‘I dinna think ye’ll ever dae ower much at business,’ said the old man, ‘but ye micht dae weel at the music.’ ‘I’ll take you to Marshall Hall, and if he says you have a chance of a musical career, I’ll back you for a couple of years till you can make your own living.’ Though Hay acknowledged the help of the generous man numerous times when recounting his career, he never divulged the Scotsman’s name. Marshall Hall’s advice was that he should take up singing professionally and go to Paris to study. Hay replied that he had no money, but the generous Scot provided the necessary financial backing for the crossing.

On the way over to Europe, Hay met the Tasmanian-born operatic soprano Amy Sherwin, with whom he subsequently studied in London for six months. Madame Sherwin had studied with Stockhausen, and Hay later acknowledged her to be a great practical teacher. Moving to Paris he commenced studies with a celebrated French baritone by the name of Monsieur Brouhy, before being taken on as a pupil with Jean de Reszke under whose guidance he remained for eighteen months. Hay recalled the experience: ‘His system, if such it can be called, consisted chiefly in singing a phrase more like an angel, than a human being. “Do it like that” added the great one in French, and of course you did—not! However we used to do operas in his little theatre in the Rue de la Faisanderie, and learned interpretation according to our brain –power. He always threw out the stupid pupils, no matter how fine their voices were.’⁶

Luisa Tetrazzini, 1908. Photo by E.F. Foley, New York.

Boston Public Library, Boston.

Ada Crossley, 1905. Photo by H. Walter Barnett, London.

National Portrait Gallery, London

Returning to England in 1909 he gave a recital at London’s Aeolian Hall which de Reszke had arranged for him. The Daily Telegraph reviewing the concert on 1 December found his performance of an aria from Gluck’s Iphigenia en Tauride ‘rather lacking in dramatic spirit’, but found good taste and delightful charm in his rendering of chansons by Fauré and Debussy. Overall, the recital was deemed to be a success, resulting in numerous subsequent engagements. The first was with the Chappell Ballad Singers, followed by six promenade concerts for Sir Henry Wood at the Queen’s Hall including singing with the Royal Choral Society in Missa Solemnis. On one occasion he was called on to deputise for the indisposed Gerard Elwes in Elgar’s The Dream of Gerontius. ‘Next I had the invaluable experience of singing Berlioz’s Faust with Richter and studying oratorio under Rendegger. I then toured with Tetrazzini and Madame Ada Crossley for a couple of years.’⁷

Perhaps it is testament to either his quixotic nature, or to his passion for singing that only a week after his London debut recital at the Aeolian Hall, he travelled all the way to Coleraine, Northern Ireland, to sing in a concert in aid of a local rowing club. Or maybe the fee made the journey worthwhile. He was billed as ‘The New English Tenor’.

Ivor Novello with his mother, Madame Novello-Davies, 1916. Photo by Lallie Charles.

National Portrait Gallery, London

Opera singer Ruby Heyl, 1913. Photo by Matzene, Chicago.

J. Willis Sayre Collection of THeatrical Photographs, University of Washington Libraries

In 1913 we find him taking part in a concert organised by Madame Clara Novello-Davies, to promote the compositions of her son Ivor Novello. Although the newspapers claimed that all the artists taking part in the concert had  been trained by Madame Davies, Hay never acknowledged that he received any tuition from the Welsh Impresaria. Other singers taking part were Ruby Heyl who later had a career in the Chicago Opera Company; Charles Mott, a young English baritone of much promise, and much admired by Elgar, who was tragically killed in action in 1918; and Sara Melita (née Davies) who had sung at the Queen’s Hall Proms with Hay. The Referee found Hay’s rendering of Novello’s song “The Valley” particularly pleasing.⁸ Ivor himself was not at the concert, as he was in America “for the production of his new opera”,⁹ so we cannot be certain whether he and Hay ever met.

Immediately afterwards Hay embarked on his afore-mentioned tour with Madame Tetrazzini. It appears that most of her concerts were in Wales, where she was feted and most rapturously received. When in North Wales, the party stayed at the Pwll-y-crochan Hotel, the finest that Colwyn Bay could offer. The list of guests published by the North Wales Weekly News on August 1 tells us that not only did the great soprano travel with her own maid, Monsieur Tetrazzini was there with his valet, as was James Hay, Esq. of Walton-on-Thames.

‘All this time I had been anxious to go on the stage. So I applied to Mr D’Oyly Carte, of the Gilbert and Sullivan operas. He engaged me, but when I asked him what parts I would play he dashed my hopes. “Parts!” he exclaimed. “When you have never been on the stage before! You start in the chorus.”

‘It was rather a drop for me, but my determination to go on the stage conquered my pride, and I accepted his offer.

‘After a few months I was given a trial as Col. Fairfax in The Yeomen of the Guard, and after that I played parts until March 1915.’

In his later interviews with the press, Hay always said his debut as Fairfax took place in Glasgow in 1912, but as we have seen, unless the company gave him time off to sing for Clara Novello-Davies and Mme Tetrazzini, which is most unlikely, he cannot have joined till the summer of 1913.

We first see him being billed as a company principal in October when he is announced as one of two new tenors expected in Cambridge. The other was Dewey Gibson. Two months later, The Era, in possibly his first review as a principal, as Nanki-Poo in The Mikado at the Borough Theatre, Stratford, East London, reported that ‘Mr James Hay was heard to distinct advantage in the rôle of Nanki-Poo, and he played the persistent lover very successfully.’¹⁰

Between 1913 and 1915, Hay played the roles of Ralph Rackstraw in HMS Pinafore, Earl Tolloller in Iolanthe, Frederic in The Pirates of Penzance, Prince Hilarion in Princess Ida, Nanki-Poo in The Mikado, and Colonel Fairfax in The Yeomen of the Guard.

He left the company in March 1915, but we do not know where he spent the rest of the war years. It seems unlikely that he saw active service. By this time, he had begun a relationship with a wealthy London widow, a multi-millionairess, Stella Ettlinger, many years his senior. It may be that he and Stella fled to safer territories, though their names do not appear on known passenger lists.

Elsie Griffin as Mabel and James Hay as Frederic in Act I of The Pirates of Penzance

Courtesy of David Lovell

Griffin and Hay in Act II of Pirates

Courtesy of David Lovell

The war safely over, Hay returned to D’Oyly Carte in 1919. Richard D’Oyly Carte’s son Rupert had now taken over the running of the company and was firmly wielding a new broom. Rupert began re-costuming and re-designing the operas, launched a West End London repertory season, not at the Savoy but at the larger Princes Theatre (now the Shaftesbury), and created a second company which would tour smaller towns and cities. Hay returned to the principal company, then known as the Repertory Company, and adding Duke of Dunstable in Patience to his roles, he continued to play Ralph, Frederic, Hilarion, Nanki-Poo, and Fairfax. It was a short-lived spell however as in June 1920, he left and returned to Australia to join a new J.C. Williamson company which was being put together to tour Australia with seven of the operas.

Leo Sheffield as Captain Corcoran, Elsie Griffin as Josephine, Frederick Hobbs as Dick Deadeye, James Hay as Ralph Rackstraw and Sydney Granville as Bill Bobstay in HMS Pinafore. Courtesy of David Lovell.

Before he went, he managed to fit in an appearance at the Kings Theatre, Hammersmith, in a production of Audran’s comic opera La Cigalegiven by the Selfridge Operatic and Dramatic Society. The Stage found that ‘as Chevalier Franz de Bornheim, Mr. James Hay showed a tenor of unusual sweetness; his work is accompanied by a good deal of finely-felt singing, and his rendition of “Trifle Not With Love” is extremely fine.’¹¹

Meanwhile in Australia, the Melbourne journal Table Talk reported that ‘Rehearsals for the Gilbert and Sullivan opera season under the J.C. Williamson Ltd. management have already commenced at Her Majesty’s. On the way out from England are Charles R. Walenn, who was such a favourite when he last appeared in the Gilbert and Sullivan opera under the J.C. Williamson management; Gayford Hobbs [i.e. Frederick Hobbs] (baritone), James Hay (tenor). Both of the last-mentioned artists have been figuring with great success in the Gilbert and Sullivan revival in London. Also coming to Australia is Albert Kavanagh, already popular here by his appearance in the role of Popoff in the Clarke and Meynell production of “The Chocolate Soldier.” Others to be included amongst the principals will be Eileen Castles, who achieved great success in Gilbert and Sullivan opera in America; Ethel Morrison, Strella Wilson, and others. The operas will be produced by Minnie Everett, and the conductor will be Gustave Slapoffski.’¹²

Program for HMS Pinfore, Melbourne, 16 October 1920. From JCW Prompt Scrapbook 8, Vol. 4, National Library of Australia, Canberra.

The opening season consisted of productions of The Gondoliers, in which Hay played Marco for the first time, The Mikado, The Yeomen of the Guard, Iolanthe, Patience, HMS Pinafore and The Pirates of Penzance. The tour opened at Her Majesty’s Theatre, Melbourne on Saturday, 7 August 1920, with a performance of The Mikado, before visiting Sydney, Perth, Adelaide, Brisbane, and Toowomba in October 1921. The company then returned to Melbourne by which time Princess Ida and Trial by Jury had been added to the repertory.

The Bulletin, 19 August 1920, p.34

The Bulletin, 10 February 1921, p.34

In most announcements of the tour, Hay was referred to as ‘the new tenor’. It is surprising that more wasn’t made of his Australian roots, although the Sydney Morning Herald reviewing The Mikado, and wrongly calling him a Victorian, at least gave him a glowing notice: ‘To James Hay, a Victorian, came most of the applause. As Nanki Poo his make-up was excellent, and the trueness and sweetness of his voice quickly won favor, which was added to as the entertainment proceeded. His rendering of “A Wandering Minstrel” was delightful.’¹³

James Hay as Hilarion and Sylvia Cecil in the title role of Princess Ida, London

Wilson & Lloyd

James Hay as Frederic and Elsie Griffin as Mabel in The Pirates of Penzance, London

Wilson & Lloyd

At the end of his engagement, Hay returned to London. He frequently recounted the story of an occurrence when he happened to call into Rupert D’Oyly Carte’s office one morning in January 1922 ‘with nothing particular in view, and Pinafore hopelessly in full swing at the Prince’s Theatre. While chatting, a message of despair came through that Derek Oldham had fallen ill, inquiries on all sides had failed, and the day’s matinee would have to be postponed.’ To the amazement of his old friends in the company, Hay was on stage ready in his old costume before the curtain rose. He continued to play Ralph Rackstraw until the end of the season, and soon took over for some performances as Hilarion (in Princess Ida) too. In July he was re-engaged fully as a company principal sharing the tenor roles with Dewey Gibson and Leo Darnton.

The Sphere, 25 November 1922, p.x

In November of that year, in a much reported celebrity Mayfair wedding, he finally married Stella Ettlinger, a wealthy widow fifteen years his senior, following what the papers declared was a 14-year romance. If true, they must have met immediately on his first arrival in London in 1908. On the marriage certificate Hay gave his address as 14 Pall Mall, an address that even on the highest salary that D’Oyly Carte could pay, he could not have possibly afforded. Clearly Stella was supporting him there. She herself lived in nearby fashionable Hertford Street. The marriage took place at Christ Church, Down Street, Mayfair and Lady Dorothy D’Oyly Carte, titled wife of Rupert, and society doyenne attended the wedding.

James Hay, with his bride Mrs Stella Ettlinger, 14 November 1922

From Daily Mirror,15 November 1922, p.11

14 Pall Mall, London

www.rightmove.co.uk

The wedding was widely reported in the national press, with photographs of the happy couple. Their portraits appeared in the society magazine The Sphere,flanking a photo of the Wimbledon Centre Court, currently under construction. The British press were duly congratulatory and respectful. Some of the Australian reports of the wedding were less complimentary: ‘News that James Hay, the Gilbert and Sullivan opera tenor, has married a diamond merchant’s widow worth £40,000 a year, will satisfy Australian friends who found money for sending young Hay to England some years ago. He did very well when at last he got going, and some of his G. and S. performances in his native country were most artistic in all respects. But Nature had given the gentle tenor no physique to speak of. He was on the small side as a stage hero, and, before he left Australia, his sweet tenor had become as hard as a brick, whilst his throat was said to hold out no hope of the voice standing any more hard work. A wife with £40,000 a year should be an easier profession for him than the stage.’¹⁴

Album cover featuring drawing of Bill Bobstay, the Bo’sun’s Mate

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His Master’s Voice factories at Hayes, from an aeroplane

From Opera at Home, The Gramophone Co. Ltd., London, 3rd ed., 1925

During the tour of 1922, and despite having a voice ‘as hard as a brick’, or maybe because of it, Hay returned to London numerous times to record the role of Ralph Rackstraw for HMV. The recording studios were out in Hayes Middlesex and it must have made for long tiring days to get back to wherever the company were playing in time to perform that night. Correspondence has survived between Leyden Colledge, the producer of the recordings for The Gramophone Company and Rupert D’Oyly Carte showing that the two did not always see eye to eye.¹⁵ Rupert was very keen that the singers should all be current members of his company, but Colledge had already rejected Derek Oldham and Dewey Gibson, saying they did not have the right sort of voices for recording. Of Gibson, he claimed ‘the recorders tell me his voice is quite hopeless for our purposes.’ Hay recorded most of the show, however some of the numbers are sung by the tenor Walter Glynne, who was Colledge’s preferred choice for the role. Glynne had replaced Hay in the D’Oyly Carte company back in 1915 when Hay left at the start of the war. Glynne as a singer was clearly happier on the concert platform and did not return to the stage after the war. This recording of Hay as Ralph is the only known one we have of his voice.

For this, his third stint with D’Oyly Carte, Hay remained with the company until June 1923. It is not clear why he left at that point, but possibly Stella had grown unhappy with him being constantly on the road, and demanded more time at the marital home. He was soon signed up however to take part in a new production in Scotland, which alternatively may have been the reason he left.

The Scots poet Allan Ramsay’s pastoral The Gentle Shepherd was an early 18th century ballad opera and often cited as the first Scottish Opera. In London an actor-manager, Nigel Playfair, had revived the fortunes of the Lyric Theatre, Hammersmith, and in 1920 had produced a much celebrated and admired production of Gay’s The Beggar’s Opera. It was no doubt on the wave of interest caused by this revival that plans were announced to produce Ramsay’s Scottish equivalent, written in 1725, two years before The Beggar’s Opera. The show was staged in Glasgow and Edinburgh in September 1923. The Stagereported that ‘Mr James Hay acts and sings capitally in the title role.’¹⁶ A much-promised West End transfer however never happened, despite favourable notices for the production in Scotland.

The Stage (London), 5 June 1924, p.17

The following year an offer to sing the role of Camille de Rosillon in The Merry Widowenticed him back to the stage, with the added advantage that he could remain at home in London. At that time, most of the roles in Basil Hood and Adrian Ross’s 1907 English version of the show had different names, and the character was then called Camille de Jolidon. The merry widow herself was called Sonia, not Hanna her original name. Such changes might appear unnecessary and bizarre to us today. The show opened at the Lyceum Theatre on 28 May 1924 and ran until the end of November when it closed to allow the Christmas pantomime Ali Baba to take the stage. It starred matinee idol Carl Brisson as Danilo, George Graves as Baron Popoff (Baron Zeta) and Nancie Lovat in the title role. Following the Christmas season the show went out on the road in 1925, but Hay did not go with it.

By 1925 he was back with D’Oyly Carte, but this time as principal tenor with the smaller New Company. This company only toured four operas each year, and stayed only a week in each town, playing smaller towns, and often smaller theatres. It was consequently a more gruelling schedule, and Hay was engaged as the sole principal tenor which meant that he was ‘on’ every night. In 1925 the New Company were performing Patience, Iolanthe, The Mikado and Ruddigore, and Hay accordingly played The Duke of Dunstable, Earl Tolloler, Nanki-Poo and Dick Dauntless. It is probably true to say that the tenor roles in the first two of those operas are not as demanding as those of the latter two; nevertheless it was a punishing tour with more travelling than he had experienced hitherto.

Cast list for the Sydney season of Ruddigore, August 1927. National Library of Australia, Canberra.

Plans were afoot in Australia to mount another J.C. Williamson G&S tour, and in January 1926, Hay left the D’Oyly Carte Company for the last time. Also leaving the New Company to go to Australia with him were contralto Winifred Williamson, soprano Kathleen Anderson, and leading baritones Bernard Manning and Sydney Granville with his wife Anna Bethel.

The tour was to include the first Australian production of Ruddigore, and Hay who had given many performances as Dick Dauntless was given the responsibility of staging it. Ruddigore received its Australian premiere on Thursday, 23 June 1927 at Adelaide’s Theatre Royal.

The Australian premiere of a Gilbert and Sullivan opera was an event of some significance to the nation’s theatregoers, and the production received considerable coverage in the press. Hay gave many interviews prior to the opening, and introduced the country to the opera in a special radio broadcast, which was followed the next night by a transmission of the first act.

The Colemans’ Act 1 set for Ruddigore. Book 07-0028, JCW Scene Books, Theatre Heritage Australia.

The Triad wrote that the production ‘reflects considerable credit upon the efforts of James Hay as producer; because, through his observance of traditional accuracy, we have been able to witness a performance which should pass muster even in the very stronghold of Gilbert and Sullivan—The Savoy itself … James Hay, invoking the shade of Captain Marryat, tripped a most wonderful hornpipe to the noise of a kettle drum heard above a nest of shrilling fifes; the same player’s song about a “Bold Mounseer” was one of the features of the first act.’¹⁷

Of course, no-one who saw the show in Australia had anything to compare it to, so how close it was to the London production we cannot know. Presumably Hay had largely re-created the show he knew from the D’Oyly Carte production, and we assume that the same changes were introduced, principally the new overture by Geoffrey Toye, and the replacement of the Act Two finale with a short reprise of the end of Act One. Robin’s Act Two number ‘Away, Remorse’ remained cut, however we must give Hay credit for re-instating the lovely duet for Rose and Richard—‘The Battle’s Roar is Over’. It’s perhaps not surprising that he restored it, since it’s the tenor’s only romantic music in the piece, and Hay was after all playing the tenor role. He also moved the number from Act One to Act Two. The duet had been cut in the D’Oyly Carte revival, much to the disappointment of G&S lovers all over Britain who wrote in numbers to the press to complain (although it is on the first recording of the show made in 1924).

Sadly few photographs of the production have survived. Probably the costumes were sent over from London, as they were for the other shows. New scenery was designed and painted by W.R. Coleman & W. Coleman Jr. who provided the scenery for many of J.C. Williamson’s productions. As these sets were still in use in the 1940s, we have access to pictures of them. Act One shows a rather strange lighthouse that certainly doesn’t look like anything you would find in Cornwall, and, as others have observed, the cottages look more like the chocolate box Cotswold variety than anything Cornish. Act Two is more traditionally baronial, though the curtained entrance at the back is a peculiarly un-architectural feature.

The Colemans’ Act 2 set for Ruddigore. Book 01-0104, JCW Scene Books, Theatre Heritage Australia.

The complete tour lasted from 3 April 1926 when it opened in Adelaide with The Gondoliers, to the summer of 1928 and included many towns and cities in Australia and New Zealand. By the time the company reached Tasmania in February 1928, it claimed to have travelled over 26,000 miles, ‘a record in the history of theatrical touring’. As well as the usual major Australian cities, and New Zealand, the company also performed in Toowoomba, Armidale, Hobart, Launceston, Geelong, Broken Hill, and Newcastle. Singing every night, plus extensive travelling is a recipe for wrecking voices, and in May 1928 when the G&S company added Lilac Time, the musical comedy about the life of Schubert, to its repertory, the Adelaide Advertiser wrote: ‘Mr James Hay would be the first to grant that the pristine freshness of his tenor voice that has charmed so many thousands in the Gilbert and Sullivan operas has gone, but he still has a serviceable voice, and he has the artistry that enables him to “lift” a scene the moment he appears on the stage. It is a rare gift and its charm is its lack of self-consciousness. From the moment Mr. Hay appeared as Franz von Schober the piece began to sparkle, and if it were more the sparkle and effervescence of sherbet and champagne, there were few to quarrel with it on that score.’¹⁸

Sydney Mail, 7 September 1927, p.10

Clearly Hay’s voice was showing signs of wear and tear from so many years on the road, although it sounded, according to the Perth Sunday Times, that there was life in it yet: ‘The recent operation in Melbourne on the throat of tenor James Hay, of the Gilbert and Sullivan Co., has worked wonders for the singer of “Sparkling Eyes” and other delightful ditties. It was an ex-West Australian medico who suggested to Jimmy that his huskiness could be cured. This was effected in less than 24 hours, J.H. not losing a night’s work.’¹⁹

Hay left the J.C. Williamson company after the performances of Lilac Time in May 1928. By the time the company appeared in Armidale in July Leo Darnton was billed as the leading tenor. Many of the company stayed on for a new contract that would take them on even more punishing one, two and three night visits to such places as Wagga Wagga, Cootamundra, Maitland, Warwick, Maryborough, Rockhampton, as well as return visits to Armidale, Toowoomba, and Geelong.

The Bulletin, 6 May 1926, p.34

Strella Wilson, 1928. Photo by Ruskin, Melbourne.

Flickr

It is to be noted that when Hay left London for Australia in 1926, Stella did not travel with him. Was their marriage already over? Whatever the state of things then, Hay did not appear in any rush to return to the UK, so one can only conclude that to all intents and purposes, it was.

In the second half of 1928 and the early months of 1929 he made numerous radio broadcasts, many with G&S soprano Strella Wilson, returning to a more classical repertoire, and helping to inaugurate a Schubert Festival in Melbourne. He and Wilson also sang together in cinemas before showings of films, a popular practice at that time.

In an interview in April 1929 Hay told his Australian readers that he was preparing to go abroad again, and the Adelaide News reported that he would be passing through Adelaide on the SS Comorin on his way back to England.

We then lose track of him until the following year when he was to be heard in concerts on the radio for the BBC.

In 1932, Hay returned to the stage briefly, when he stepped into the breach to help out an amateur company in Burton-on Trent, Staffordshire, whose Frederic in Pirates had gone down sick. It was a generous gesture, but perhaps a sad last performance for one who had played the role so many times in London’s Princes Theatre, and all over Australia.

Thereafter Hay disappeared from the public’s gaze, as did so many singers in their later years. A surprising number turned to the hospitality profession and took on the management of public houses, but Hay followed a rather different course. It is not till 1946 that we find him in a very different occupation, teaching singing to wayward young boys in what were then called ‘approved’ schools.

And what of Stella? In the late 1920s Stella had left London and bought a large and comfortable mansion called Lindal Mount, on the banks of the Thames at Bray, near Maidenhead, a fashionable market town west of London. 

In 1936 we find Hay living close by at 1 Laburnham Road in Maidenhead. It appears that they could not live together but were never far apart. She continued to call herself Mrs. Ettlinger-Hay until 1938 when she changed her name by deed-poll to Ettlinger-Stewart (Stewart was her maiden name).

During the 1940s, Stella took an apartment in Viceroy Lodge, a fashionable sea-front block in Brighton. Electoral roles show that James Hay lived there with her during 1945.

Royal Pavilion & Museums, Brighton & Hove

Stella’s final Brighton home was at Embassy Court. Many celebrities had apartments in this luxurious Art Deco block  including Terence Rattigan, Rex Harrison and Max Miller.

RIBA, London

The 1939 Register (undertaken at the start of World War II) shows Stella still at Lindal Mount, and Hay now lodging with Albert and Susannah Baker at 187 Hersham Road, in nearby Walton-on-Thames. He is divorced, and describes himself as a musician. It appears that the two continued to live separate lives, though not far away from each other, until astonishingly they appear on a 1945 electoral roll in Brighton living together again at Viceroy Lodge, a fashionable apartment block on the sea-front. Was this an attempt to re-kindle old affections, or a temporary war-time measure of expedience? Whatever, it appears not to have been long-lasting, as the following year Hay took up residence at his final place of employment: Mile Oak Approved School for young offenders where he taught music and singing. Approved schools had been established in 1933 for the residential education and reforming of wayward children, usually boys. Mile Oak took boys of 12–15 years old and was a large forbidding place. Though situated just outside Brighton, on the downs, it was run by the London County Council for the edification of young offenders from the whole of the capital. The teaching staff were resident too and James Hay was provided with his own bungalow in the extensive grounds of the institution.

Early postcard view of Portslade Industrial School, which in 1933 became the Mile Oak Approved School

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The bungalows at Portslade/Mile Oak School, where Hay resided

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A newspaper report in the Norwood News in October 1946 records a rather bizarre and extraordinary event as our last glimpse of Hay in the public eye. ‘On Saturday at the Croydon Youth championship swimming gala held at Central Baths, the voice of Mr. James Hay, formerly principal tenor of the D’Oyly Carte Opera Company, interrupted a swimming lesson. The lesson was being given by the boys of the Shiverers Swimming Club, Hove, under the direction of their president, Mr. Carl Wootton, who proved how simple swimming can be once the beginner has the confidence to float. Mr. Hay, mistaking “swimming” for “singing”, launched forth into opera and afterwards introduced his choir of lads, who sang in perfect harmony whilst the Shiverers swam in time. The effect was beautiful, and there was tremendous applause, not only for its perfection but for its originality.’²⁰

The description of this most unusual and original performance gives us a unique last image of Hay.

By the time of his death in 1958, seemingly alone and unknown in Brighton General Hospital, his career appears to have been forgotten. But not in Clare, South Australia. Only a few years earlier an article in the Northern Argus of South Australia had reminded its readers of Clare’s notable past talent as it prepared the program for the South Australia Eisteddfod. Hay was high on the list: ‘Then we remember James Hay of Mintaro, famous operatic singing personality in the great auditoriums of the world with his rich tenor voice.’²¹

The town of Clare was justly proud of its illustrious son.

Endnotes

1. Sunday Post, 26 August 1923, p.16

2. The West Australian, 5 April 1921, p.6

3. The West Australian, 5 April 1921, p.6

4. The West Australian, 5 April 1921, p.6

5. Kalgoorlie Miner, 15 June 1907, p.10

6. Adelaide News, 14 April 1926, p.7

7. Adelaide News, 14 April 1926, p.7

8. The Referee, 15 June 1913, p.5

9. London Evening Standard, 14 June 1913, p.12. According to Sandy Wilson in his book Ivor, the opera referred to was, in fact, an operetta, The Fickle Jade, which he had written for a competition organised by Chappell & Co., the music publishers, who would eventually publish his most famous compositions. He won second prize, but The Fickle Jade was never performed, although some of its melodies appeared in later shows.

10. The Era (London), 3 December 1913, p.15

11. The Stage (London), 3 June 1920, p.16

12. The Referee, 1 December 1920, p.11

13. Sydney Morning Herald, 20 November 1920, p.14

14. The Bulletin, 30 November 1922, p.36

15. Letters between Rupert D'Oyly Carte and Leyden College, 1922, in the collection of Chris Webster

16. The Stage (London), 6 September 1923, p.18

17. The New Triad, Vol. 1, No. 3, 1 October 1927, p.60

18. The Advertiser (Adelaide) 28 May 1928, p.13

19. Sunday Times (Perth) 6 May 1928, p.2

20. Norwood News, 11 October 1946, p.2

21. Northern Argus (Clare), 17 February 1954, p.5

Bibliography

Tony Joseph, The D’Oyly Carte Opera Company, 1875–1982: An unofficial history, Bunthorne Books, Bristol, 1994

Cyril Rollins & R. John Witts, The D’Oyly Carte Opera Company in Gilbert and Sullivan Operas, Michael Joseph Ltd, London, 1961

Raymond Walker, Backdrop to a Legend: The scenic design of the D’Oyly Carte Opera Company, Raymond J. Walker, 2018

Robin Wilson & Frederic Lloyd, Gilbert & Sullivan—The D’Oyly Carte Years—The Official Picture History, Weidenfeld and Nicolson, London, 1984

Sandy Wilson, Ivor, Michael Joseph, London, 1975

Acknowledgements

David Lovell

George Low

Raymond Walker

Further sources

‘Refrain, audacious tar’from HMS Pinafore—Violet Essex and James Hay (recorded 27 July 1922—conducted by Harry Norris).
Courtesy of Chris Webster.

The Masks of Comedy and Tragedy

During the course of thirty years, assistants in the paint room have been many and varied. The junior member—who is of course not necessarily the youngest—has the task of keeping the room neat and orderly. He had to wash the brushes and pallets, and there was one man who kept the place spotless. Bob was regarded as being the doyen of all paint room assistants. The brushes were scrubbed and even scraped with a knife to remove any caked bits of colour. He usually came up the stairs two at a time, generally humming one of the current hits. He ate heartily and to all appearances was completely happy and content and in full enjoyment of his life. At this particular time, I had engaged a new pupil who was straight from Art School. Being the first to arrive, he had opened up the paint room only to get the shock of his young life. Bob was lying outside the door of my room—it was only too obvious that he was dead.

We left the body where it was until the police had duly arrived. When the remains of poor Bob were turned over, a gun was discovered. Bob had shot himself. No-one was able to supply or suggest a reason and all we could offer in reply to police questioning was a puzzled “But he always seemed so happy … ” Someone very aptly remarked “The heart knoweth its own bitterness”. This was especially true in the sad case of Bob.

He left us in somewhat of a hole—I had to get a new carpet for my room and we were very hard-pressed at the time and the loss of his valuable help was felt keenly. They say that no-one is ever really missed: Bob gave the lie to this, because we undoubtedly missed him.

Upstairs—Her Majesty’s Paint frame today

Editor’s photo

Downstairs—Her Majesty’s Paint frame today

Editor’s photo

Most people who work in the theatre are superstitious. I have known some to have a horror of the colour green, others are scared of peacock feathers. We were working on a picture with Bert Bailey [Dad and Dave Come to Town, 1938] and the script required him to put his foot in a sling trap. The trap consisted of a loop on the end of a rope, which was tied to a bent-over sapling. When a fox or any other animal disturbed it the holding peg allowed the sapling to fly back, and the noose at the end of the rope to tighten, holding the animal suspended in the air. It was a comedy act, calling for Bert to be caught in the trap and hang by his leg, upside down off the ground.

To prevent any great chafing of his ankle, the property man had a piece of felt to do the job. Unhappily it was, of course, green, and Bert gave tongue with loud and long protest. Green was unlucky! Everyone in the profession was aware of that …! The props man searched but could not come up with anything of another colour. It was only when everyone had expressed themselves pretty freely concerning the idiocy of wasting time in this way, that Bert said he would take the risk of breaking his ankle or his neck. His courage was rewarded by his breaking neither. After stoically hanging upside down from the sapling, he returned to terra firma safe and sound.  So much for superstition.

Bert Bailey as Dad Rudd in Dad and Dave Come to Town, 1938

Moviemem

It was during the shooting of this picture that the rear projection screen got damaged. The cameraman had a piece of three-ply nailed on the top of the frame holding the screen firm. The screen was my responsibility but I was out of the studio when this job was done—the three-ply nailed to the top of the screen frame by two one-inch nails. I had had the experience of many accidents to my ‘credit’, so I was beginning to be very careful and certainly I would have used more nails. In this case, with the moving of the screen into position, the ply at last worked loose from the frame and together with the two nails, fell down the screen, tearing a long gash at the bottom. When I returned to the studio I stepped straight into the ensuring shemozzle. Naturally I was prepared for the inevitable question “What are you going to do about it?”.

What I had to do took me all night—I really had to perform what almost amounted to a miracle, using special cement to join the torn edges together. The join was successful enough, but there remained a halo around the join which meant that for every shot I had to have something in the foreground to camouflage the join. We managed quite well until such time as another projection screen was sent over from America. They were pretty costly items too, somewhere in the region of three hundred pounds—a lot in those days.

One more accident happened, and to this new screen, when the plug from a blank double-barrel cartridge went through the cage of wire netting and perforated the top corner of the screen.

During a production of Shakespeare, the producer wanted to speak with one of the actors. Calling to him, what in those days was the Call Boy—today he is the Assistant Stage Manager—he gave him the name of the character, not the actor’s own name, and to request his presence in the prompt corner. The Call Boy went on his rounds, having no idea who was playing the particular part, asking various men if they happened to be the one the producer required. Eventually he came to a character leaning up against a stack of scenery, learning his lines with suitable actions.

“Are you,” asked the Boy, “Appias Claudius?”

“No,” replied the actor, “I’m as miserable as hell.”

Under the Counter—note the painting of ‘Girl in a White Hat’ on the back wall

Miles Kenyon collection

Cicely Courtneidge and chorus in full flight

Miles Kenyon collection

The set for Cicely Courtneidge’s Under the Counter (1948) was a four-wall interior, with a fourth wall, the one which was supposedly missing, taking its place as the set rotated the stage. One wall had a very big fireplace in it, and above the mantle a framed picture. This picture, an original by Charles Meynell Withers (son of Walter Withers) ‘Girl in a White Hat’, I had hired from Anthony Hordern’s. It was valued at three hundred guineas. When the scene was changed and the walls moved onto the next position, it was necessary to un-toggle the fireplace from the flat. Over the mantle were two candlesticks with candles.

One night, the man un-toggling the lines holding the fireplace, forgot to hang onto the flat. The man with the fireplace moved it downstage—the flat with the picture screwed on it fell, crashing forward onto the fireplace with the candlesticks on the mantle shelf.  The result was very nearly disastrous—the candles went through the canvas flat, missing the picture by just one inch each side of its frame. They could have gone right through the painting.

Next morning, I was met by the props man, Bill Lincoln, and told him the story. The outcome of this was my measuring up the canvas, procuring an exact frame as per the original, and copying Withers’ painting of ‘Girl in a White Hat’. The portrait’s copy deputized for the remainder of the show’s run, and on the very last night when everyone was happily saying their goodbyes and thank you’s, Bill told Miss Courtneidge of the deception. She had never suspected the change, but really went to town on poor old Bill because she had not been told.

George’s Buckingham Palace set

Image from Directed by Ken G. Hall by Ken G. Hall

George Kenyon and two unidentified scenic artists

Miles Kenyon Collection

Speaking of portraits, this calls to mind another portrait that gave me a lot of trouble. Whilst reproducing the White Drawing Room of Buckingham Palace for the investiture of Kingsford Smith by King George V (for the film Smithy), I borrowed a lot of pictures from the National Gallery for the passage outside one of the doors. Over one of the three fireplaces in the Drawing Room was a portrait of the Prince of Wales, in full regalia. Of course, it was not permissible to depict Royalty, even though it was within an exact replica of the room. The Duke of Gloucester, who was Governor General at the time, came into the studio and gave his approval of the set. My trouble was—try as I might, I still ‘got’ the features of the Prince. Eventually I managed to alter the face.

And on another occasion another portrait was a headache. In this film featuring an English ancestral home there existed a portrait gallery. I had painted about a dozen full-size portraits, each having a descriptive line below, appropriate to the period. The last portrait I recall had the tag line—told by the butler—showing the new master around his inheritance, “I die that England might live.” This was as he was led away to be beheaded. Just as we were ready to shoot his segment, someone—who should have known his history better, to wit, Winchester-educated Frank Harvey—asked if 1700 was too late for beheading in England. The portrait was of a nobleman about this period. [The film referred to is It Isn’t Done (1937).]

Asked if I had made a thorough check, I could not answer that I had actually gone to a library in that endeavour, so had no concrete proof. I had to do something about producing another picture. Going to the workshop I had another stretcher made and covered with canvas. A coat of thin shellac dried quickly—this was at twelve noon. I drew the outline of the portrait and whilst one of my assistants filled in the background, I painted the face and figure. It was one of those things which come out right first time! The paint was still wet when it was put into the frame and restored to the set of the picture gallery by two o’clock. Two hours!  One of my people, a sculptor, remarked, “What a bloody fool you are—that full-sized portrait is worth a few hundred guineas!  Its value is two hours of your time.”

Next morning I made a call to the chief librarian and asked him if he could tell me when they ceased beheading in England. He could not tell me offhand but did ring me back later telling me as late as 1800: according to the character of the crime the person had the option of hanging or of beheading. I went on the set and said to Frank Harvey “I had a whole bloody hundred years to spare on that portrait!” This happened to me at the finish of a picture—my holidays were due and the production was about to go out, so I could conveniently leave with an easy mind.

During the time of production, I had received a substantial increase in my salary, but when I looked at the cheque, found that my holidays had been worked out at the old lower rate. I wrote a letter to the producer—an American—pointing out the discrepancy and mentioning that I knew I was a highly skilled technician I did not feel inclined to be ‘wiped off’ or pushed around. 

From the time he received my note in the morning, until the time he arrived in the studio, there could not have been more than half an hour. I was then challenged with sending a very ‘pertinent’ letter to him: I agreed that it was pertinent, though not impertinent. We argued long and heatedly regarding the merits and economics of business as applied to my demands of payment at the increased rate.  Neither would give in until at last I said “Okay. I couldn’t care less about a few paltry pounds.” “Oh!” said my American friend, “You give in. Well, in that case I’ll pay at the increased value of your salary.”  Such is life...!

However I’ve never worried too much about money—I feel I’ve never been paid my full value, but there was always enough to live comfortably and send my sons to private schools, and unlike the Shakespearean character I have been as ‘happy’ as—well, not hell—but happy in a job done for the job’s sake, and if I had an Aladdin’s lamp which would work, I’d give it a rub and start all over again.

Original State Theatre at night

State Library Victoria, Melbourne

Maie Casey, 1940s

National Library of Australia, Canberra

It was the practice of Melbourne’s State Theatre when I was employed there, in the 1940s, to have a weekly pep talk with the staff. This kept everyone up to scratch—any small indiscretions or off-the-toes slackness were dealt with at these meetings. Technique in handling crowds and any disgruntled patrons, etc., were discussed, also a very important aspect of what was known as ‘dressing the theatre’. That was a routine the usherettes had to be conversant with when the house was not particularly full. It was a matter of seating the people in such a way that an illusion was created whereby the house looked actually better, number-wise. This applied of course to patrons who did not have reserved seats.

One afternoon I answered a knock on my office door—a lady was outside and she had a complaint. She had been asked to sit in a seat but had refused. The usherette gave her explanation and I backed her up and took all the responsibility, having of course instructed the girls to do exactly as told. What the usherette did not know, but the lady did, was that the last patron to occupy the seat had been violently ill...!  The lady was—as then—Mrs. Casey, later to be Lady Maie Casey.

On yet another occasion one of the usherettes came to my office and told me a gentleman wished to see me. I went out to the foyer and found Norman Rydge, the Chairman of Directors of Greater Union Theatres (who has since become Sir Norm), standing at the entrance to the Stalls. He complained that he had been refused entry to the auditorium—the girl on the door would not let him pass because he could not present a ticket. Although he may have been initially annoyed, he would have to acknowledge the effective discipline of the staff. Mr. Rydge made his way through the door, but not before my competent usherette had told him firmly “Put your cigar out please. No smoking is permitted in the auditorium.”

Another disagreeable aspect of theatre management has now disappeared—I suppose the advent of DDT and better conditions are the reasons. In the days I have been speaking of the theatres were troubled by imports of various crawling, biting little insects—lice and bugs. They were very difficult to control because they could manage to infiltrate inaccessible places—under the arm rests, in the screw holes and such like. I finally devised a means of combating the pests.

Each night the cleaners would put an envelope of canvas over six rows of seats, starting at a given row and from then on doing the next six rows the following night. Under the seats and the canvas sulphur candles were placed which burned—I did hope this would suffice. We even had the pest exterminators in from time to time, but this was a major operation. After the night’s show they would totally take over, covering all and every seat with huge tarpaulins. Then cyanide was pumped into the theatre—which guaranteed every living thing was dead by the time the tarps were removed. All the doors were opened and the air conditioning turned on at six o’clock the following morning—no-one was allowed in before 9.30 am. Drastic measures indeed!

A very short time after one of these expensive fumigations I received a complaint from the Health Officer of the Melbourne City Council. A mother had been shocked by the condition of her daughter, after attending the theatre—she had been attacked by some gluttonous bug, and had passed a sleepless night. The inspector who came to see me was very sympathetic, understanding the problem we faced and even giving me a most descriptive reason how it could have happened. He told me how, together with a new man he was training, they had gone to a house in answer to a complaint, one of a row of villas. Knocking on the door of the complainant, and whilst waiting, the next house front door opened and out stepped a very attractive well-dressed girl. The young man said “My company...” And my friend the inspector replied “Very enviable company to take out to dinner and the theatre!”

After a thorough inspection of the house and the people making the complaint, they were convinced that the bugs were actually coming from the house next door—from which the girl had emerged a few minutes earlier. “So you see,” said the inspector, “how these things can be transported!”

Orkney Isles and Scapa Flow

Times Atlas of the World

Scuttling in action—Scapa Flow

 

After all these years I get a kick remembering a document from the Admiralty and associating it with Cicely Courtneidge’s sketch of ‘Reading the Will’ [i.e. ‘Laughing Gas’], where the sum of some small amount like three shillings and four pence-halfpenny was left to an expectant relative. The form I have is headed:

Naval Prize Fund

Final Distribution

Flt.S.Lt.  J.A.Kenyon, R.N.

The sum of six pounds, 7 shillings and 6 pence

These stories of mine are, in the main, concerned with the theatre, but having mentioned the Naval Prize Fund, I think it might not be out of place altogether, because of the close association of the masks of comedy and tragedy, to include two episodes, one was comic, the other was tragic. Here I am really turning back the clock, to around the time at the end of the First World War …

My particular companion on HMS Commonwealth was George Oates, a nephew of that very gallant gentleman who walked to his death from that tent in the Antarctic on the ill-fated Scott Expedition. Before the introduction of oil burners in ships, shipping coal was a business in which all but the ship’s complement, with the exception of the captain and the surgeon, participated. One’s uniform and body became impregnated with coal dust—it was in one’s hair and everyone’s eyes were rimmed with something resembling mascara. Periodically, the bugle sounded, and the commander notified the crew whether plus or minus tons of coal had been shipped. Lunch in the wardroom was as usual, with snow-white tablecloth and napkins. We ate, and when we had finished Oates walked out, without a word to me. I pursued him and after a prolonged silence radiating disapproval I asked “And what’s biting you?” To which Oates replied “You cad! You didn’t use your napkin at the table!” So much for the comedy.

The mask of tragedy stared me in the face on my return from Stamford Bridge in London, where I had been competing in the Service Sports. I took two lads with me, and we each won an event.  In the long jump I had trained with a Surgeon Lieutenant who was the Champion of Ireland—the Northern Area competitors (that was us)—did their training at Sheffield where I played some rounds of golf with W.W. Wakefield of Castrol Oil. But on my return to Scapa—this is, of course, well before my move to Australia, in fact August, 1919, and at the age of 21—I arrived just as a guest (I do not recollect the name) was departing, which turned into a tragically unfortunate circumstance for Captain Roscoe C. Bulmer, USA Navy, Captain of the Black Hawk, the mother ship of the American Mine Sweepers engaged in clearing the North Sea of enemy mines. The old man, after congratulating me on my win, insisted that his guest return to the wardroom where they would both drink to my health. He would not take “no” for an answer and so they duly returned. It was then 4 in the afternoon, and it was 4 in the morning when he collected his driver, Ensign Nicholls, and was loaded into his Cadillac. Nicholls was an excellent driver, but afterwards he told me he drove his car “along the centre of a rainbow” and was totally unaware of anything being wrong, until the back door noisily parted from its hinges.

He stopped, looked inside, and was horrified to find the back seat empty. He walked back along the road and eventually found his skipper lying in a ditch. Captain Bulmer was a big man, and it was quite beyond the strength of Ensign Nicholls to get him back into the car. Nicholls, now fully sober, drove like one possessed to the Kirkwall Jetty. He recruited two guards and raced back to where his captain still lay in the ditch. With the help of the other two he got the captain back into the car, after summoning the doctor by signal from the pier, but getting the stretcher by pinnace from the Black Hawk took some time. But it was all to no avail—Captain Bulmer had broken his back in the fall from the car. His body was shipped back to America and we were put out-of-bounds for all American officers. I got the blame—unofficially, of course.

Strella Wilson, 1930. Photo by Sam Hood.

State Library of New South Wales, Sydney

Sydney Burchell, c.1935

From JCW Magazine program

I have written before of the marked difference in the manifestations of character demonstrated by actors, before and after they pass through the proscenium onto the stage. Two, maybe, are exchanging insults, another is telling the latest joke with his own embellishments, another may be dwelling gloomily on the unhealthy state of his bank balance, and yet another happily meditating on where to spend the weekend. But the moment they pass through the magic portal, they become the heroes or the villains of the play with everything else forgotten.

During the run of White Horse Inn at Her Majesty’s Theatre (1934), starring Strella Wilson and Sydney Burchell, the usual bantering and laughing was going on between them. Just before his entrance, Burchell capped all that had gone before by saying “Well, here we go! I say, couldn’t we give the customers something quite different?”

“What do you suggest?” asked Strella Wilson.

“Well, what about an exhibition …”

“That would be lovely,” was the calm reply.

“But what would you do for an encore?”

Subtlety and coarseness, they both have their place in theatre humour, and an example of the latter was derisively supplied by Clarkson Rose, a very well-known English comedian. After his return to England, at the end of a season with Ernest Rolls, he sent a toilet roll to the stage manager. Printed on its wrapping was the slogan ‘Every time you tear one off, think of me.’ Vulgarity, bathos and pathos all belong to the folk of the theatre.

Josepha (Strella Wilson), the landlady of the White Horse Inn, welcomes Emperor Franz Joseph II (Leslie Victor). View full souvenir program.