music hall and variety

music hall and variety

 popular entertainment that features successive acts starring singers, comedians, dancers, and actors and sometimes jugglers, acrobats, and magicians. Derived from the taproom concerts given in city taverns in England during the 18th and 19th centuries, music hall entertainment was eventually confined to a stage, with the audience seated at tables; liquor sales paid the expenses. To discourage these entertainments, a licensing act was passed in 1751. The measure, however, had the contrary effect; the smaller taverns avoided obtaining licenses by forming music clubs, and the larger taverns, reacting to the added dignity of being licensed, expanded by employing musicians and installing scenery. These eventually moved from their tavern premises into large plush and gilt palaces where elaborate scenic effects were possible. “Saloon” became the name for any place of popular entertainment; “variety” was an evening of mixed plays; and “music hall” meant a concert hall that featured a mixture of musical and comic entertainment.

      During the 19th century the demand for entertainment was intensified by the rapid growth of urban population. By the Theatre Regulations Act of 1843, drinking and smoking, although prohibited in legitimate theatres, were permitted in the music halls. Tavern owners, therefore, often annexed buildings adjoining their premises as music halls. The low comedy of the halls, designed to appeal to the working class and to men of the middle class, caricatured events familiar to the patrons—e.g., weddings, funerals, seaside holidays, large families, and wash day.

      The originator of the English music hall as such was Charles Morton, who built Morton's Canterbury Hall (1852) in London. He developed a strong musical program, presenting classics as well as popular music. Some outstanding performers were Albert Chevalier (Chevalier, Albert), Gracie Fields, Lillie Langtry (Langtry, Lillie), Harry Lauder, Dan Leno and Vesta Tilley.

      The usual show consisted of six to eight acts, possibly including a comedy skit, a juggling act, a magic act, a mime, acrobats, a dancing act, a singing act, and perhaps a one-act play.

      In the early 20th century music halls were dwarfed by large-scale variety palaces. London theatres, such as the Hippodrome, displayed aquatic dramas, and the Coliseum presented reenactments of the Derby and chariot races of ancient Rome. These were short-lived, but other ambitious plans kept variety prosperous after the real music hall had been killed by the competition of the cinema.

      Celebrities such as Sarah Bernhardt (Bernhardt, Sarah), Sir George Alexander, and Sir Herbert Beerbohm Tree put on one-act plays or the last acts of plays; musicians such as Pietro Mascagni and Sir Henry Wood gave performances with their orchestras; popular singers of the 1920s, such as Nora Bayes and Sophie Tucker (Tucker, Sophie), elicited great enthusiasm; Diaghilev's ballet, at the height of its fame, appeared in 1918 at the Coliseum on a program that included comedians and jugglers.

      The advent of the talking motion picture in the late 1920s caused variety theatres throughout Great Britain to be converted into cinemas. To keep comedians employed, a mixture of films and songs called cine-variety was introduced, and there were attempts to keep theatres open from noon to midnight with nonstop variety. The Windmill Theatre near Piccadilly Circus, London, was notable among the few survivors that remained after World War II from what had been hundreds of music halls. The American equivalent of the British music hall is vaudeville. See also vaudeville.

* * *


Universalium. 2010.

Игры ⚽ Нужно решить контрольную?

Look at other dictionaries:

  • music hall and variety theatre — Popular entertainment that featured successive acts by singers, comedians, dancers, and actors. The form derived from the taproom concerts given in city taverns in England in the 18th–19th centuries. To meet the demand for entertainment for the… …   Universalium

  • Music hall — This article is about the British form of theatre and the venues associated with it. For other uses of the term Music Hall, see Music Hall (disambiguation). The Oxford Music Hall, ca. 1875 Music Hall is a type of British theatrical entertainment… …   Wikipedia

  • Music Hall Aberdeen — Address Union Street City Aberdeen Country Scotland, United Kingdom Designation Category A listed Architect …   Wikipedia

  • Music Hall (Cincinnati) — Cincinnati Music Hall U.S. National Register of Historic Places U.S. National Historic Landmark …   Wikipedia

  • Music hall — Número de variedades en que cinco jóvenes enseñan sus gatitos bajo la falda El Music hall fue una forma de espectáculo muy popular en Gran Bretaña entre 1850 y 1960, pero que luego entró en decadencia. El término puede referirse a: Una forma… …   Wikipedia Español

  • Music hall songs — There are a very large number of music hall songs, and most of them have been forgotten. In London between 1900 and 1910, a single publishing company, Francis, Day and Hunter, published between forty and fifty songs a month. Music hall songs were …   Wikipedia

  • music hall — noun a form of variety entertainment popular in Britain c.1850–1918, consisting of singing, dancing, comedy, and novelty acts. ↘a theatre where music hall entertainment took place …   English new terms dictionary

  • Radio City Music Hall — Infobox Venue name = Radio City Music Hall image caption = Front facade of the Radio City Music Hall nickname = Radio City, Showplace of the Nation location = 1260 Sixth Avenue (aka Avenue of the Americas) New York City, New York coordinates =… …   Wikipedia

  • Charing Cross Music Hall — For the nearby theatre of the same name, see Charing Cross Theatre. Coordinates: 51°30′27″N 0°07′23″W / 51.5075°N 0.1231°W / 51.5075; 0.1231 …   Wikipedia

  • Weston's Music Hall — Infobox Theatre name = Weston s Music Hall caption = Westons, circa 1880 address = High Holborn city = Camden, London country = designation = Demolished 1960 latitude = 51.517431 longitude = 0.120111 architect = Finch Hill owner = Henry Weston… …   Wikipedia

Share the article and excerpts

Direct link
Do a right-click on the link above
and select “Copy Link”