Book Review: The Lost World of Music Hall

BearManor Media has published Derek Sculthorpe’s fascinating look at select British music hall performers from the early 20th century. It is a book that fills a real need in entertainment history.

My only knowledge of the music hall performers from this period is its connection to Charlie Chaplin and Stan Laurel, both of whom came from this tradition. But what this book offers is a really serious, detailed, and interesting look at the very special performers who best represent the early music hall.

The ten individuals chosen for this study were once extremely famous in their own right. But as the book’s title indicates, this is an unfairly forgotten period in English-speaking entertainment, thus being called a lost world.

Nellie Wallace, Lily Morris, Billy Bennett, Charlie Higgins, Alfred Lester, Tom Foy, Vivian Foster, Bert Errol, Margaret Cooper and Norman Long are among the subjects the author examines. We learn about child stars, teenage prodigies, female impersonators, and very unique individual entertainers who played for everything from low-rent commoners to esteemed royalty.

This is a very difficult aspect of show business to research as it has been buried over the decades by American vaudeville and burlesque, and, certainly, movies and television. So, the author’s painstaking research benefits his readers. We learn an amazing amount about the British music halls, and the performers discussed herein, giving us a real understanding of their creative process, their approach to their characters, and their impact on period audiences.

Some of the most basic concepts of comedy and entertainment were developed in the British music halls of this time, and thus our connection with the noted Chaplin and Laurel. But the author wisely dwells on that which we don’t know, allowing us a fuller and more detailed education about performers we would likely never have known otherwise.

The Lost World of Music Hall is a must for libraries, research centers, or the personal book collections of anyone interested in entertainment history. It is an essential additon for any of these to be at all comprehensive.

The book can be ordered here: MUSIC HALL