Revue 1890-1920
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University of Warwick institutional repository: http://go.warwick.ac.uk/wrap A Thesis Submitted for the Degree of PhD at the University of Warwick http://go.warwick.ac.uk/wrap/4012 This thesis is made available online and is protected by original copyright. Please scroll down to view the document itself. Please refer to the repository record for this item for information to help you to cite it. Our policy information is available from the repository home page. An Intimate Understanding:, the Rise of British Musical Revue 1890-1920 , by James Ross Moore A thesis submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Theatre Studies University of Warwick Department of Theatre Studies June 2000 CONTENTS An Intimate Understanding: The Rise of British Musical Revue 1890-1 920 Acknowledgemen ts i Declarations ii Abstract iii Chapter One: The Genealogy of Revue 1 Chapter Two: 1891-1912 Aspects of Change 27 Chapter Three: 1912-1914 Intimate Revue and Harry Grattan 57 Chapter Four: Charlot's Conversion 1915-1916 90 Chapter Five: New Voices 1917-1918 125 Chapter Six: 1919: Buzz Buzz, a Model Revue 143 Chapter Seven: Coda: Revue At Home Abroad 1 71 Bibliography 200 Appendix: Three Revue Sketches ACKNOWLEDG EMENTS This thesis could not have materialised without the guidance of its main supervisor, Clive Barker of the Theatre Studies department, University of Warwick. Nor could it exist without the contributions of Mrs. Joan Midwinter of Pacific Palisades, California, USA. Mrs. Midwinter is the daughter of Andr~ Charlot, whose unpublished writings, nearly all of them in her possession, form one of the two firm bases upon which the thesis rests. Mrs. Midwinter is also responsible for the author's access to copying from the Charlot archive in the Special Collections department of the Clark Library, University of California, Los Angeles, a practise otherwise restricted to family members. Other surviving members of Charlot's family were helpful, as were his surviving associates. I also wish to thank longtime friend Aaron Sloan of Huntington Beach, California, who located Mrs. Midwinter, and my daughter Diana Moore of Alameda, California, who provided material from the New York Public Library and the library of the San Francisco Examiner. The other firm basis for this thesis is the archive of play scripts held by the British Library, London. Those scripts involved in this thesiS were accumulated by the Lord Chamberlain during his many decades of "censoring" British theatre. The staff of the Manuscripts section of the British Library have been most helpful, before and after their move from Blooms bury to St. Pancras. For years of helpful assistance and access to its collections--so underfunded that they are still not all catalogued--I also thank the staff of the Theatre Museum of the Victoria and Albert Museum, Covent Garden, London. Thanks for timely assistance from Samuel French, Inc., London. For long-standing friendship and support, thanks to Peter and Anneliese Kirianoff of La Habra, California and Pat and Sandy Arkin of Claremont, California. This thesis is dedicated to my wife, Suzon Forscey-Moore, A to Z, who is most responSible, in good times and bad, for all my work on musical theatre. i " DECLARATIONS Although I have written about various aspects and personalities within musical theatre for reference works in the United States and Great Britain, and have learned enough about Andre' Charlot to make one national radio programme about his life and times, none of these works are reproduced in this thesis; they are properly regarded as background to researching aspects of this thesis. This thesis is entirely my own work and has not been submitted for a degree at another university. James Ross Moore, Cambridge, June 2000 ii ABSTRACT An Intimate Understanding: The Rise of British Musical Revue 1890-1920 A close examination of more than 100 play scripts and the unpublished writings of Revue impresario Andre' Charlot (1882-1956) provides the original bases for this thesis. Although it is usually assumed that British musical Revue's origins must be French, a close look at its genealogy shows that the elements of Revue existed in British musical theatre before 1890. These included Burlesque, Burletta, Musical Comedy, Variety, Concert Party and Ballet. The rise of the up-to-date thing called Revue was partly the product of general social change during the late Victorian and Edwardian eras. Of particular importance to the development of Intimate Revue--the notably British contribution to the genre--was the physical development from 1890 of London's West End, particularly the building of many small and medium-sized theatres. A number of "proto-revues" and short "revues" included in Variety bills preceded the arrival of "real" Revue in 1912. In that year, Revue escaped Variety via the latest of many changes in jurisdiction which finally allowed its presentation in "theatres". Revue might not have developed beyond the Spectacular type except for the 1914-1918 war and its austerities. Charles B. Cochran's serendipitous Odds and Ends (1914-1915) is properly the first Intimate Revue, though the genre was subsequently given its definitive shape by Charlot. The development of its distinctive theatrical form is characterised in the development of Revue specialists, the most important of which are shown to be the literary-minded authors of mini-dramas: "sketches." All the elements of the developed form meet in the Charlot revue Buzz Buzz (1918-1920). It is argued that Intimate Revue, while gradually losing its "musical" aspect, held to this model for more than three decades; it is also argued that Intimate Revue's example altered the course of Revue in the United States. iii An Intimate Understanding: the Rise of British Revue 1890-1920 Chapter One: The Genealogy of Revue The study of British revue's years of development (1890-1920) properly begins with definition. But British revue itself did not spring from anyone's definition nor from any single influence or tradition. 1 Nor have British revue's infrequent commentators, scholarly or otherwise, particularly agreed regarding its origins. What agreement exists is mainly by default: of course it must in some way have arisen from France, the home of the word and the form. The Lack of a Revue Tradition This oversimplification is varied only slightly by the major commentators on British revue, Raymond Mander and Joseph Mitchenson. In Revue: a Story in Pictures Mander and Mitchenson2 nominate James Robinson Planch€ (1796-1880) as a progenitor of British revue. Planche" was a theatrical polymath who wrote burlesques, served as musical manager of Vauxhall Gardens between 1826 and 1827, managed the (London) Adelphi theatre, became an authority on heraldry (and in fact a herald himself) and in 1834 wrote a History of British Costumes which has remained a standard work in its field. In particular support of their theory, Mander and Mitchenson point to Planch~'s 1872 memoir, which insists that he had produced a ttrevue" in London as early as 1825. For many reasons--most of them related to the unending struggle between governmental authority and "theatres" which will emerge at various times throughout this thesis--the terminology of theatrical genres has proved constantly shifting and unreliable. In 1825 Planche' 1 Throughout this thesis, I refer to "British" revue; although during these years it was primarily English, its exponents were found throughout the U.K. 2 Raymond Mander and Joseph Mitchenson, Revue: a Story in Pictures, 1971, p.5 1 does not appear to have called his production a "revue". It is true that whether at Vauxhall Gardens or especially at the (London) Olympic, Planche' created special holiday entertainments at irregular intervals and used various terms to describe them. There was, for example, an 1847 "Easter piece" described (by Planche) as 'an entirely New and Original Classical, Astronomical, Quizzical, Poly technical, Experimental, Operational, Pantomimical EXTRAVAGANZA.'3 Dictionaries of all types struggle with "extravaganza." Webster's New World Dictionary notes its Italian origins and decides it is "a literary, musical or dramatic fantasy characterised by a loose structure and farce" and, slightly more narrowly, "a spectacular, elaborate theatrical production, as some musical shows." 4 As we shall see, by the turn of the 2 Oth Century, the term "extravaganza" was much in use, covering pretty much whatever its user wanted it to cover. What is important is the gap between British musical revue 1890-1920 and this "astronomical, polytechnical" production; it's immense. This particular extravaganza of Planch~s was in fact called a "revue" in / 1847, but not by Planche. Mander and Mitchenson note that the Illustrated London News of 3 April 1847 called it "one of those pieces known at the French theatres as a revue"S, perhaps because, like the French genre (see below) in imagination it more or less "toured" a number of metropolitan sites, in this case London sites. Using the word "revue" also seems an exercise in trendiness on the part of the reviewer, who thus conferred upon himself an enviable and up-to-date cosmopolitan expertise. Planch€'s own summing-up at age 76 suggests much of the same willingness to confer historicity upon one's own endeavours. As we shall see, Planch~ was not the last entrepreneur to decide ex post facto that his extravaganzas deserved the classier name revue. In fact, Mander and Mitchenson are frequently contradicted in their assertion that Planch"s work is "revue". Ernest Short and Arthur 3 Ibid. p. 7 4 Webster'S New World Dictionary (second College Edition, 1982) p. 497 5 Mander and Mitchenson, p. 8 2 Compton Rickett call his "Olympic revels" of major importance in the development, not of revue, but of English burlesque and pantomime-6 It is fair to generalise Mander and Mitchenson's assessment of Planche as that of a colourful showman; they do not attempt to prove that he influenced another generation of "revues" or began any sort of tradition.