FALLEN STARS

Evening Post, Volume CV, Issue 23, 28 January 1928, Page 20

FALLEN STARS

DECLINE OF MUSIC HALLS. A song of wliichveftr fathers in their beady youth sang-'tne chorus used to inquire, "Where are the boys of the old brigade!". Where are they in 1927, where are the audiences which used to roar at the lion coinique and weep at the serio, what has become of the t«te tot the entertainment of Dan Leno and Marie LloydT "Variety today," it was announced at the meetingTpf a music hall charity, "is about at fits lowest ebb. . .' . There are venjr few variety shows running, and thevstate of the profession is appalling." Twenty-flva years ago the music hall was the entertainment of all the world, if not invariably of his wife (■ays the "London Daily Telegraph"). To hear Dan Leno's new patter or Marie Lloyd's new songs was obligatory. They drew the million and the epicures. There is none now to wear Dan Leno's shoes, and where shall we look,for a comedian who can wink like Marie Lloyd T But the old music hall, to do it justice, was not a place of stars and vacancy. Men night forsake" their seats while a patriotic songster blared defiance, or the little nightly dose of sentiment was administered. But the small fry were none so bad. How often in the coruscations of modern revue -or comedy have we. remembered with a sigh the back-chat artists of the past! The tumblers, the'jugglers, the eccentrics, the odds and ends were surely very pleasant stuff—or is it that we contemplate them through the mirage of a time when "everything in the garden was lovely "1 But we are not to be convinced, as some of the pessimists say, that the glory of the music hall hat departed because England breeds no more comedians. The stage still has drolls who can hold a big audience ten and twenty minutes at a time with their personal fun. What more was asked of the generation of Lenof The moderns spend their time in revue and musical comedy, and when we lee the bill of a variety house in the suburbs br the country it is revue alstf, unless the place has gone into the pictures. Some experts say that the music hall show has declined and fallen because the masses spend their money on the movies and' tlio minority want the set-pieces of revue. This is to describe what has happened, not to explain why it happened. There are suggestions that tho million prefers the pictures because it gets more for its money; the seat being cheaper, a man sees more performances for the same cost. That may be the root of the matter. Yet surely the man who wants to hear and see a good comedian would not be satisfied with seeing a film, not though it were Mr. Chaplin's. The living presence is an. irerna.ps a generation Ins iriseu which ]i without the