VAUDEVILLE

Evening Post, Volume CXXI, Issue 84, 8 April 1936, Page 18

VAUDEVILLE

ITS ROYAL BEGINNING

A COMMAND PERFORMANCE

"The King and Queen noted with pleasure that the audience testified by applause and enthusiasm their enjoyment of a variety programme which, if ever equalled, has certainly never been surpassed since music-halls began."

That was the last paragraph of the Royal message of appreciation to Mr. Alfred Butt, who organised the first Royal Command Variety Performance in the Palace Theatre on July 1, 1912, writes T. P. Gunning in a London paper. Mr. Alfred Butt of 1912 is now Sir Alfred Butt, M.P.

He talked to me about that great triumph of the variety profession in 1912 when, for the first time, it secured equal status with the "legitimate" stage.

"Various charities connected with the stage," said Sir Alfred, "had been trying, through Lord Farquhar, to secure Royal patronage for one event or another for the benefit of needy actors, and at length his Majesty very kindly sent them word that if they would consolidate their resources he and the Queen would gladly attend one command variety performance each year.

"That first performance was a really great event.

"Then, as now, the very cream of the profession gave their services.

"Pavlova danced; Harry Lauder sang 'Roamin' in the Gloamin''; George Robey did the Mayor of Mudcumdyke; and Harry Tate in his motoring sketch almost brought the house down.

"We had Fanny Fields, and Little Tich, Vesta Tilley, La Pia, and Arthur Prince—only Marie Lloyd of all the

great stars of those days was unable to be present. THE COMMITTEE. "On the committee there were Sir Oswald Stoll, Sir Walter de Frece, Sir Walter Gibbons, and Mr. George Ashton, who was president of the Theatre Agents' Association. "He 'edited' the turns —and it was no easy task to satisfy him as he sifted and cut, making sure that no possible. breach of decorum should occur. "Then, when the big ' night came, George Robey became so excited that he clean forgot all the instructions, and gave his act just as he had always given it before!

"But Harry Tate's performance is the one I remember best," said Sir Alfred. "He was the big hit of the show —and he made their Majesties laugh more than anybody else!"

"Yes," said Mr. Herman Finck, the composer, "Harry Tate was great."

I found Mr. Finck at Versailles. At least that was the point he had reached in the suite of music he is writing around the life of Marie Antoinette.

He has never forgotten the thrill it gave him to arrange and conduct the entire musical programme of the first Royal Command Performance.

His own famous composition "In the Shadows" figured prominently in the programme. Nevertheless, he talked of Harry Tate.

"You see," he said to me, "it was no easy job to stick it out in the orchestra all through the twenty-five items. And I like Harry particularly, because during his act I'had to supply no music at all! "It was a great show indeed. The rehearsals were such fun. "They spent three or four thousand pounds on decorations for the theatre alone, and we had to rehearse in a house 'that was a jungle of scaffold poles. . "One day—l must have been putting extra elbow-grease into it —I struck ] Imy baton against a pole and broke ] nt. ■■;,■■.■. • ■ i

"For the rest of that rehearsal I had to conduct with a piece of scaffolding! i "My 'Melodious Memories,' which was the fifteenth item, was the first pot-pourri of popular airs ever played. "I called it aa anthology of melody. "The idea has been widely copied since, but I don't think any of the imitators has yet got the right ingredients for this particular musical dish. .■'"■' "The most amusing memory I have of the first Command Performance is connected with Wilkie Bard. • • • "He sang such very long songs. "But as each turn was not supposed to take more than five minutes we ; did not know what to do with his famous 'Want to Sing in Opera,' which;.w,as on the" programme. * ' "He solved the difficulty himself by offering to do the 'Night Watchman' instead. And then, when his turn came, he went on the boards, and the 'Night Watchman' went on for nearly twenty-five minutes. . .■ "The stage manager was in a frantic state. .. ' , "He had a clock which he used to wave to and fro from the wings at any actor who exceeded his . time limit. "Well, he waved and waved with the clock until he was dizzy, but he never once caught Wilkie's eye.. .. : ■. ..-; "The audience, of course,: knew, nothing of this, and they were erijoying the turn thoroughly; but back' stage they were all throwing fits." ..s i : PROGRAMME OF PRIDE. Then Mr. Finck.gave me his'souvenir programme, one of a limited edition of fifty copies which were sold at one guinea each on the, big night. How many of these precious souvenirs are to be had today, with their florid old-fashioned binding of purple watered silk? ' ; : It evokes memories, this programme, with all its stiff-collared maccassared photographs, its gigantic floppy ladies' I hats. .- '■■'... ■

Every page shouts the pride., of'a

profession which, frowned on fo* generations, had emerged at last to receive its first accolade. The story of the muaic hall is told in it with; tenderness— by men who traced its lineage far beyond the "delightfully wicked" Caves- of Harmony of which Thackeray wrote, and found for it an ancestor — and a patroa saint—in Raher, the jolly Prior of St. Bartholomew's 800 years ago.

Raher, who, when alms-giving was slack and Jus community hungered, would come down to the fairs. and jest and juggle so that the needs of hi» monks might be satisfied.

And Raher's descendants' who continue to delight princes and people have much to be grateful for to those .who organised the first' Command Performance in July, 1912.

Thus was the seal of Royal approval set on one of the greatest .entertainments of modern times—the music-halL.

How many ;are able to--recall ttiat first Command Performance of. twentythree years ago?1 How many stood; in the queue that waited patiently for fourteen hours lor - the doors-to open at 6 p.m. on July 1? And where are tne great stars >of. those leisurely years who delighted the happy audiences that had yet to feel the horrors and the sorrows of war? . Many of them are dead. Most of them; are onlyi names to the n'evr generation, ~ Just a lucky few have managed to survive the changes of- the past- quar-ter-century. And some of these again appear to evoke memories of mor« spacious—and, perhaps, more graceful —days. • ■ •■ - k i Fl'orrie...Fordl Harry Champion, Gus Elen, Kate Carney; and,Arthurßeec* will be among those veterans; of th« music-hall stage. J With them are a host of the representatives of the new generation— Jessie Matthews and Anton Dolin, Elsie Carlisle and Sam Browne, Flanagan and Allen.. Nervo and Knox, : Naughton and Gold, and Boy Foy ; too, Britain's young juggling wonder I (