CONFESSIONS OF A MUSIC HALL FAVORITE.

Hawke's Bay Herald, Volume XXII, Issue 7525, 27 August 1886, Page 3

CONFESSIONS OF A MUSIC HALL FAVORITE.

Tho Pall Mall Gazette hns been interviewing Mr Arthur Roberts, a well-known musical hall singer, and has elicited from him a for of tho secrets of his somewhat curious profession. In reference to his early career Mr Roberts said:— "The fact is, I spent my early years in a loan office. I found I had a gift for comic singing, I wasn't modest. Oh, no! That would never, never do. I served writs, put in executions, kept books by day, and at night I sang a comic sonp; or two en amatew\ don't you know. Writ-serving awoke the comic vein. And none of my fellow clerks know it, nor yet the governors. So the days and months passed, and then I got an engagementwith Howard Paul in a variety troupe, and had to go down to Margate after office hours and return to town in time for business the next day. But one day the gaff was blown. A customer came up to my desk. ' Why ! goodness gracious ! ' ho says, ' Arthur Roberts ! ' Down I ducked, but it was no good, and I sent in my resignation, and since then have done no business in loans— in the public line." Then Mr Roberts said he had opinions on one or two matters which are shortly, stated here. " The popularity of a music hall singer I estimate at five years. There aye exceptions. But the publicis fickle, and the fashions change just as in ladies' dresses. That, I may say, is one reason why the stage is the best in the long run. I remember a man who came up from the provinces— a factory lad, picked up in v. taproom — who couldn't write his own name. He had one or two good songs, a loud voice, and a face for anything. He came up to London, got an engagement by a fluke, made a hit, and in a few weeks was doing his four or live turns a night, and making, I dare say, a hundred a week. In a year he was played out, and now — well, he's disappeared from the firmament. As with one, so it is with another. The life is easy, butyoumustalways be looking out for something new to catch the ear. If you don't, then make ready for the next man. Now, a music-hail audience is easy to please. You hold up your iinger and they laugh ; in a theatre your whole fist won't do it sometimes. Yes, the pay is good, twice as good as on the stage, but it's precious hard work while you're at it. I remember the time when I sang sixteen songs of a night, and I was'n t husky, oh ! no. Yes, times have changed since then. In those days it used to be half a crown a song, and glad to get it. And then I took a back seat for the lion. It was like the Scotch express coming, the parliamentary was shunted on to the siding," remarked Mr Roberts, as lie told of his first appearance in a "hall." " Yes, I'm a firm believer in realism. If a man comes on to sing 'I'm a masher, I am,' he should look like a masher, and not dress like ' 'Arry out for a 'oliday,' so to speak. If he is bewailing his poverty and appears in a battered hat, a seedy white-seamed frock coat with the collar turned up, shabby trousers, and holey boots, why should he wear a gold ' chain, and have a hundred pounds' worth of rings on his fingers ? Let him put his chain and his rings in his pocket. I remember in one of my songs I personated a painter, and had to wear an apron, I bought one for eighteenpence from a carpenter, dirty, stained, torn, and workmanlike, He had used it for years, I should say. The song was a roaring success. My realistic apron did it." '