LAMBETH WALK

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXV, Issue 23219, 13 December 1938, Page 5

LAMBETH WALK

DANCED BY ROYALTY FAVOURITE OF COSTERS TRIUMPHAL PROGRESS ■, The King and Queen danced " The Lambeth Walk" at the Ghillies Ball at Balmoral Castle recently, states a London writer. So was sot the seal of royal approval on this dance which Eddie Cantor calls a" "freak" —because it was not made in the United States. Unnoticed for generations, costers lurched in Lambeth and "Oi'ed" each other, while the West End gavotted, polka'ed, fox-trotted, tangoed, Charlestoned, -shimmied, Big .Appled and shuffled around while truckin', Now it's "Oi, Oi, Oi," everywhere. They're doin' the Lambeth Walk. "Oyez, oyez, oyez!" they're doin' the Lambeth * Walk, even in f Balmoral Castle, though north of the Border they are apt tu forget themselves and cry "Och ave!" Communists, Fascists, Republicans, Royalists; rich men, poor men, beggarmen, thieves; tinkers, tailors, soldiers, sailors —all dance it. Negroid wiggles were relegated to the shores whence they came, crooners forgot their desire to go back to Dixie, and in the stately homes of England dowagers ejaculated joyful "Oi's." History ol the Dance Yet it all began in Maida Vale. Mr. Douglas Furber, playwright, who has wrought 50 plays, was brought a new piece of music by composer Noel Gay. ex-choirboy of Wakelield Cathedral and deviser of a too-clever revue called "Stop Press." Furber was inspired. In seven minutes he wrote the words. "It's easy once you got the knack," he said; .but no one believes him. The newly-born dance number was incorporated in "Me and My Girl," the then new Victoria Palace show, and was danced by Lupino. Lane, Teddy St Denis, and the company. Audiences rolled in their seats, shouted "Oi!" with the company. Astute dance, hall director C. L. Heimann saw it, sent Miss Adele England, his chief dance teacher, to see it and prepare a ballroom version. In duly the London Conference of the Imperial Society of leathers _ot Dancing deigned to take notice of it. They walked. In August the citadel of dignified tradition at ('owes capitulated, and the elegant company at Northwood House stuck their thumbs in the air and "Oi'ed" with the best of them. "Childish Jig" The walk crossed the Channel and gamblers left the tallies to dance it. A Frenchman, shocked at the lack of' English "phlegm," wrote: "The Lambeth Walk is in principle a sort of childish jig, danced by couples who walk arm in arm, clapping their hands occasionally to convince themselves that they art? very happy, and who at times utter, probably for the same reason and at certain moments indicated by the rhvthm, crazy cries." America fell for it, Chinese mandarins drummed, even Indian, purdah women walked it in their zenanas. Now the King and Queen have danced it. The Laftibeth Walk has become a Regal walk; it has progressed from Lupino Lane to Park Lane. It has ar-. rived.