George Leybourne was a Lion comique of the British Victorian music hall who, for much of his career, was known by the title of one of his songs, "Champagne Charlie".
Music hall is a type of British theatrical entertainment that was popular from the early Victorian era, beginning around 1850. It faded away after 1918 as the halls rebranded their entertainment as variety. Perceptions of a distinction in Britain between bold and scandalous Victorian Music Hall and subsequent, more respectable Variety differ. Music hall involved a mixture of popular songs, comedy, speciality acts, and variety entertainment. The term is derived from a type of theatre or venue in which such entertainment took place. In North America vaudeville was in some ways analogous to British music hall, featuring rousing songs and comic acts.
Champagne Charlie is a 1944 British musical film directed by Alberto Cavalcanti and loosely based on the rivalry between the popular music hall performers George Leybourne, who was called "Champagne Charlie" because he was the first artist to perform the song of that title, and Alfred Vance, who was known as "The Great Vance".
Albert Chevalier born Albert Onésime Britannicus Gwathveoyd Louis Chevalier;, was an English music hall comedian, singer and musical theatre actor. He specialised in cockney related humour based on life as a costermonger in London during the Victorian era. Owing to this and his ability to write songs, he became known to his audiences as the "costers' laureate".
Kate Carney was an English singer and comedian who played the music halls in London.
Alfred Peek Stevens, best known by his stage name of Alfred Vance, was a 19th-century English music hall singer. He was also known as The Great Vance, and Alfred Grenville.
The Canterbury Music Hall was established in 1852 by Charles Morton on the site of a former skittle alley adjacent to the Canterbury Tavern at 143 Westminster Bridge Road, Lambeth. It was one of the first purpose-built music halls in London, and "probably the largest and grandest concert-room ever attached to a public house" in London. Morton came to be dubbed the Father of the Halls as hundreds of imitators were built within the next several years. The theatre was rebuilt three times, and the last theatre on the site was destroyed by bombing in 1942.
Oxford Music Hall was a music hall located in Westminster, London at the corner of Oxford Street and Tottenham Court Road. It was established on the site of a former public house, the Boar and Castle, by Charles Morton, in 1861. In 1917 the music hall was converted into a legitimate theatre, and in 1921 it was renamed the New Oxford Theatre. In May 1926 it closed and was demolished.
Martha Vicinus is an American scholar of English literature and Women's studies. She serves as the Eliza M. Mosher Distinguished University Professor of English, Women's Studies, and History at the University of Michigan. Prior to coming to the University of Michigan, Vicinus was a faculty member in the English Department at Indiana University from 1968 to 1982. She has written several books about Victorian women as well as gender and sexuality. She earned a PhD from the University of Wisconsin in 1968.
The Music Hall Strike of 1907 was a theatrical dispute which took place between music hall employees, stage artistes and London theatre proprietors. The catalyst for the strikes were the employees' lack of pay, the scrapping of perks, and an increase in working hours, and matinée performances.
Alfred Concanen was, for over twenty-five years, one of the leading lithographers of the Victorian era, best remembered for his illustrated sheet music covers for songs made popular by famous music hall performers of the time. These covers usually featured portraits of the performers or humorous scenes from their songs. Sacheverell Sitwell said of him, "The most painstaking of the Pre-Raphaelites must fail beside Concanen!"
Harry Liston was an English comedian and actor who appeared in music hall, variety shows and other entertainments during the Victorian era and in the first decades of the 20th century.
Thomas Leamore was an English music hall and variety comic performer, dancer and singer.
"If Ever I Cease to Love" is a music hall song published by the English Lion comique George Leybourne, who was popular in the Victorian music venues, in 1871. It has been performed by several musical artists and theatrical entertainers, including Lydia Thompson, who featured the song in her traveling operetta Bluebeard. Though Leybourne is best known for his composition "The Daring Young Man on the Flying Trapeze", the comedic lyrical content and catchy melody of "If Ever I Cease to Love" became tremendously appealing in New Orleans. Since the first Rex parade in 1872, the tune has been ceremoniously played to the krewe's figurehead, Rex, who bears the title "King of Carnival" in New Orleans.
George William Hunt, known in later life as 'Jingo' Hunt, was an English writer of music hall songs, best known for "MacDermott's War Song" also known as the "Jingo Song".
In the American vaudeville and British music hall traditions, the bill matter was the identifying phrase used in advertising material to describe and summarize the appeal and attributes of each performer or group of performers. Each was considered as a trademark, not to be used by other performers. Examples in Britain included George Robey, "The Prime Minister of Mirth"; G. H. Elliott, "The Chocolate Coloured Coon"; Max Miller, "The Cheeky Chappie"; and Billy Bennett, "Almost a Gentleman".
Bert Errol was a British singer and female impersonator, who was a popular entertainer in both Britain and the United States.
Walter Laburnum was an English music hall performer.
Billy Caryll and Hilda Mundy were a British husband-and-wife comedy duo who performed in variety shows and films, and on BBC radio, between the early 1920s and late 1940s.
Hugh St Clair Cunningham is a historian and retired academic. A specialist in the history of childhood, nationalism, philanthropy and leisure, he is an emeritus professor of social history at the University of Kent.
