Alison Young

It's Monday, it's Music Hall! 🎭 #MusicHallMonday
The legendary boots of Little Tich — whose Big-Boot Dance influenced everyone from Chaplin to Tati — are on loan from our #archive to Blackpool's Showtown Museum. Go and see them!

To mark Women's History Month, we're opening our doors for a hands-on afternoon with our archive. Explore original posters, programmes, costumes, scrapbooks & more — with a special focus on women in music hall & variety.
📅 Thursday 12th March | 🕐 2–4pm | 📍 Lambeth Archives

Thank you for a very interesting talk/conversation this evening. I look forward to reading the book .

Last November, I gave a talk at The London Archives' Symposium on Music Hall, covering a tragic 'unrideable mule' incident that began on-stage at the Clapham Grand in 1906, now adapted as a blog post here 👇️
musichallalice.wordpress.com/2026/02/18/a...

YouTube video by Women's Prize The 2026 Women's Prize for Non-Fiction longlist

It’s time to reveal the 2026 #WomensPrize for Non-Fiction longlist! A hopeful list, these are 16 books that reflect the belief that every woman’s voice has the power to elicit and inspire change: youtu.be/ScHiI1saMCY

J.W. Cragg with two of his sons, each wearing an opera hat (collapsible top hat) and evening tail suit - the starting costume for their acrobatic act.

Thrilled to have found a new photo of the Marvellous Craggs, from 1885 when the family was touring America with Haverly’s Minstrels.

'Travel Underground to the Theatres', Drury Lane (commission for Underground Electric Railway Company Ltd, 1930) by Herbert Ashwin Budd

(Private collection)

Things spotted on my way to the Co-op today…WHAT is the story here?!

Check out our next 'Archives on Show' event at Lambeth Archives. To coincide with Women's History Month there will be an emphasis on women in #musichall & #variety. Book here:

Nicholas Till: First-Class Evening Entertainments: Spectacle and Social Control in a mid-Victorian Music Hall Programme Join us for an evening lecture delivered by Nicholas Till on Hoxton Hall's programme of entertainment

Looks interesting...
courtauld.ac.uk/whats-on/nic...

Henry Lamb's portrait (1909) is of Edie McNeill and perfectly epitomises the period in which it was painted: Edie is dressed as if auditioning for Eliza Doolittle, or waiting in the wings of an Edwardian music-hall ready to sing
'Boiled Beef and Carrots.'

'Leaving His Majesty's Theatre' (c.1907) by Yoshio Markino

Collage of photographs and postcards of Daisy Dormer, music hall performer dating approx 1900-1925.

My great great aunt, Daisy Dormer, #musichall performer was born #otd 16 January 1883 in Portsmouth. Here's a few images of her from my collection.

'The Cinema', Warren Street (1920) by William Patrick Roberts

(Tate Britain)

Gift of Abby Aldrich Rockefeller

May Belfort from Portraits of Actors and Actresses: Thirteen Lithographs (Portraits d'Acteurs & Actrices: Treize Lithographies)

Hard Streets | A Talk by Jacqueline Riding - Southwark Cathedral Join acclaimed historian Jacqueline Riding in conversation with Lucy Worsley.

Join me & fab @lucyworsley.bsky.social 19 Feb for Q&A in the ❤️ of Charlie Chaplin’s London. We’ll explore these Victorian #HardStreets in the company of political reformer William Cuffay, Polly Carr Queen of the 40 Thieves & Charlie himself. Tix here! cathedral.southwark.anglican.org/whats-on/har...

We've made incredible progress with our Archive this year. Since uploading our first collection in April 2025, we now have over 2,000 catalogue records on Archives Hub (link below). Check out our entries to explore the collection.
#MusicHall #archive #history
archiveshub.jisc.ac.uk/search/locat...

Indeed, quite the company!

A grey pantomime horse sculpture, titled 'Behind You!' by Mark Wallinger, 1993. Tate Gallery/Art UK

It's #pantoday..."Behind You!" by Mark Wallinger, 1993
@artukdotorg.bsky.social
Tate Gallery

Down Under – Finding Ada Back in March 2016 I wrote about the journey to Australia taken by Larry and Violet, my great-grandparents in 1906. They had married at the start of that year in Glasgow, where Larry had been appea…

Down Under - Finding Ada - my latest blog post
musichallalice.wordpress.com/2025/12/10/d...
#MusicHall #WaverleyCemetery #Rickards

YouTube video by Greg Ohlback Uptown Funk with Jack Stanford dancing

youtu.be/nAFr70EUgTs
Jack Stanford - ‘legmania’ artiste - mesmerising

Today, Jack Stanford, 'the greatest eccentric dancer of the day,' will be commemorated with a Blue Plaque at his Mallinson Road home, Battersea. Here's a 1932 showcard from our archive featuring him in a 'non-stop variety' bill at the London Pavilion. Look him up on YouTube to see his incredible act

Illustrated cover for sheet music of Vesta Victoria's song, 'Our Lodger's Such a Nice Young Man.' Form 1897

Vesta Victoria was born November 1873, for #songsheetsaturday here's her 1897 hit written by Fred Murray & Laurence Barclay. 'Our Lodger's Such a Nice Young Man'. He's such a good, goody young man, Mamma told me so, 'he kissed Mamma and all of us, cos Papa was away.'

The Old Bedford, Camden Town c. 1890 by W Sickert (drawing of theatre balcony with fancy plasterwork and mirror) and audience crammed into balcony, some standing.

Noctes Ambrosianæ by W Sickert c 1908. Audience (mostly male) standing/sitting watching music hall performance which is out of sight for us the viewer.

Two women chatting both with 'cottage loaf' hairstyles. 'Caquetoëres by W Sickert. Oil paint on canvas.

Sickert - Love, Death & Ennui at Piano Nobile features a superb selection of paintings, drawings, and prints, including famous Music Hall works like The Old Bedford and The Old Mogul Tavern. The collection is for sale, starting at £2,000, but it's worth visiting for its well-researched catalogue.

Promotional card for the Holland Bros. 2 photos of the brothers appear in a dumbbell/bar design. From the British Music Hall Society Archive.

Nice design touch here in this promotional card for the Holland Bros in the #archive of @musichallsociety.bsky.social They are 'British Athletes Advanced', 'A genuine Herculean Equilibristic Novelty' and they've got great centre-partings too.

I can add that Daly's closed in 1937 & the Gaiety in 1939, if that helps.

And the merch was pretty comprehensive too #alwaysexitthroughthegiftshop

Men & women dancing/high-kicking onstage with orchestra in front of them. Chahut (1889-90) by George Seurat

An audience of men and women watching a lone performer onstage in a Paris cafe-concert. 'At the Café-Concert' by Lucien Pissaro (c. 1888)

The River Thames with factories with smoke billowing painted in a pointillist style. 'Factories on the Thames' (c. 1892) by Georges Lemmen

A man in a top hat with upturned collar, moustache and walking stick possibly entering a theatre. Paul Signac (1890) by George Seurat

Really enjoyed 'Radical Harmony' at the National Gallery. I'm always a sucker for anything with 19th century café -concert/music hall vibes, and the landscapes were stunning too, especially the vibrant colours of the River Thames with factories emitting pollution. Seurat, Pissarro, Lemmen, Signac.

Panic at the Newport Empire – a follow up One of the great joys of writing this blog is the emails I receive from readers for whom a name or reference has sparked a memory or connection with the people in these stories. I was particularly …

It's been a while...my much neglected blog actually has a new post. A lovely follow up to a story I wrote way back in Feb 2017, Panic at the Newport Empire #MusicHall #blog
musichallalice.wordpress.com/2025/11/05/p...

Event organiser, Meera Flynn of The London Archives

Jane Pritchard talking London scenes in Music Hall Ballets

Mark Fox talking about the bricks and mortar of Music Halls.

Image from Jason Price's talk - High versus Low culture & Mr William Archer with an fabulous moustache.

I had a great day @thelondonarchives.bsky.social yesterday talking unrideable mules🐴 (yes! really!) at the Clapham Grand, and listening to some excellent talks from @roadsw9.bsky.social @naomipaxton.bsky.social Tony Fletcher, Jane Pritchard, Wanda Robins, Mark Fox, Alison Boulton and Meera Flynn.