#music hall
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Mrs. Iris Mary Wallis - The Reading Standard - Friday 30th August 1940
Mrs. Iris Mary Wallis – The Reading Standard – Friday 30th August 1940
LOCAL WILLS
Mrs. Iris Mary Wallis, of Haley Green Farm, Warfield, and formerly of Ashill House, Ilminster, Somerset, who died on May 25 last, wife of Gerald Pearson Wallis, left £34,508 13s. 6d with net personality £34.380 1s. 7d. Probate has been granted to her husband and her daughter, Mrs. Daphne Olive Cely-Trevillan of Midelney Manor, Drayton, Taunton. She left her jewellery, etc., to her…
Gabrielle Ray - St. Pancras Gazette - Friday 16th September 1921
Gabrielle Ray – St. Pancras Gazette – Friday 16th September 1921
Lee White and her husband, Clay Smith are to appear at the Palladium on Monday; the programme also including the Bros. Arnaut; George Bass; Little Tich; Gabrielle Ray, with her delightful act; Maidie Scott, with Eve’s Progress; Jay Laurier; Mimi; and Dippy Dears.
St. Pancras Gazette – Friday 16th September 1921
Gabrielle Ray - The Daily Mirror - Friday 29th September 1911
Gabrielle Ray – The Daily Mirror – Friday 29th September 1911
FOR THE FRENCH SUFFERERS.
Remarkable Support for Madame Rejane’s Liberte Matinee at the Hippodrome.
The list of artists who have expressed their intention of helping Mme. Rejane at the Hippodrome matinee increases hourly.
The following was the complete list at a late hour last night:-
Sir Herbert Tree, Joseph Coyne, Charles Hawtrey, Auguste Van Biene, Cyril Maude, Marie Tempest, Sir John…
Gabrielle Ray - The Illustrated Sporting and Dramatic News - Friday 21st September 1934
Gabrielle Ray – The Illustrated Sporting and Dramatic News – Friday 21st September 1934
Gabrielle Ray - Edinburgh Evening News - Monday 30th January 1922
Gabrielle Ray – Edinburgh Evening News – Monday 30th January 1922
Gabrielle Ray (Rotary X.S. 321)
Gabrielle Ray (Rotary X.S. 321)
The Little Cherub (Rotary 4024 C)
Gabrielle Ray (J. Beagles 751 E)
Gabrielle Ray (J. Beagles 751 E)
Gabrielle Ray (J. Beagles 731 T)
Gabrielle Ray - The Palladium - The Stage - Thursday 22nd September 1921
Gabrielle Ray – The Palladium – The Stage – Thursday 22nd September 1921
THE VARIETY STAGE
LONDON HALLS.
THE PALLADIUM.
Little Tich, as full of vim and apt by-play as ever, returns to the Palladium this week. On Monday afternoon he was so popular as the bold, romancing cricketer and the Society debutante who gets mixed up in “her” train, that Maidie Scott, who followed him, was considerably delayed. Miss Scott is still singing “Eve’s Progress” to general…
Gabrielle Ray - Robin Hood - The Scotsman - 27th December 1921
Gabrielle Ray – Robin Hood – The Scotsman – 27th December 1921
Gabrielle Ray - The Sporting Times - Saturday 4th April 1914
Gabrielle Ray – The Sporting Times – Saturday 4th April 1914
ROUND THE TOWN
By SON OF THE MORNING
I looked in at the All Fools’ Day Revel at Covent Garden on Wednesday night, but, truth to tell, though it was very full, the proceedings were not particularly hilarious. In fact, the majority the participants wore a worried look, suggestive of unpaid rent, and obtrusive tax collectors. Well known people were scarce, but I caught a glimpse of Marie Lohr…
Gabrielle Ray (Rotary 11528 J)
Gabrielle Ray (Rotary 11528 J)
Gabrielle Ray (Rotary 11528 J)
A Glittering First Night - The Sketch - Monday 1st December 1958
A Glittering First Night – The Sketch – Monday 1st December 1958
All pictures are of Bradford music hall artistes taken between 1900 and 1920
In a 1913 anonymous ‘autobiography’ was published, claiming to be the confessions of an Victorian music hall dancing girl, born in 1887 in Camden.
Although probably entirely fictional, the memoirs make tame reading. Apart from a trip to Spain, where the dancer is besieged by love sick 16-year-old Jose, there’s not a hint of loose behaviour. The main confession of this dancing girl is that theatrical life is actually a bit dull.
When she isn’t resting between jobs the dancing girl is enduring the “ordeal” of the music hall audition circuit, which sounds rather like a sinister Edwardian version of Britain’s Got Talent:
“Have you ever seen the crowd of anxious-looking women and girls waiting at the stage door of a theatre when the management has advertised for chorus ladies…a throng of expectant girls before the rehearsals of pantomimes, standing in the cold and rain of the dingy doors of the suburban or East-end theatres? More than once have I been one of those crowds.”
“One by one the aspirants for stage glory go before the brisk stage-manager, who is often too harassed and busy to appear polite or sympathetic “Let me try your voice/ Where’s your music?
"The trembling girl begins to sing at the piano. Perhaps by the end of the first verse the manager holds up his hand, and says “Thanks, that will do. I’m afraid you can’t sing well enough. Next please.
”…When you enter the theatre you find a crowd of artistes of all sorts on the stage. Some are already dressed and made up to go on. Everyone looks nervous. There is no joking or laughter; the performers talk in low tones in corners. In the dressing-room a number of girls and women are making up their faces.
“There is a faded woman, with dyed hair, trying to impart to her wan cheeks the bloom and attraction of youth with the aid of rouge, eyebrow pencils and powder. There are young girls who have never appeared on the stage. Some of these are in an agony of nervous fear, while others are absurdly confident of success.
"The room is overcrowded and close. There is a smell of grease paints and powder. One girl has forgotten her rouge; another has to run out and buy safety pins…The old hands are soon ready for the turn, and they go out on the dark stage and sit on any box or seat that is lying about the place. Meanwhile the stage manager is writing down names:
'Miss Nicely, are you there?’
The young lady clad in the tights and jewels of the 'principal boy’ comes forward smiling.
'You go on third, remember…Where are the Brothers Sleight?’
"Two knockabout comedians, in red wigs and quaint attire answer to the name. Then the gas is turned on and the footlights glitter, and, peeping from the wings, you see the directors taking their places in the stalls. They are a very ordinary collection of English gentlemen well-dressed and most elderly; but they appear awfully imposing, like a row of stern judges…
"The first turn is perhaps a conjurer; he is followed by a comic singer, and then I go on with three other girls, and we give our acrobatic 'number’. It is a terrible time. There is no applause, not a sign of approval from the keen-eyed gentlemen in the stalls. We come off hot and panting, wondering whether we have satisfied the directors. I peep from the wings and see the gentlemen talking about us. How I long to know our fate.”
From: Anon, The Confessions of a Dancing Girl By Herself (Arden Press, 1913).
