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Partly off the back of an old folks' gig for the Jubilee I have been asked about doing an old time music hall style act later in the year. Does anyone have any experience/ideas for suitable material? I have a few thoughts but am not really familiar with the genre. I seem to be getting a bit of a reputation for the niche over 60s market...

Ive had 35 + years in the field.

My advice is just do what you already do. very few old time ( I hate TYME" ) music halls are remotely authentic. Just make sure you dress correctly, and you slightly tailor your patter.

and.. remember anybody over 60, would of only been in their 20s in the 60s. Hardly Victorians eh?

check Youtube for ideas, by watching clips of the good old days. Here, established acts went on, and did act as known, in a different setting, and in a different costume.. thats all.

According to Wikki, Ali Bongo made his British TV debut on The Good Old Days in 1965. I'm sure there were many other 'modern' magicians on that show over the years and they all did very normal stuff but with a nod and a wink to the assumed Victorian style of speech and posture. Morgan & West ( http://www.morganandwest.co.uk ) describe themselves as a time traveling Victorian Magic duo so you might get some tips from watching their stuff. Costume would be a big factor, wing collar shirt, cravat, frock coat if possible and, of course, the perfect excuse to wear and use a Top Hat!

Thanks for those thoughts. I'm inclined to agree with Dale and will most likely stick to normal performing style. I guess the refined question is about ideas for suitable effects. I most often work close up. So suggestions for good platform scale effects suitable for an older audience would be appreciated...

philipsw wrote:Thanks for those thoughts. I'm inclined to agree with Dale and will most likely stick to normal performing style. I guess the refined question is about ideas for suitable effects. I most often work close up. So suggestions for good platform scale effects suitable for an older audience would be appreciated...

If you are in the UK then people in their 60s would be likely to have been watching Paul Daniels on the TV etc, also what is an "older audience"? Think about what they might have been watching and then tailor your show accordingly.
Silk productions, miser's dream with a topper, large card routines (giant B'wave and the like), anything from Tommy Cooper's repertoire would all seem appropriate.
Electric chairs/zapped would be a good one too.

It's a shame that The Good Old Days is not on DVD or ever repeated.

daleshrimpton wrote:and.. remember anybody over 60, would of only been in their 20s in the 60s. Hardly Victorians eh?

Quite. Even my grandad was a bit young to have gone to the music halls, and he was born in 1898.

I wonder if they actually mean "variety", rather than music hall. It's a similar type of act, but the mannerisms might be a little different. You probably don't need to worry too much about that (but wear a dinner suit if you can).

I think visual tricks with silks, vanishes and productions would suit - stage and parlour tricks, really. Miser's Dream would be good, but if you mainly work close-up, you might want to stick with the "special" props, rather than trying to master a manipulation act. Something like the Monkey Bar, Chinese Sticks or Pom-Pom Prayer Stick would be good fun, as they have a bit of audience involvement without needing people to get up and join you.

Something else you might like to try is Pavel's Silk Serenade or one of the similar (ahem) effects. Each time you make a record change colour, you can have the music change: She Wore Red Feathers, Tie a Yellow Ribbon and Blue Moon, for example. My mother had seen me do that trick a few times and then saw another magician do it. He apparently stopped and asked the audience for songs that matched the colour of the silk, but my gut instinct is that would kill the pacing of what should be a very visual trick.

Ah my friend, now this is a setting that I know well. For the magic effects themselves, you can most likely retain what you perform currently. The most important thing for you is going to be setting the scene, think about your costume, music and design of the props. Wonder to yourself, how would the magicians of the day have spoken and how would they have presented their marvels?

There are two directions that you can take this, first is the gentleman conjurer. he is sophisticated, his props are all dark wood and brass. Second is the circus magician or sideshow, his persona can be slightly more flamboyant, his props are brightly painted with simple designs of stars, stipes and the like.

As you begin planning this act I'm sure that you'll discover that it's a wonderously fun and interesting premise to perform under.

If you want authentic Victorian then have a look at the style of Derren's Q&A or his spirits, bells and slate messages from his previous stage shows.

I believe that you're thinking more along the lines of Victorian spiritualism. While this was popular during the Victorian period, it's not something that's likely to have been seen performed by a magician in the music halls. There you would have witnessed conjuring tricks much the same as you might see today in a traditional magician's show, along with feats of skill such as escapology and demonstrations of strength.

Seance and music hall are completely different things. Music halls were the variety shows of their time and included novelty acts, magicians and singers often performing songs laced with innuendo. There are loads of websites which cover the history of music halls and also some good books that list the kinds of acts they had on. Spirtualism has nothing to do with music hall at all, it just happened to be in the same era. That's like putting on a 1980's Live Aid style concert and having a miners strike in the middle. Same era. That's all.

If you do some research on Victorian entertainment, you'll find there is a lot of great information out there...

I did an Old Time Music Hall show last year, it was great fun to do. Just look for some large visual tricks to perform on stage and, as has been mentioned above, dress in a similar style approaching the period the show is set in. Not all Old Time Music Hall shows are Victorian era, some are Edwardian. The one I have been asked back to do this year is set in the 1940s Second World War. Its just a variety show with songs and costume from the relevant period. Who ever is organising the show will be the best person to advise you on costume.

The effects I did was Appearing Wine Glass, Passe Passe Multiplying Bottles, The Benson Bowl and finished with a cuddly toy rabbit from a massive Alakazam Hat. Nothing too difficult and all very visual.

I think you may get away with mentalism on stage if that is your thing. The Zancigs and David Devant both did thought reading acts about the correct time with assistants as double acts. I guess you'd just have to speak to who is organising the show to work out if it would and how it would set the correct mood and pace.

According to Wikki:
Music Hall is a type of British theatrical entertainment which was popular between 1850 and 1960. It involved a mixture of popular song, comedy, speciality acts and variety entertainment. The term is derived from a type of theatre or venue in which such entertainment took place. British music hall was similar to American vaudeville, featuring rousing songs and comic acts, while in the United Kingdom the term vaudeville referred to more working-class types of entertainment that would have been termed burlesque in America.

I'd query that 'Music Hall' was still popular in the 1960s but certainly just pre second world war would have seen such entertainment so clothese don't need to be Victorian or Edwardian unless it goes with the style of the overall event. Many of the venues were bombed or fell into disrepair which, along with the popularity of Cinema, hastened the demise of what we call Music Hall.

Mandrake wrote:According to Wikki:

I'd query that 'Music Hall' was still popular in the 1960s but certainly just pre second world war would have seen such entertainment so clothese don't need to be Victorian or Edwardian unless it goes with the style of the overall event.

There was a BBC4 documentary with Alan Yentob on telly the other weekend, or maybe the weekend before that. It might still be on iPlayer, you'll have to look.Anyway they made it clear that music hall was very popular in Britain with all age groups right up until the end of the 1950s and the audience fell away then because of (a) the coming of rockand roll music which meant young people were disinclined to go, and (b) the rise and popularity of television in the 1950s which meant people no longer had to leave home to see variety entertainment. Before that it was very popular and received very healthy audiences.

There was also the situation whereby many non commercially viable theatres were being bought up purely to demolish them and develop the sites for retail applications. The old Theatre Royal in Birmingham was closed and demolished to make way for a large Woolworth store - also now closed of course. As with so many of our Cities, the land and property are owned by investment and development groups who are rarely based in that city so 'the past' and 'tradition' counted for nothing. In recent years attempts have been made to refurbish our City centre with 'Victorian' style lamp posts and bollards - we had the real thing at one time!

We also had three or four excellent theatres in addition to the few remaining ones and, refreshingly, there are moves from time to time to put on Burlesque/Variety shows. I don't know of any music hall type events but I may be looking in the wrong places.