Speciality Acts, music hall

Speciality Acts, music hall

  • Bunny Cloud Deerfoot



    Bunny Cloud Deerfoot
    Late 19th century
    Sepia photograph
    © Victoria and Albert Museum, London

    In the 1880s 'Wild West' acts became popular in circuses, but this little photograph or 'carte de visite' advertising Bunny Cloud Deerfoot is earlier. At a time before television, when travel was slow and expensive, most people would never have seen an American Indian. This man, who may have been part of an 'exhibition', would have been a rare sight in Britain in the mid-19th century.

  • Juggling rifles, late 19th century



    Juggling rifles
    Late 19th century
    Sepia photograph
    © Victoria and Albert Museum, London

    As well as the comedians and singers, part of a music hall programme would include dancing, acrobatics or aerial acts. Novelty acts came in all shapes and sizes and might include any of the aforementioned skills, but with some unusual twist to make them more sensational or, as in this case more dangerous - the rifles have bayonets attached.

  • Paul Cinquevalli with autograph



    Paul Cinquevalli with autograph
    Late 19th to early 20th century
    Sepia photograph with autograph in purple crayon
    Museum no. TM 1966/A/153
    © Victoria and Albert Museum, London

    Paul Cinquevalli was the most famous juggler of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. His career in the circus had started at the age of 12 when he was spotted in a gymnastic display at his Berlin school by a trapeze artist called Cinquevalli. Cinquevalli suggested that Paul become a professional gymnast but Paul's father had already decided that his son would be a musician. Within a week Paul was on the way to Russia, having run away with the circus. In Russia, Cinquevalli appeared as 'The Little Flying Devil' but after a fall from a trapeze, he had to give up acrobatics and decided to become a juggler. He first appeared in England in 1885 and was such a success that he settled in London. He appeared in circuses, music halls and pantomimes and was among the acts invited to appear in the music hall's first ever Royal Command Performance in 1912.

  • Roller skating on a drum



    Roller skating on a drum
    Late 19th century
    Sepia photograph
    © Victoria and Albert Museum, London

    Music hall acts were often developed from popular sports. Roller-skating became all the rage in the late 19th century. The first roller-skates had been invented by Joseph Merlin who demonstrated them in London in 1760. He sailed across a ballroom playing a violin, but, unable to turn or stop, crashed into a mirror at the side of the stage and caused himself considerable damage. It was not until 1863 that a new design took off and soon people were roller-skating all over Western Europe. Like ice skating, it was a sport that could be enjoyed by women as well as men.

  • Family of acrobats



    Family of acrobats
    Photographed by Elliot & Fry
    Late 19th century
    © Victoria and Albert Museum, London

    This publicity photograph advertising a music hall act is one of hundreds in the Theatre Museum's collections. Some commercially issued photographs from this period are identified with the name of the performers, but many, such as this one, simply have the name of the photographer. Once music hall had become widespread, it needed more acts than the original singers and comedians. Acrobats and other acts that we now associate with circuses rather than theatres, were therefore brought into the programmes. These acrobats wear a version of the fitted tunic named after the famous trapeze artist Jules Leotard, which gives maximum freedom to the body and which is still worn by dancers today. These family members are probably 'Risley' acrobats, named after Professor Risley who appeared with his sons at the Haymarket and Drury Lane in the 1840s in an act in which the children were 'flung about in the air'.

  • Peter Donald and Meta Carson



    Peter Donald and Meta Carson
    Printed by J. & W. Griffin Limited
    Late 19th to early 20th century
    Black and white photograph
    © Victoria and Albert Museum, London

    This is a publicity postcard for a Scottish music hall act from the early 20th century. Music hall was as popular in the major Scottish cities as in the rest of Great Britain. Scotland produced many performers who were specifically Scottish and rarely travelled south of the border. All the big English stars appeared in Scotland, although there was always a lingering prejudice against them, and the Glasgow Empire was especially feared for its hostile reception of English comedians. Many Scottish acts stressed their origins in their material and 'traditional' costume of kilts and sporrans. The wearing of the tartan had been banned after the Jacobite rebellion in 1746 but was reintroduced as a symbol of Scotland's romantic past by the novelist Sir Walter Scott to celebrate King George IV's visit to Edinburgh in 1822.