The Red Letter at the Music Hall

This book reprints and analyses reviews of music hall acts from the family magazine The Red Letter, which was published by the Scottish based firm D C Thomson from 1899 to 1987. The articles under review range in date from 1902 to 1914, covering theatres all over Britain and acts from around the world. The reviews are uniquely detailed and shed light not only on the early acts of comics who would later go on to achieve wider fame, such as Will Hay and Robb Wilton, but also reveal the acts of long forgotten performers. These so-called ‘wines and spirits’ acts—acts that would never top the bill but who nevertheless toured the halls, sometimes for years on end, such as female impersonator Albert Letine, comedy magician Chris van Bern and female stand up Anna Dorothy amongst many others—deserve to be remembered every bit as much as the top of the bill acts. The articles are arranged in sections, covering race, gender, character comedy, physical comedy, male comedy and specialty or ‘spesh’acts. The reviews reveal not only the contents of the acts but also the audience reactions to those acts and prevailing contemporary Edwardian attitudes. The articles are accompanied by their original illustrations, some of which are unique and, like the articles themselves, unseen for over a century.
David Huxley is Editor in Chief of The Journal of Graphic Novels and Comics. He was Senior Lecturer on the Film and Media course at Manchester Metropolitan University, UK, until 2018. He has written widely on popular culture, including comics, film and comedy. His most recent publication is Lone Heroes and the Myth of the American West in Comic Books 1945-1962 (Palgrave Macmillan, 2018).
David James is an independent researcher and Senior Lecturer on the Film and Media course at Manchester Metropolitan University, UK. He has published on a variety of subjects, including sitcom, Chaplin and the Music Hall. His latest publication is Charlie Chaplin’s Red Letter Days: at Work with the Comic Genius (2017).