CD Rom: Dinner and Dance - Iceberg! > Dinner and Dancing
CD Rom: Dinner and Dance - Iceberg! > Miss Wendy Sharrock Entertains...
In David Bedford's The Wreck of the Titanic, first class passengers are sitting down to dinner when the Titanic strikes the iceberg. The band play a medley of songs made popular in British Music Hall and American Vaudeville theatres. As the band stops playing to tune their instruments, there is a hardly noticeable judder as the iceberg scrapes the hull. Although the band keeps playing, louder and more frequent interruptions as the water pours into the ship eventually drown out the music.
British Music Halls attracted Victorians and Edwardians from every social class. Variety acts included singers, comedians, acrobats and magicians. Comic songs and routines about working class life were very popular. If it wasn't for the 'ouses in between reflects overcrowded living conditions.
Performers like 'Champagne Charlie' (George Leyburn) poked fun at wealthy and spoilt young men, singing comic songs about the life styles of the fabulously rich, and the fashionable places they had to be seen in.
By the end of the Victorian era, the 'Theatre of Varieties' was hugely popular, and big and glittering halls sprang up across the country. Music Hall had become so respectable that in 1912, George V attended the first Royal Variety Performance at London's Palace Theatre. The USA's equivalent of Music Hall was Vaudeville, a popular form of entertainment. Vaudeville and Music Hall songs were big business, and the area of Manhattan where music publishing businesses congregated, was nicknamed Tin Pan Alley. By 1912, Ragtime music was all the rage, and ragtime songs like Alexander's Ragtime Band and Oh You Beautiful Doll were hits on both sides of the Atlantic.
Activities
Learn the following songs:
Steerage
Miss Wendy Sharrock is an imaginary Music Hall starlet crossing the Atlantic to make her fortune in Vaudeville!
Third class passengers on the Titanic had no band, but probably organised their own informal entertainments. Titanic's steerage passengers could play the piano situated in the third class salon, and a number of passengers travelled with instruments, including the Irish piper, Eugene Daly. It is likely that Music hall and Vaudeville songs might well have been sung, and comic monologues from music halls might also have been performed. Given the range of different nationalities, a range of folk and popular songs from Scandanavia, etc. could well have been performed at impromptu gatherings.
(You may remember that James Cameron includes a wild Celidh in the 1997 film!)
First and Second class entertainments tended to be more organised affairs. This programme, from the White Star liner Adriatic includes songs, piano solos, poetry recitals, a solo dancer and a magician! The ship's orchestra introduce the concert with an overture, and probably accompanied the singing of the National Anthem to end the concert.
The tradition of the ship's concert went back a long time on the Cunard and White Star lines. These often took place near the end of a voyage. Apart from the orchestra, performers were first class passengers. These were often amateurs, but occasionally famous Music Hall stars or Opera Divas travelling first class might be persuaded to perform. A programme from Cunard's Lusitania, in which Wallace Hartley performed, includes two songs by the internationally famous Vesta Victoria.
A chairman and concert committee was appointed from among the first class passengers, and a collection was taken for for Seamen's charities, usually by two elegant female passengers carrying baskets decorated with ribbons.
Activities
CD Rom: Dinner and Dance - Iceberg! > Miss Wendy Sharrock Entertains...
In David Bedford's The Wreck of the Titanic, first class passengers are sitting down to dinner when the Titanic strikes the iceberg. The band play a medley of songs made popular in British Music Hall and American Vaudeville theatres. As the band stops playing to tune their instruments, there is a hardly noticeable judder as the iceberg scrapes the hull. Although the band keeps playing, louder and more frequent interruptions as the water pours into the ship eventually drown out the music.
British Music Halls attracted Victorians and Edwardians from every social class. Variety acts included singers, comedians, acrobats and magicians. Comic songs and routines about working class life were very popular. If it wasn't for the 'ouses in between reflects overcrowded living conditions.
Performers like 'Champagne Charlie' (George Leyburn) poked fun at wealthy and spoilt young men, singing comic songs about the life styles of the fabulously rich, and the fashionable places they had to be seen in.
By the end of the Victorian era, the 'Theatre of Varieties' was hugely popular, and big and glittering halls sprang up across the country. Music Hall had become so respectable that in 1912, George V attended the first Royal Variety Performance at London's Palace Theatre. The USA's equivalent of Music Hall was Vaudeville, a popular form of entertainment. Vaudeville and Music Hall songs were big business, and the area of Manhattan where music publishing businesses congregated, was nicknamed Tin Pan Alley. By 1912, Ragtime music was all the rage, and ragtime songs like Alexander's Ragtime Band and Oh You Beautiful Doll were hits on both sides of the Atlantic.
Activities
Learn the following songs:
- 'Oh You Beautiful Doll'
- 'Oh I Do Like to be Beside the Seaside'
Steerage
Miss Wendy Sharrock is an imaginary Music Hall starlet crossing the Atlantic to make her fortune in Vaudeville!
Third class passengers on the Titanic had no band, but probably organised their own informal entertainments. Titanic's steerage passengers could play the piano situated in the third class salon, and a number of passengers travelled with instruments, including the Irish piper, Eugene Daly. It is likely that Music hall and Vaudeville songs might well have been sung, and comic monologues from music halls might also have been performed. Given the range of different nationalities, a range of folk and popular songs from Scandanavia, etc. could well have been performed at impromptu gatherings.
(You may remember that James Cameron includes a wild Celidh in the 1997 film!)
- Make up your own third class variety concert. Find out, learn and include some music hall songs. Here are some possibilities:
Ta-ra-ra- Boom-de-ay! Harry Sayers (1891)
Daisy Bell : Harry Dacre (1892)
Oh I do like to be beside the seaside: John Glover-Kind
My Old Man said follow the van
- You could include comic poems, play music on instruments, tell jokes and even perform some magic tricks. Can anyone perform Irish or Scottish dances?
- Victorian and Edwardian audiences liked puns and jokes that we might not think funny. Here are some examples:
a) What's the difference between a stoat and a weasel?
I don't know. What is the difference between a stoat and a weasel?
A weasel's weasely recognised, but a stoat is stoatally different!
b) Do you serve lobsters?
We serve anybody, sir! - Find out about Music Halls that existed in your area
First and Second class entertainments tended to be more organised affairs. This programme, from the White Star liner Adriatic includes songs, piano solos, poetry recitals, a solo dancer and a magician! The ship's orchestra introduce the concert with an overture, and probably accompanied the singing of the National Anthem to end the concert.
The tradition of the ship's concert went back a long time on the Cunard and White Star lines. These often took place near the end of a voyage. Apart from the orchestra, performers were first class passengers. These were often amateurs, but occasionally famous Music Hall stars or Opera Divas travelling first class might be persuaded to perform. A programme from Cunard's Lusitania, in which Wallace Hartley performed, includes two songs by the internationally famous Vesta Victoria.
A chairman and concert committee was appointed from among the first class passengers, and a collection was taken for for Seamen's charities, usually by two elegant female passengers carrying baskets decorated with ribbons.
Activities
- Appoint a chairman and concert committee
- Can Wider Opportunities groups provide an orchestra to introduce the concert?
- Find out what acts children in the class can offer.
- Plan your first class concert and create a programme
- Perform the concert as part of a dinner on board the Titanic (see Dining on the Titanic)
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