Music hall
Music hall is a type of British theatrical entertainment that was popular from the early Victorian era circa 1850 and lasting until 1960. It involved a mixture of songs, speciality acts. The term is derived from a type of theatre or venue in which such entertainment took place and these theatres were designed chiefly so people could consume food and alcohol and smoke tobacco in the auditorium while the entertainment took place. This differed somewhat from the type of theatre, which until seated the audience in stalls with a separate bar-room. By the mid-19th century, the halls cried out for many new, as a result, professional songwriters were enlisted to provide the music for a plethora of star performers, such as Marie Lloyd, Dan Leno, Little Tich, and George Leybourne. Music hall did not adopt its own unique style, the halls had recovered by the start of the First World War and were used to stage charity events in aid of the war effort. Music hall entertainment continued after the war, but became popular due to upcoming Jazz, Swing.
Licensing restrictions had changed, and drinking was banned from the auditorium, a new type of music hall entertainment had arrived, in the form of variety, and many music hall performers failed to make the transition. Deemed old fashioned and with the closure of many halls, music hall entertainment ceased, Music hall in London had its origins in entertainment provided in the new style saloon bars of public houses during the 1830s. These venues replaced earlier semi-rural amusements provided by fairs and suburban pleasure gardens such as Vauxhall Gardens and these latter became subject to urban development and became fewer and less popular. The saloon was a room where for a fee or a greater price at the bar, dancing. The most famous London saloon of the days was the Grecian Saloon, established in 1825, at The Eagle,2 Shepherdess Walk. According to John Hollingshead, proprietor of the Gaiety Theatre, this establishment was the father and mother, known as the Grecian Theatre, it was here that Marie Lloyd made her début at the age of 14 in 1884.
It is still famous because of an English nursery rhyme, with the somewhat mysterious lyrics, Up and down the City Road In and out The Eagle Thats the way the money goesPop goes the weasel. Another famous song and supper room of this period was Evans Music-and-Supper Rooms,43 King Street, Covent Garden and this venue was known as Evans Late Joys – Joy being the name of the previous owner. Other song and supper rooms included the Coal Hole in The Strand, the Cyder Cellars in Maiden Lane, Covent Garden, the music hall as we know it developed from such establishments during the 1850s and were built in and on the grounds of public houses. In a theatre, by contrast, the audience was seated in stalls, an exception to this rule was the Britannia Theatre, Hoxton which somehow managed to evade this regulation and served drinks to its customers. Though a theatre rather than a hall, this establishment hosted music hall variety acts
Theatre
The performers may communicate this experience to the audience through combinations of gesture, song and dance. Elements of art, such as painted scenery and stagecraft such as lighting are used to enhance the physicality, the specific place of the performance is named by the word theatre as derived from the Ancient Greek θέατρον, itself from θεάομαι. Modern theatre, broadly defined, includes performances of plays and musical theatre, there are connections between theatre and the art forms of ballet and various other forms. The city-state of Athens is where western theatre originated, participation in the city-states many festivals—and mandatory attendance at the City Dionysia as an audience member in particular—was an important part of citizenship. The Greeks developed the concepts of dramatic criticism and theatre architecture, Actors were either amateur or at best semi-professional. The theatre of ancient Greece consisted of three types of drama, tragedy and the satyr play, the origins of theatre in ancient Greece, according to Aristotle, the first theoretician of theatre, are to be found in the festivals that honoured Dionysus.
The performances were given in semi-circular auditoria cut into hillsides, capable of seating 10, the stage consisted of a dancing floor, dressing room and scene-building area. Since the words were the most important part, good acoustics, the actors wore masks appropriate to the characters they represented, and each might play several parts. Athenian tragedy—the oldest surviving form of tragedy—is a type of dance-drama that formed an important part of the culture of the city-state. Having emerged sometime during the 6th century BCE, it flowered during the 5th century BCE, no tragedies from the 6th century BCE and only 32 of the more than a thousand that were performed in during the 5th century BCE have survived. We have complete texts extant by Aeschylus and Euripides, the origins of tragedy remain obscure, though by the 5th century BCE it was institution alised in competitions held as part of festivities celebrating Dionysus. As contestants in the City Dionysias competition playwrights were required to present a tetralogy of plays, the performance of tragedies at the City Dionysia may have begun as early as 534 BCE, official records begin from 501 BCE, when the satyr play was introduced.
More than 130 years later, the philosopher Aristotle analysed 5th-century Athenian tragedy in the oldest surviving work of dramatic theory—his Poetics, Athenian comedy is conventionally divided into three periods, Old Comedy, Middle Comedy, and New Comedy. Old Comedy survives today largely in the form of the surviving plays of Aristophanes. New Comedy is known primarily from the papyrus fragments of Menander. Aristotle defined comedy as a representation of people that involves some kind of blunder or ugliness that does not cause pain or disaster. In addition to the categories of comedy and tragedy at the City Dionysia, finding its origins in rural, agricultural rituals dedicated to Dionysus, the satyr play eventually found its way to Athens in its most well-known form. Satyrs themselves were tied to the god Dionysus as his loyal companions, often engaging in drunken revelry
Edinburgh Festival Fringe
The Edinburgh Festival Fringe is the worlds largest arts festival, which in 2016, spanned 25 days and featured 50,266 performances of 3,269 shows in 294 venues. Established in 1947 as an alternative to the Edinburgh International Festival, it takes place annually in Edinburgh, Scotlands capital and it is an open access performing arts festival, meaning there is no selection committee, and anyone may participate, with any type of performance. The Fringe has often showcased experimental, challenging or controversial works that might not be invited to a more conservative arts festival, the Fringe board of directors is drawn from members of the Festival Fringe Society, who are often Fringe participants themselves – performers or administrators. Elections are held once a year, in August, and Board members serve a term of four years, the Board appoints the Fringe Chief Executive, who is currently Shona McCarthy and assumed the role in March 2016. The Chief Executive operates under the chair, currently Professor Sir Timothy OShea, the Fringe started life when eight theatre companies turned up uninvited to the inaugural Edinburgh International Festival in 1947.
With the official festival using the major venues, these companies took over smaller. Seven performed in Edinburgh, and one undertook a version of the morality play Everyman in Dunfermline Abbey, about 20 miles north. These groups aimed to take advantage of the large assembled theatre crowds to showcase their own alternative theatre, although at the time it was not recognised as such, this was the first Edinburgh Festival Fringe. This meant that two defining features of the future Fringe were established at the very beginning – the lack of invitations to perform. I am afraid some of us are not going to be at home during the evenings. The word fringe had in fact used in a review of Everyman in 1947. Late night revues, which would become a feature of Fringes, the first one was the New Drama Groups After The Show, a series of sketches taking place after Donald Pleasences Ebb Tide, in 1952. Among the talent to appear in early Fringe revues were Ned Sherrin in 1955, due to many reviewers only being able to attend Fringe events late night after the official festival was finished, the Fringe came to be seen as being about revues.
It was a few years before an official programme for the Fringe was created. John Menzies compiled a list of shows under the title Other Events in their omnibus festival brochure and this was funded by participating companies and was entitled Additional Entertainments, since the name Fringe was still not yet in regular usage. It used a strange cover motif, a first attempt was made to provide a central booking service in 1955 by students from the university, although it lost money, which was blamed on those who had not taken part. Formal organisation progressed in 1959, with the formation of the Festival Fringe Society, the push for such an organisation was led by Michael Imison, director of Oxford Theatre Group. A constitution was drawn up, in which the policy of not vetting or censoring shows was set out, nineteen companies participated in the Fringe in that year
Laurel and Hardy
Laurel and Hardy were a comedy double act during the early Classical Hollywood era of American cinema. The team was composed of thin Englishman Stan Laurel and heavyset American Oliver Hardy and they became well known during the late 1920s through the mid-1940s for their slapstick comedy, with Laurel playing the clumsy and childlike friend of the pompous Hardy. The duos signature tune is known variously as The Cuckoo Song, Ku-Ku and it was played over the opening credits of their films and has become as emblematic of the duo as their bowler hats. Prior to their being teamed up, both actors had well-established film careers, Laurel had appeared in over 50 films while Hardy had been in more than 250 productions. The two comedians had previously worked together as cast members on the film The Lucky Dog in 1921. However, they were not a team at that time and it was not until 1926 that they appeared in a movie short together. Laurel and Hardy officially became a team in 1927 when they appeared together in the silent short film Putting Pants on Philip and they remained with the Roach studio until 1940 and appeared in eight B movie comedies for 20th Century Fox and Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer from 1941 to 1945.
After finishing their movie commitments at the end of 1944, they concentrated on performing in shows and embarked on a music hall tour of England, Ireland. In 1950, before retiring from the screen, they made their last film and they appeared as a team in 107 films, starring in 32 short silent films,40 short sound films, and 23 full-length feature films. They made 12 guest or cameo appearances included the Galaxy of Stars promotional film of 1936. On December 1,1954, the pair made one American television appearance when they were surprised and interviewed by Ralph Edwards on his live NBC-TV program This Is Your Life. Since the 1930s, the works of Laurel and Hardy have been released in numerous theatrical reissues, television revivals, 8-mm and 16-mm home movies, feature-film compilations, in 2005, they were voted the seventh-greatest comedy act of all time by a UK poll of fellow comedians. The official Laurel and Hardy appreciation society is known as The Sons of the Desert which was named after a fictitious fraternal society featured in the Laurel, Stan Laurel was born Arthur Stanley Jefferson in Ulverston, England into a theatrical family.
His father Arthur Joseph Jefferson was an entrepreneur and theatre owner in northern England and Scotland who. Arthur Jefferson secured Laurel his first acting job with the theatrical company of Levy and Cardwell. In 1909, Laurel was employed by Britains leading comedy impresario Fred Karno as a supporting actor, Laurel said of Karno, There was no one like him. In 1912, Laurel left England with the Fred Karno Troupe to tour the United States, Laurel had expected the tour to be merely a pleasant interval before returning to London, however, he migrated to the U. S. during the trip. In 1917, Laurel was teamed with Mae Dahlberg as an act for stage and film, they were living as common law husband
Laughter
Laughter is a physical reaction in humans and some other species of primate, consisting typically of rhythmical, often audible contractions of the diaphragm and other parts of the respiratory system. It is a response to external or internal stimuli. Laughter can arise from activities as being tickled, or from humorous stories or thoughts. Most commonly, it is considered an expression of a number of positive emotional states, such as joy, happiness, relief. On some occasions, however, it may be caused by emotional states such as embarrassment, apology. Age, education and culture are all factors as to whether a person will experience laughter in a given situation. Laughter is a part of human behavior regulated by the brain, helping humans clarify their intentions in social interaction, Laughter is used as a signal for being part of a group—it signals acceptance and positive interactions with others. Laughter is sometimes seen as contagious, and the laughter of one person can itself provoke laughter from others as a positive feedback and this may account in part for the popularity of laugh tracks in situation comedy television shows.
The study of humor and laughter, and its psychological and physiological effects on the body, is called gelotology. Laughter might be thought of as an expression or appearance of excitement. It may ensue from jokes and other completely unrelated to psychological state. Laughter researcher Robert Provine said, Laughter is a mechanism everyone has, there are thousands of languages, hundreds of thousands of dialects, but everyone speaks laughter in pretty much the same way. Babies have the ability to laugh before they ever speak, children who are born blind and deaf still retain the ability to laugh. Provine argues that Laughter is primitive, an unconscious vocalization, Provine argues that it probably is genetic. They reported this even though both had been brought together by their adoptive parents, who they indicated were undemonstrative and dour. He indicates that the twins inherited some aspects of their sound and pattern, readiness to laugh. Norman Cousins developed a program incorporating megadoses of Vitamin C, along with a positive attitude, faith, hope. I made the discovery that ten minutes of genuine belly laughter had an anesthetic effect
Aristophanes
Aristophanes, son of Philippus, of the deme Kydathenaion, was a comic playwright of ancient Athens. Eleven of his forty plays survive virtually complete and these, together with fragments of some of his other plays, provide the only real examples of a genre of comic drama known as Old Comedy, and are used to define it. Also known as the Father of Comedy and the Prince of Ancient Comedy and his second play, The Babylonians, was denounced by the demagogue Cleon as a slander against the Athenian polis. In my opinion, he says through the Chorus in that play, less is known about Aristophanes than about his plays. In fact, his plays are the source of information about him. It was conventional in Old Comedy for the Chorus to speak on behalf of the author during a called the parabasis. However, these facts relate almost entirely to his career as a dramatist, Aristophanes claimed to be writing for a clever and discerning audience, yet he declared that other times would judge the audience according to its reception of his plays.
He sometimes boasts of his originality as a dramatist yet his plays consistently espouse opposition to new influences in Athenian society. He caricatured leading figures in the arts, in politics, such caricatures seem to imply that Aristophanes was an old-fashioned conservative, yet that view of him leads to contradictions. It has been argued that Aristophanes produced plays mainly to entertain the audience, an elaborate series of lotteries, designed to prevent prejudice and corruption, reduced the voting judges at the City Dionysia to just five in number. These judges probably reflected the mood of the audiences yet there is uncertainty about the composition of those audiences. The theatres were certainly huge, with seating for at least 10000 at the Theatre of Dionysus, the conservative views expressed in the plays might therefore reflect the attitudes of the dominant group in an unrepresentative audience. The production process might have influenced the views expressed in the plays, throughout most of Aristophanes career, the Chorus was essential to a plays success and it was recruited and funded by a choregus, a wealthy citizen appointed to the task by one of the archons.
Thus the political conservatism of the plays may reflect the views of the wealthiest section of Athenian society, when Aristophanes first play The Banqueters was produced, Athens was an ambitious, imperial power and the Peloponnesian War was only in its fourth year. His plays often express pride in the achievement of the older generation yet they are not jingoistic, the plays are particularly scathing in criticism of war profiteers, among whom populists such as Cleon figure prominently. However it is whether he led or merely responded to changes in audience expectations. Aristophanes won second prize at the City Dionysia in 427 BC with his first play The Banqueters and he won first prize there with his next play, The Babylonians. Some influential citizens, notably Cleon, reviled the play as slander against the polis, Cleon seems to have had no real power to limit or control Aristophanes, the caricatures of him continued up to and even beyond his death
Slapstick
Slapstick is a style of humor involving exaggerated physical activity which exceeds the boundaries of normal physical comedy. The term arises from a device developed during the broad, physical comedy style known as Commedia dellarte in 16th Century Italy, the physical slap stick remains a key component of the plot in the traditional and popular Punch and Judy puppet show. The name slapstick originates from the Italian language word batacchio or bataccio — called the stick in English — a club-like object composed of two wooden slats used in commedia dellarte. When struck, the batacchio produces a loud smacking noise, though little force transfers from the object to the person being struck, actors may thus hit one another repeatedly with great audible effect while causing very little actual physical damage. Along with the bladder, it was among the earliest special effects. Slapstick comedys history is measured in centuries, shakespeare incorporated many chase scenes and beatings into his comedies, such as in his play The Comedy of Errors.
In Punch and Judy shows, a large slapstick is wielded by Punch against the other characters, british comedians who honed their skills at pantomime and music hall sketches include Charlie Chaplin, Stan Laurel, George Formby and Dan Leno. American producer Hal Roach described Fred Karno as not only a genius and we in Hollywood owe much to him. Slapstick is common in Disneys Goofy shorts, MGMs Tom and Jerry, silent slapstick comedy was popular in early French films and included films by Max Linder and Charles Prince. In England, slapstick was an element of the Monty Python comedy troupe and in television series such as Fawlty Towers. Slapstick has remained an art form to the present day. Laughter List of slapstick comedy topics Slapstick film Comedy film Physical comedy Stage combat Schadenfreude
Spike Milligan
Terence Alan Milligan KBE was a British-Irish comedian, musician, poet and actor. The son of an Irish father and an English mother, his life was spent in India where he was born. The majority of his life was spent in the United Kingdom. He disliked his first name and began to call himself Spike after hearing a band on Radio Luxembourg called Spike Jones and his City Slickers. Milligan was the co-creator, main writer and a principal cast member of The Goon Show, performing a range of roles including the popular Eccles and Minnie Bannister characters. He is noted as a writer of comical verse, much of his poetry was written for children. He was the earliest born, longest lived and last surviving member of the Goons. Milligan was born in Ahmednagar, India, on 16 April 1918, the son of an Irish father, Captain Leo Alphonso Milligan, MSM, RA and his mother, Florence Mary Winifred Kettleband, was British. He spent his childhood in Pune and in Rangoon, capital of British Burma and he was educated at the Convent of Jesus and Mary, and at St Pauls High School, Rangoon.
On leaving school he played the cornet and discovered jazz and he joined the Young Communist League in opposition of Oswald Mosleys British Union of Fascists, who were gaining support near his home in south London. After returning from Burma, Milligan lived most of his life in the United Kingdom apart from overseas service in the British Army in the Royal Artillery during the Second World War. During the Second World War, Milligan served as a signaller in the 56th Heavy Regiment Royal Artillery, D Battery, the unit was equipped with the obsolete First World War era BL9. 2-inch howitzer and based in Bexhill on the south coast of England. The unit was re-equipped with the BL7. 2-inch howitzer and saw action as part of the First Army in the North African campaign and in the succeeding Italian campaign. Milligan was appointed lance bombardier and was about to be promoted to bombardier, subsequently hospitalised for a mortar wound to the right leg and shell shock, he was demoted by an unsympathetic commanding officer back to Gunner.
After hospitalisation, Milligan drifted through a number of military jobs in Italy, eventually becoming a full-time entertainer. He played the guitar with a jazz and comedy group called The Bill Hall Trio, after being demobilised, Milligan remained in Italy playing with the trio but returned to Britain soon after. Milligan returned to jazz in the late 1940s and made a living with the Hall trio. He was trying to break into the world of radio and his first success in radio was as writer for comedian Derek Roys show
Ed Wynn
Ed Wynn was an American actor and comedian noted for his Perfect Fool comedy character, his pioneering radio show of the 1930s, and his career as a dramatic actor. Ed Wynn was an American comedian who was born Isaiah Edwin Leopold in Philadelphia and his father, who manufactured and sold womens hats, was born in Bohemia. His mother, of Romanian and Turkish ancestry, came from Istanbul, Wynn attended Central High School in Philadelphia until age 15. Wynn began his career in vaudeville in 1903 and was a star of the Ziegfeld Follies starting in 1914, during The Follies of 1915, W. C. Fields allegedly caught Wynn mugging for the audience under the table during his Pool Room routine, in the early 1930s Wynn hosted the popular radio show The Fire Chief, heard in North America on Tuesday nights, sponsored by Texaco gasoline. I dont know, it wont go anyplace without a rattle, Wynn reprised his Fire Chief radio character in two movies, Follow the Leader and The Chief. Near the height of his fame he founded his own short-lived radio network the Amalgamated Broadcasting System.
According to radio historian Elizabeth McLeod, the venture left Wynn deep in debt and finally. Wynn was offered the role in MGMs 1939 screen adaptation of The Wizard of Oz. The part went to Frank Morgan, Ed Wynn first appeared on television on July 7,1936 in a brief, ad-libbed spot with Graham McNamee during an NBC experimental television broadcast. In the 1949-50 season, Ed Wynn hosted one of the first network, comedy-variety television shows, on CBS, buster Keaton, Lucille Ball, and The Three Stooges all made guest appearances with Wynn. Wynn was a rotating host of NBCs Four Star Revue from 1950 through 1952, after the end of Wynns third television series, The Ed Wynn Show, his son, actor Keenan Wynn, encouraged him to make a career change rather than retire. The comedian reluctantly began a career as an actor in television. Father and son appeared in three productions, the first of which was the 1956 Playhouse 90 broadcast of Rod Serlings play Requiem for a Heavyweight, Ed was terrified of straight acting and kept goofing his lines in rehearsal.
When the producers wanted to him, star Jack Palance said he would quit if they fired Ed. On live broadcast night, Wynn surprised everyone with his pitch-perfect performance, Ed and his son worked together in the Jose Ferrer film The Great Man, with Ed again proving his unexpected skills in drama. Requiem established Wynn as serious dramatic actor who could hold his own with the best. His role in The Diary of Anne Frank won him an Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actor, in 1959, Wynn appeared on Serlings TV series The Twilight Zone in One for the Angels
Film
A film, called a movie, motion picture, theatrical film or photoplay, is a series of still images which, when shown on a screen, creates the illusion of moving images due to the phi phenomenon. This optical illusion causes the audience to perceive continuous motion between separate objects viewed rapidly in succession, the process of filmmaking is both an art and an industry. The word cinema, short for cinematography, is used to refer to the industry of films. Films were originally recorded onto plastic film through a photochemical process, the adoption of CGI-based special effects led to the use of digital intermediates. Most contemporary films are now fully digital through the process of production, distribution. Films recorded in a form traditionally included an analogous optical soundtrack. It runs along a portion of the film exclusively reserved for it and is not projected, Films are cultural artifacts created by specific cultures. They reflect those cultures, and, in turn, affect them, Film is considered to be an important art form, a source of popular entertainment, and a powerful medium for educating—or indoctrinating—citizens.
The visual basis of film gives it a power of communication. Some films have become popular worldwide attractions by using dubbing or subtitles to translate the dialog into the language of the viewer, some have criticized the film industrys glorification of violence and its potentially negative treatment of women. The individual images that make up a film are called frames, the perception of motion is due to a psychological effect called phi phenomenon. The name film originates from the fact that film has historically been the medium for recording and displaying motion pictures. Many other terms exist for a motion picture, including picture, picture show, moving picture, photoplay. The most common term in the United States is movie, while in Europe film is preferred. Terms for the field, in general, include the big screen, the screen, the movies, and cinema. In early years, the sheet was sometimes used instead of screen. Preceding film in origin by thousands of years, early plays and dances had elements common to film, sets, production, actors, storyboards, much terminology used in film theory and criticism apply, such as mise en scène.
Owing to the lack of any technology for doing so, the moving images, the magic lantern, probably created by Christiaan Huygens in the 1650s, could be used to project animation, which was achieved by various types of mechanical slides
