ABSTRACT
If the 1912 Royal Command Performance signalled the end of music hall, the July 1919 Royal Command Variety Performance, held to celebrate peace, may be said to signal the beginning of variety. The variety theatres were almost all part of major circuits controlled by companies such as Moss Empires, Oswald Stoll, the provincial Variety Theatres Controlling Company, London Theatres of Variety and Syndicate Halls. Among the early comedians in variety were Tommy Handley, later famous on the radio; Tom Foy, a put-upon innocent in an alien world; Tommy Morgan, the Glasgow ‘ba-faced’ comic with his own show seen all over Scotland; and Billy Bennett, in his evening suit and hob-nailed boots, spouting weird, offbeat poetry in his fruity voice. Most interesting was the mixed genre, cine-variety, which had been introduced before the First World War, but which now came into its own – short films and variety turns interspersed, with a small stage in front of the cinema screen.
