London in my Time by Thomas Burke

The fading of the music-hall from the London scene, which I regretted earlier, has been in process for some years. Vaudeville is still not wholly gone, but it is no longer a natural part of the furniture of the people's recreation. It began to suffer a change with the American invasion of 1909 and the substitution of flaring and blaring revues for the native man-to-man appeal. It suffered a distinct set-back when, a little later, the movies made their crashing assault upon the threepences and sixpences of the poorer people. And when the twentieth century began in 1920, it seemed to be doomed. It may come back to us, but it can never come back in its old style and spirit. The life and character and scene which it represented are gone. The types, both high and low, which it ridiculed are gone. Red noses and eccentric costume are no longer in favour. Humour, for the time being, has had to give way to wit.

The music-hall which I knew in the nineteen-noughts could not have stayed long with us, since it was, like many other London features which have only lately gone, a hang-over from the nineteenth century. It was the comic spirit of an age, and when that age passed it, too, had to pass. It had to give way to a new and younger kind of entertainment--lighter, thinner, more polished, more conscious of itself. The concert form of entertainment, centring round a dress-suit and a piano, or a dance-band and a drilled chorus. Cabaret is the expression of the present age, and it serves it as aptly as music-hall served the past age. Music- hall was but one of many hang-overs. Comic journalism also remained for some time definitely of the past century, and lingered on in the form of Pick-me-up, Judy, Ally Sloper, Scraps, Moonshine, Sketchy Bits, Photo Bits. The spirit of these journals was the spirit of the old halls, and that there is still a public reverting to that spirit is shown by the success of the English Razzle and the American Ballyhoo, which are sort of nephews of those journals.