The Good Old Days

This is a genre of concerts whose popularity waxes and wanes with the years, and I hadn’t seen an Old Time Music Hall concert for some time - It was worth the wait. There was colour, humour and liveliness from the very opening numbers.

There were several sections, each with a separate theme including war time, cockney, regional songs and monologues as well as out and out music hall songs - each section affording ample opportunity for soloists and duets. Costumes were appropriate to each different theme, and changes between scenes were in general covered by a juvenile troupe of dancers from the Kathleen Knox dance school. These dances were well performed and indeed well appreciated by the audience.

The pace of the concert rarely faltered with most songs blending into the next – mainly down to the excellent accompaniment on piano by Brian Pennick.

Douglas Shearer was Master of Ceremonies with his scripted, but nevertheless subtle humour, and the inevitable baffling vocabulary. It was Douglas who had the unenviable task of being ‘narrator’ of the Victorian Melodrama with ten characters, which involved telling the story in the most cringe-worthy of verse with contrived rhymes.

Sound and Lighting were more than acceptable and the venue lent itself admirably to a concert such as this, both in style and size.

The afternoon ended with the MC thanking all ‘but chiefly yourselves’ as it closed on the most traditional of finales “Old Bull and Bush”

A most splendiferous performance by all concerned

© NODA CIO. All rights reserved.