Tag Archives: Carl Hyson

Cabaret

The Cabaret Follies

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The Cabaret Follies 

When Jack Hylton’s Cabaret Follies show made its debut in London in the autumn of 1922 it was one of four big cabaret shows that made a Brighter London, the others being located at the Grafton Galleries (Midnight Revels), Murray’s Club (Murray’s Frolics) and the Hotel Metropole (the Midnight Follies). At first its status and popularity amongst London’s high society was unassailable, but when Jack Hylton relinquished control at the end of 1923, it floundered and ceased to be by the summer of 1924.

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Venues

The Queen’s Hall Roof

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The Queen’s Hall Roof

One of the more short-lived but nevertheless important dancing and cabaret venues in London in the Jazz Age was that of the Queen’s Hall Roof. As its name implied, it was in the roof of the magnificent Queen’s Hall in Langham Place, Regent Street, one of London’s landmarks. Designed by Thomas Knightley, the Queen’s Hall was London’s premier concert hall that opened in 1893 catering for an audience of 2,500.

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Cabaret

New Princes Frivolities First and Second Editions

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New Princes Frivolities First and Second Edtions

The first cabaret show at the New Princes Restaurant in Piccadilly was staged in February 1924 and became a regular feature of London’s Jazz Age nightlife for many years to come as the New Princes Frivolities.

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Venues

Princes Restaurant,  Piccadilly, London

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Princes Restaurant, Piccadilly, London

The Princes Restaurant and Hotel at 190-195 Piccadilly, London was created in the late 19th century and in 1924 became a Limited company retitled New Princes (Ltd). It combined a hotel with an entertainment hall or restaurant, galleries and other function rooms. In the Jazz Age of the 1920s it was one of the most popular social rendezvous in London and one of London’s major cabaret venues for the New Princes Frivolities.

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Personalities

The Tragedy of May Vivian

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The Tragedy of May Vivian

May Vivian (1903-1924) was a vivacious actress and dancer who had just made a name for herself in London cabaret and was destined for bright things, but her life was cut short when, with all the dramatic intensity of a film tragedy, she was shot dead in the Spring of 1924 by a jealous suitor in the South of France.

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Dancing Duos

Moss and Fontana

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Moss and Fontana

Marjorie Moss and Georges Fontana were the most graceful and sought after British dancing duo in the Jazz Age. They secured high praise in London and Paris in the 1920s before conquering New York in the late 1920s and were regarded by some as ‘the greatest pair of dancers since the Vernon Castles.’

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Personalities

Bee Jackson and the Charleston

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Bee Jackson and ‘Hey! Hey! Charleston’

The blond and vivacious Bee Jackson was described as the Charleston Queen and was certainly one of the more prominent advocates of the dance in America and Europe but did not ‘invent’ the dance itself. In the midst of a brilliant, international career she died tragically in her mid twenties.

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Venues

The Classy Ciro’s Restaurant Chain

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The Classy Ciro’s Restaurant Chain

Among European high society Ciro’s became an institution and perhaps the first classy restaurant chain in Europe with main branches in Monte Carlo, Paris, London and Biarritz. Each venue was regarded as far more than a restaurant but the very centre of fashionable life.

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