A chance find of a page of adverts from the Music Hall and Theatre Review made me wonder how much we could glean of the performers’ lives from the persuavise proclamations. Did they believe the claims or take them with a pinch of salt? Let’s have a look at the mundane and the magnificent.

In many of the postcards of music hall artistes they are not smiling, or they’re smiling with closed mouths as their teeth were not in a good state. Help was at hand from the People’s Teeth Association who offered single teeth and dainty teeth sets for actresses with teeth sets available from £1.

The life of the music hall performer was a wearing one, often rushing from hall to hall and travelling long distances to the next booking with costumes and props. The advertisers were keen to help them look their best, however tired, and one way to pep up their appearance was with cheek plumpers. These were supplied by E. Rowland, hygiene and toilet specialists.

There were businesses supplying wigs to the profession but it seems not all wigs were equal. A small advert placed by Bird, 8 Lower Marsh, Lambeth claimed to be the cheapest house for all kind of wigs – also selling props, vento figures and animal dresses. A rather Dickensian feel to that one. C. Holz, on the other hand, used only the very best hair for ladies wigs and stocked good burlesque wigs at moderate prices. Here is Miss Fossett, burlesque actress.

W. Clarkson, who seems to have been the champion wig maker, boasted of being a ‘Wig-Maker of all the Principal Ladies and Gentlemen in the Profession and Costumier to Misses Harriet Vernon, Vesta Tilley, Marie Lloyd and others.’ The Arthur Lloyd site has some interesting information on the man and his business. http://www.arthurlloyd.co.uk/Backstage/ClarksonWigs.htm

H.& M. Rayne supplied a large range of theatrical goods including costumes, tights, boots, shoes and symmetricals. Symmetricals were padded tights to give the wearer shapely hips and calves and a more voluptuous figure. Performers who could not afford Rayne’s symmetricals could make their own from cotton wool and a pair of tights. Kitty Lord, eccentric English singer, is almost certainly wearing symmetricals in this photo. For the less adventurous, Reid’s sold best worsted tights at seven shillings a pair or three pairs for twenty shillings.

Songwriters advertised their skills, often in a rather terse manner as we can see from Frank Leo’s advertisement.

My favourite advert is for a complete Pierrot costume available from Gamages. Based on the wistful figure of Pierrot from pantomime, these more robust entertainers appeared over many years in concert parties, on beach stages and at the end of the pier. All male troupes gave way to mixed groups of men and women wearing the conical hat and white top and trousers decorated with black pom-poms. Here are Catlin’s Scarborough Pierrots.

There are many more adverts for boarding houses (good cooking), photographic studios (with style and distinction) and tricycles (extreme comfort, no vibration) giving us an insight into the performers who scoured the pages to improve their working lives.

Thanks to the British Newspaper Archive, Arthur Lloyd, Monomania collection.