Wed 5 Aug: "I live in Trafalgar Square"
How the lyrics of late Victorian and Edwardian music hall songs offer snapshots of the life of the period at different levels of society.
August's Morris Room Talk is a little different .. not least because it's not in the Morris Room!
The audience in a music hall ranged all the way from the poor in the gallery to the rich in the front stalls. The best songs portrayed, with wry humour, dramas that different members of the audience would recognise for themselves or for their neighbours in different parts of the house.
The rich young man bankrupting himself out of hopeless love for a chorus girl (“She was one of the early birds ...”); the couple who can’t pay the rent and do a midnight flit (“My old man said follow the van ...”); keeping up appearances (“I’m Bert, Bert, I haven’t a shirt …”).
Geoffrey Strachan will introduce and sing the first verse of eight music hall songs ranging from 1890 to 1919, inviting the audience to join in every chorus. The talk will last 75 minutes, including an interval.
One of a series of talks in which Charlbury residents share their interests & enthusiasms (the next, about Market Towns, will be on September 3rd).
7.00 pm in the Garden Room (entry to the left of the Memorial Hall), with refreshments from 6.30 pm. Entry free; donations invited.