I’ll see you for Souper at the Alhambra, Leicester Square. 1899 #MHVD2025 #MHVD

It’s Music Hall & Variety Day 🎭🎉 #MHVD #MusicHall @musichallsociety.bsky.social

Lily Burnand was a music hall comedienne well know for comedy songs. She enjoyed a day out when not working and was an enthusiastic coachist. Was she driving? July 1906 her coach trip to Box Hill from her ‘charming residence’ on Loughboro’ Road was reported in the The Era. #MusicHallMonday

Blanche’s sister, Lilian, was another acrobat, performing with family till she formed the glass pyramid acrobatic act, Victoria and Ramoo with her husband Alf. A bit here by @legmania.bsky.social about them www.layersoflondon.org/map/records/... #IWD2025 #musichall 2/4

As those who know my posts from ‘the other place’ I have been a keen observer of the sub-category #MusicHallTeeth Here’s a clipping from the Music Hall & Theatre Review Aug 1906- The People’s Teeth Association, ‘Dainty Teeth for Actresses’ 🦷#MusicHallMonday

It’s #MusicHallMonday. Time for another selection of #MusicHall programmes 1895-1905. There’s a bit of competition for moustache of the week. @musichallsociety.bsky.social @youngalison.bsky.social @roadsw9.bsky.social @intothelimelight.bsky.social

Let's do this. Perhaps go to a music hall. @frankmatchamsoc.bsky.social @musichallsociety.bsky.social #theatre #MusicHall

Fantastic start yesterday to 1st European Circus History Conference yesterday with a walk to visit Astley’s Amphitheatre and Hughes Royal Circus sites. #circus #circushistory

As the 1st European Circus History Conference takes place this weekend, as a nod to that, for #SheetMusicSaturday here is the Hippodrome March by Theo. Bonheur feat. an equestrian show in the ring #MusicHall #circus

It's raining in London today but the forecast is sunny for Friday and the Birth of the Circus walk! The speakers' presentations are arriving and look amazing. There are a handful of tickets left for the 1st European Circus History Conference so join us if you can circusconference.org. #c18th #c19th

The 1890s Alhambra Theatre programmes were stylishly simple on the outside but had everything going on inside. #MusicHallMonday #MusicHall

#musichallmonday Music Hall Starter Pack reminder! 🔔 Great folk to follow for all your Music Hall requirements!🎶 🥾🎭 go.bsky.app/B9UJdQY

How many ‘handsome’ cigar/cigarette/card cases did the #MusicHall profession dole out? 125 years ago #OTD The Era recorded these two #MusicHallMonday

It is a revelation @victurk that Brixton baths were advertised as both ladies & gents where others were gents only or ladies only. Thanks

These are the ones. Opened, with plunge pool, by Earle Bird on 22 Oct 1892. Bought by Hy Wm Rance c.1900 who sold it to the amazing William Cooper in 1910. He added others to form the Savoy Baths chain. He initiated use of betowelled gentleman who appeared on London signs & sandwich-boards. 🗃️ #19thc

I see see and raise you the magnificent Alhambra with the icky red Bartholomew’s baths in Leicester Square #MusicHall ❤️ #TurkishBaths

Here are the Turkish Baths in Leicester Square, pre-1872

Not seen that before—thanks for sharing. I have used 1st image below because the lettering shows clearly, & when the baths caught fire on 10 August 1930, the life of one of the attendants, Miss Evans, was saved when she hung onto a letter till the fire brigade rescued her. 🗃️ #MusicHall #TurkishBaths

Music Halls and Victorian #TurkishBaths don't seem to go together very often. I wonder if this will do?

Well hello @victurk.bsky.social Here are the Stamboul Turkish baths just across from Brixton Empress #MusicHall and nearby Brixton theatre. Who knew we had so much in common 🎭 @musichallsociety.bsky.social @youngalison.bsky.social

'Gallery of the Old Bedford' (c.1895) by Walter Sickert (Walker Art Gallery)

For #MusicHallMonday, here’s a later 1937 Variety Artistes’ Federation membership card (biro for scale) with subscription stamps and death levy stamps!

Have a look at the new blog post at intothelimelight.org featuring Maggie Duggan. Hope you like it. @musichallsociety.bsky.social

#MusicHallMonday More #MusicHall programmes. The Ardwick Empire, Manchester 1918, with photo of Oswald Stoll, the Australian born theatre manager who founded the Stoll Moss group; the Shepherds Bush Empire 1907, another Stoll theatre, & the Lewisham Hippodrome, 1911

#MusicHallMonday a gaggle of music hall burial plots at Lambeth Cemetery. Sadly few headstones. Plan shows 3 Water Rats plots. Memorial stone to Burford, Medley, Coyne and Booker. No headstones for Le Brunn, Le Clerq and others in Rats plots. JW and Amanda Cragg with headstone nearby. 1/2

#MusicHallMonday 1903.The Royal Holborn Theatre of Varieties & The Middlesex Music Hall #MusicHall

Some Music Hall programmes for #MusicHallMonday The vibrant colours and paper quality of the late 19th century changed as WW1 neared. #MusicHall #NineteenthCentury

For #musichallmonday a programme for The Paragon on Mile End Road from the excellent ‘Cockney Rebels’ exhibition at Tower Hamlets Local History Library & Archive #musichall

Anyone know if it is by design or coincidence that the Coade stone lion, that originally topped a nearby brewery, now faces the site of the first circus, Astley’s Amphitheatre, on London’s Southbank? #MondayMusings as circusconference.org approaches.

Carte de visite of unknown pantomime performer. @roadsw9.bsky.social @legmania.bsky.social @thevicsoc.bsky.social

'Piccadilly - Looking West (After Rain)' by Frederic Marlett Bell-Smith (1846-1923) (Private collection)

Driscoll House, a landmark building in Old Kent Road built in 1913, was known as Ada Lewis Women’s Lodging House and provided accommodation for the many young women arriving in London to work. Ada Lewis, a wealthy widow, died in 1906 and bequeathed money to build this and other similar hostels.

The Christmas tree has arrived on Trafalgar Square! It's a gift to the people of London from the people of Oslo. A tree has been given annually since 1947. Thank you our Norwegian friends 🇳🇴 🎄

'London by Night in the Coronation Year of George The Fifth' (1911) by Fortunino Matania (Private collection)

Check out the awesome speakers and range of events at the 1st European Circus History Conference, in London, Fri 28/2 – Sun 2/3 2025. It focuses on the early evolution of European circus and its disciplines, c1760s – 1860s. Please spread the word! circusconference.org

Just because I miss some good images on here. Entry to The Strand from Charing Cross, plate twenty from Original Views of London as It Is (1842) - Thomas Shotter Boys (English, 1803-1874). Art Institute Chicago

Between you and I, Paris Musées have 372,542 rights-free images you can simply download, at hi-res, and use as you choose. Isn’t that just brilliant and please can UK institutions emulate them?

1/2 Katie Seymour popular actress/’skirt dancer’ played many London theatres inc. Gaiety 1880s/90s. Toured US where she was first woman booked for speeding in NYC. Lived #Kennington Road with family 1991, later lived Burton Road #Brixton. On tour in S Africa 1903, she suffered renal failure ...

'A London Breakfast', Kensington (1935) by Nora Heysen (Private collection)

#Brixton was a popular place for music hall performers to live & adverts for accommodation there were often aimed at ‘The Profession.’ An advert from The Era in 1906 for a house in Brixton Hill lists Vesta Tilley as a previous occupier to make it more desirable #MusicHall #LocalHistory #SouthLondon

Are you London & interested in women’s place in early 20th century entertainment? Then you’re most welcome to join me on a guided walk in Islington. December 7th. 11am & 2.30pm There may be songs… Details here: linktr.ee/BlueFireThea...

'The Singer in Pink.' (1895) Like his close friend Edgar Degas, Jean-Louis Forain drew extensively from the world of entertainment, finding intriguing subjects amongst the spectators at the operas, concerts, and lively sporting events which took place around Paris in the last years of the 19thC.

Good morning! This week's theme is London Homes. ----- 'Good Morning, Muswell Hill' (2014) by Nessie Ramm nessieramm.co.uk

In 2021 this photo of a rare survival of a once-common feature - a Victorian fern/window case in Bath - in a post in The Other Place, got over 2,000 likes. Somehow, I don't think that will happen again, but it shows the sort of thing featured in my books 'Fern Fever' and 'The Victorian Fern Craze'.

It’s lovely to get back on the bus and see so many old friends here.

📣Are there any 19th C researchers, writers, artists, out there exploring Circus, Music Hall, performative costume, animals, fairgrounds, menageries etc? Feeling in need of a cosy book & chat nook. Trying to rebuild old 🐦 X days when things were fresh & open & opportunities came my way 😃🎪🎠 🎭

Just arrived over from the other place. Happy days