Author: catherinedoveyroche

Back in the summer I was busy putting together a film about the music hall stars buried in Abney Park Cemetery. It was made as a fund-raiser for Abney Park Trust. Like so many other small charities, the Trust has been hit by the pandemic which forced a stop to their normal fund-raising activities. So instead of all the walks and talks, plays, concerts and community fairs, they have been creating a wealth of material on-line.

The film was presented on-line at the end of September, and is now available to watch via this link. It was enthusiastically received by local people, not-so-local people and music hall aficionados. Nellie Power gets a big mention (that’s her in the picture).

Kennington Bioscope continues to provide silent film fare online with piano accompaniment. This Wednesday, 30^thSeptember at 7.30, you can hear my underscoring for one of the 4 short films. Mine’s about water beetles – all very instructive, and just the thing for budding entomologists. 7 minutes of insect info and sub-aqua fun, including a life-and-death tussle with a newt. Remember, you read it here first… The other films feature Hollywood stars on their days off, Roman lions giving all-out performances, and a morphing dog baffling the constabulary. Tickets via the Kennington Bioscope website.

Previous episodes are available on YouTube

A ‘real’ gig at last! Barry Cryer did his ‘Strictly Come Joking’ at the Bath Comedy Festival on Saturday 19^th September to a socially-distanced audience of 60 or so in the Widcombe Social Club, which normally holds 180. They were very responsive and Barry was on excellent form, still giving full value and leaving them wanting more. He did a half-hour Q & A afterwards in which I encouraged him to do some of his impersonations – he does a fine Ken Dodd, Tommy Cooper and others. A really enjoyable show from both sides of the footlights. A pity there are no more Cryer dates in the diary…

I accompanied a silent film for Kennington Bioscope online, which was shown on Wednesday 19^th August. The film dates from 1909, and was made by Eclipse films in Paris. ‘Une partie de tandem’ is hair-raising: the stunts are all real, of course, and the husband and ‘wife’ – a man cross-dressed – must have incurred many cuts and bruises and possibly worse in the making of the film. It’s only about 5 minutes long, but they pack as many different ways of coming to grief on two shared wheels as possible. Presumably the wife is played by a man because Eclipse assumed no woman would be prepared to take the knocks and risks. History doesn’t record whether any women were approached…

You can watch the film here

Abney Park cemetery has buried within its peaceful wooded glades several music hall performers of note (Nelly Power, George Leybourne and Albert Chevalier among them), so I invited some friends to join me in celebrating these players in a fundraising film for the Abney Park Trust.

Colette Kelly, Peter John, Niall Weir and Phoebe Weir all contributed either from their research or with their singing voices. Other chums gave me invaluable background history to the period, the genre and the performers. The film, running at about 40 minutes, is ready for editing and assembling, and should be on YouTube later this month.

Link to follow!