This thesis will examine the importance of variety theatre in the development of popular culture and how changes in the social and cultural climate in post-war Britain were reflected and influenced by this industry. It will assess how the performance spaces, performers, and structures were instrumental in the establishment of large-scale cultural industries. Music hall and variety were something of a prototype for modern popular culture and in turn a testing ground for new technological and entertainment ideas. The focus for this analysis will be records and materials from the major chains, Moss Empires and the Stoll Group, that exercised control of the variety business as part of a syndicate of powerful parties. There will be a particular focus on comedy and how comedians and comic performance were integrated into variety during this turbulent time for the industry.
The first section will examine the growing literature and historiography of the field. This will include using the analysis that Peter Bailey has applied to the Victorian Music Hall and specifically his concept of ‘knowingness’ It will also look at how variety fits into different concepts of media and cultural theory. There will be a focus on ideas of youth and Americanisation. Alongside an examination of key ideas about comedy and humour theory.
Then it will assess the origins of variety in the Victorian music hall. This will be followed by an evaluation of the relationship between these origins and the state of the industry in the post-war years. These years were still prosperous times that had strong links to the traditions of variety, but just as variety had handled the challenge and incorporated cinema into its marketing and format (cine-variety), there were new technological tests. Radio had emerged as the dominant medium during World War Two, and variety had to harness this popularity and compete with cinema with resurgent audiences freed from wartime restrictions.
The second section will look at the challenges of increasing American influence that had been growing since the start of the twentieth century. This will include the demand for Hollywood glamour and the burgeoning influence of major record labels marketing their new individual acts as opposed to big bands to British audiences. This presented many challenges to the set format of variety. Record labels spent the early 1950s refining the modern pop star. This was followed by the rapid progress of the British recording industry. Variety adapted quite well to the innovations from record labels but then had to handle the demographic shift that followed, with musical styles aimed squarely at youth audiences, teen idols, rock and roll, and skiffle.
The third section will look at the cultural developments that undermined variety even when they were integrated into the marketing and composition of bills. Television provided a visual competitor to variety that used many of its performers and sometimes its format but was available at home. Conversely, the nude shows of the late 1950s were problematic for the family ethos of variety, despite being profitable for their promoters.
