Oops! My mistake yesterday I managed to post next week's edtion of Footlight Notes (i.e. for the week ending 27 December) instead of this coming week's. I have now rectified this, so early visitors will have a 'double dose', so to speak.
With all good wishes for Christmas and the New Year.
JC

A visitor to Footlight Notes, in whose e-mail address there appears to be an error, has written asking about Dame May Whitty. My reply is as follows:
Many thanks for signing my Footlight Notes Guestbook and for your enquiry regarding Dame May Whitty.
Yes, May Whitty and Dame May Whitty are one and the same person. Her stage career began, I believe, in England in the late 1880s; she was married to the well-known English actor manager, Ben Webster; and was awarded the DBE in 1918.
According to the Internet Movie Database (http://us.imdb.com/name/nm0926599/), May Whitty began her film career in 1914, although she only became a familiar screen presence after the advent of the talkies, in the 1930s and 1940s. She died at the age of 83 in 1948.
I hope that will be of interest. - JC

Richard Bonehill has recently published the fruits of ongoing research into his famous kinswoman, the celebrated British music hall artist, Bessie Bonehill. In 'England's Gem', The Story of Bessie Bonehill, Richard celebrates Bessie's life and times during a forty year career that began in the 1860s. He describes his book, which has a selection of illustrations taken from rare original photographs and song sheets, as 'a work in progress.' Be that as it may, no one with an interest in the music hall or one of its finest performers should be without this fascinating volume.
Copies of 'England's Gem' are available direct from Richard Bonehill who may be contacted via his Web site.

Now that my house move has been accomplished (my sanity more or less intact), I've been surfing the Internet for a little light relief. I stumbled upon The University of Washington Libraries Digital Collections' wonderful 19th Century Actors Carte-de-visite Collection, which is well worth a visit. It comprises black and white scans of no less than 610 cartes-de-visite studio portraits of entertainers, actors and actresses who performed on the American stage from the 1850s to the 1880s. Link. JC

I've been racing to keep up the new postings for Footlight Notes, as well as dealing with a backlog of e-mail enquiries. The latter, especially, have suffered, for which I apologise; and visitors to the site might notice that some of the weekly updates have appeared in the past, albeit with added information. The truth of the matter is that my wife and I are about (fingers crossed!) to move house and half our possessions are already packed. Buying and selling houses in England is far from easy - the system is not only antiquated but every 'improvement' the Government puts into effect seems to make it more and more complicated! Add to that 18th century-minded legal people one is forced to deal with and the whole enterprise drags on and on and on.... So, please bear with me until the chaos subsides. Meanwhile, I hope you will keep visiting Footlight Notes, and don't forget to write although it may take a little time for me to reply. JC

Tony Barker, doyen of British Music Hall historians, has recently added the Irish comedian Michael Nolan and the composer George Le Brunn to his list of celebrities. Click here further details with a list of other subjects featured in Tony's Music Hall Magazine.

Working on next week's edition of Footlight Notes, I was reminded of Dan Nixon's interesting Web site, which is devoted to rare cylinder recordings. He has posted a number of these of once popular music hall artists, including Whit Cunliffe, Vesta Tilley, Billy Merson, Victoria Monks, Sam Mayo and the Florrie Forde. All are well worth listening to. Dan has also made useful links to the sites of several other cylinder enthusiasts, some of whom, like Tony Barker, Julian Myerscough, Bill Clark and Norman Bruderhofer, have issued many hitherto unavailable cylinder recordings on CD. The quality of these transfers is astonishingly good, particularly in view of the fact that most of the original material was cut more than eighty years ago.

I hear from Terence Pepper at the National Portrait Gallery, London, that he plans to display a further selection of prints from the Gallery's collection of Bassano negatives at the end of April, 2004. The subjects will all be theatrical.
Bassano, one of the leading portrait photographers in London in the late Victorian and Edwardian period, included many actors and actresses among its sitters. Much of their stock was used by the Press and postcard publishers.
For further details and some images, see:
http://www.npg.org.uk/live/phothold.asp
and
http://www.npg.org.uk/live/bassano.asp

Should anyone wish to contibute to Footlight Notes I would be delighted to hear from you. Please contact me at jculme@aol.com. Thanks. John Culme, Footlight Notes.

Take a look at this wonderful new site: PeoplePlay UK (http://www.peopleplayuk.org/default.php), maintained by the Victoria & Albert Museum's Theatre Museum, with hundreds of images from its collection.