A good old singsong
Sat 16 May marks another Music Hall and Variety Day – and, as the nation’s longest-running music hall, City Varieties Music Hall certainly has some stories to tell. We’ve covered costumes and the rise of Barney Colehan on our blog before but, for today’s occasion, we figured it was about time for a singalong…
Written by Aaron Cawood. Image credits West Yorkshire Archive Service and the British Music Hall Society
It all starts with a song
Since The Varieties is a heritage venue, you’d be forgiven for thinking that it has always been a glamorous theatre complete with circles, balconies and plush seats. Before then, even before it featured pit stalls, The Varieties’ seedling was… just a room.
Song-and-supper rooms were a symptom of an evolving entertainment scene across Britain in the 19th century. With theatre and music providing respite to the upper classes, the lower classes built a social culture with less rules – song-and-supper rooms were louder, more improvised, and encouraged attendees to blur the line between audience members and performers.
After all, who doesn’t love a singsong?
So, whether it was formalised song-and-supper rooms, or travelling musicians invited to perform in taverns, pubs were finding a way to compete with more exclusive forms of entertainment. A move was being made by communities to creates spaces individual from ‘theatre’ as it was understood at the time – and it was so successful that the 1843 Theatres Act gave local governments more freedom to license theatres under less formal grounds.
The ‘singing room’ that had been added above The Swan Inn in 1766 was an indication of the change as it began to flourish. And it was the interest in more established spaces, and the aforementioned Theatres Act, that allowed Charles Thornton to renovate the room, reopening it in 1865 as Thornton’s New Music Hall and Fashionable Lounge – which is when the theatre started to look similar to what we know today.
Looking back, it feels like a very organic evolution of entertainment. From pubs, to pubs with performers, to punters singing around a piano, to singing rooms, to song-and-supper rooms, to music halls. And, since it all started with a singsong, its no surprise that singalongs became a hallmark of variety performance.
A singalong at The Good Old Days
The Good Old Days
The music of The Good Old Days
A songsheet from The Good Old Days
From old songsheets from BBC’s The Good Old Days, we can see which songs stood the test of time in variety spaces. Down At The Old Bull And Bush, Where Did You Get That Hat, I Do Like to Be Beside the Seaside – songs that, even now, would get a large portion of our audience’s toes tapping. So, where did those iconic ditties come from?
In 1903, Anheuser-Busch brewing company (who you might know today for Budweiser and Stella Artois) had a song produced titled Under the Anheuser Bush, to be sang in beer gardens and based on traditional German folk music. This feels an odd place to start, but it would be later in the song’s history that a version was adapted for variety artist Florrie Forde.
Florrie was a singer who saw great success in the music hall scene of Britain in the 1900s, and a performer who was no stranger to The Varieties, performing in our first ever Good Old Days in 1953. Her version of the beer anthem is what we know today as Down At The Old Bull And Bush – named after a pub in London.
With older roots, Where Did You Get That Hat was first performed in New York in 1888. It would come to be iconic on the British music hall scene quickly, with the prolific George Robey taking it under his wing – a performer known to have graced the stage of the Empire in Leeds, a theatre which once stood where Harvey Nichols now stands. Its lyrics are tied up in the parlance of the time – ‘nobby’, an adjective describing something representative of wealth, and ‘tile’, slang for a hat in the sense that tiles sit on the roofs of buildings.
George Carney
Mark Sheridan was a performer who, like Florrie Forde, was familiar with City Varieties Music Hall. It might be the most famous of the aforementioned tunes, but it was Mark Sheridan who first popularised the unforgettable I Do Like to Be Beside the Seaside, recording it in 1909 and performing it across the music hall circuit. An indicator of trips to the seaside being in fashion for the working class, with train travel for the everyman only properly coming in during the 1870s. For that reason, train travel is referenced directly in the song; “Soon he reached the station there, the first thing he espied / Was the Wine Lodge door stood open invitingly.” It’s no surprise the song was a resounding hit – with music hall culture having come from a working class desire to see more, experience more, and be entertained away from their everyday lives, the song itself speaks to the same desire. And those audiences may have liked to be beside the seaside but, undoubtedly, they liked to be beside the piano as well.
Now, it’s your turn…
If this throwback to The Good Old Days has left you craving a singsong at City Varieties Music Hall, you’re in luck! Variety icon Jan Hunt returns to our stage in September with a joyous evening of entertainment – The Magnificent Music Hall. Chaired by Mr Richard Gauntlett, the show is set the bring the entirely singular magic of music hall back to our stage, where it belongs, once more.
Sat 19 September 2026
Let us take you on a gloriously nostalgic trip back to the golden days of traditional music hall and variety. For your ‘delight and delectation’ this talented company offer song, dance, magic and laughter as they pay tribute once again to the many great stars who appeared on one of BBC’s longest-running series, The Good Old Days.
Book now
City Varieties Music Hall Building Fund
The City Varieties Music Hall is the gem in Leeds’ crown. As the city’s oldest theatre, we want to ensure that Britain’s longest, continuously operating music hall is here for future generations, making it more accessible, sustainable, and comfortable. All donations will be fully invested in the building and equipment and will enhance your experience as a customer.
