With Sheridan Smith soon to reprise her starring role as Fanny Brice in the record-breaking musical Funny Girl, Hippodrome Heritage archivist and all-round theatre expert Ivan Heard treats us to a potted history of the many and marvellous female comediennes who have graced the Hippodrome stage across the years.

For many years there was a question in the male-dominated world of Variety – can women be funny? They could be witty in sketches or Revue but could they easily do the sort of stand-up comedy, in which jokes seemed to come more comfortably from men? The Hippodrome’s nearly 120 years of entertainment have belied these assumptions, with a long line of ‘funny ladies’ on our stage.

Indeed, on the opening night of the Tivoli Theatre of Varieties on 20 Aug 1900, one of the artistes was Miss Dot Hetherington – “serio-comedienne and dancer”. This meant that her routine was part serious/part comedy, drawing inspiration from the ups and downs of her personal life and working class background that her audience could readily identify with.

A white book-fold flyer printed in red and blue ink advertising the Houston Sisters in a new joyous frolic entitled ‘More Dam Things’, presented by Tom Arnold.

A similar comedienne first appeared here on the bill that marked the Tivoli being re-named Hippodrome in Oct 1903. This was Vesta Victoria – “the Vesta that will strike anywhere” (after the matches, of course!). Mysteriously, one of her song hits was Look What Percy’s Picked Up in the Park! – clearly you had to be there! Other hits were Waiting at the Church and Daddy Wouldn’t Buy Me a Bow Wow.

A frequent visitor from her first time here in 1911 was Glasgow-born Nellie Wallace – “the Essence of Eccentricity”. She performed “low comedy”, emphasising her unusual physical features which were much later described as being a cross between the Duke of Wellington and Ken Dodd! Her comedy comprised grotesque characterisation, in which her great talent could convey humour by the mere lifting of an eyebrow or a contemptuous sniff. One of her hit songs was My Mother Said Always Look Under the Bed – in case there was a man there!

The big female star in the 1930s was Gracie Fields, at the time the highest paid woman in British show business. Much of her humour came from her down-to-earth personality and in her hit songs such as The Biggest Aspidistra in the World, which was her best-selling record in 1938. Gracie did not do stand-up jokes but her success came naturally from her working class roots in Rochdale – no pretensions or what she called “swank” – and her magnificent singing voice. Her last appearance at the Hippodrome was in Jan 1938.

Some comediennes came here as part of a duo, including the Scottish-born Houston Sisters, who portrayed naughty children. Their first time at the Hippodrome was in Aug 1926, when they were lodging in theatrical digs in Edgbaston. One day, Renee Houston was sitting in the window of the guest house when she spotted a good-looking young man at the door. She rushed to open it and introduced herself to the very shy and embarrassed young man, who turned out to be Laurence Olivier, then at the start of a two-year stint at Birmingham Repertory Theatre.

Advert postcard featuring the performance stars Elsie and Doris Walters known as ‘Gert and Daisy.’ The pair performed at Birmingham Hippodrome in the late 1930s during November.

Friendly Cockney voices helped to carry Hippodrome audiences through WW2 in the persons of another duo of sisters – Elsie and Doris Waters, with their charlady characters Gert and Daisy. First appearing here in 1933, they came another fourteen times until 1955. They too were “one of us”, with gossip about Daisy’s husband Bert and Gert’s long-standing fiancé Wally, as well as stories of neighbour Old Mother Butler.

Many comediennes portrayed colourful characters. Beryl Reid first came onto our stage with her impressions in 1942 but her big local favourite character was Brummie Marlene, based on the accent she had picked up whilst touring in Variety. Monica was street-wise and “with it” (a popular phrase in the 1950s); she wore outrageously large earrings and had a boyfriend named Perce, who she claimed “sends me!” She opened her act as Marlene with “good evening each”, a local phrase she had heard used by her dresser in pantomime at the Theatre Royal in 1941. Beryl also claims another part of the Hippodrome’s history by appearing in our very first pantomime, Jack and the Beanstalk, sixty years ago in 1957/58.

A programme printed in black, green and pink on the cover and black and pink throughout. Tom Arnold and Emile Littler present ‘Jack and the Beanstalk’, which began on 21 December 1957 until 11 January 1958.

A very funny comedienne in Variety was Hylda Baker, with her Northern gossip and exaggerated words. She was always moving about, particularly fussing with the fur boa she had draped around her shoulders to give her “a bit of class”. She had a friend named
Cynthia, very tall, slim and totally silent, just slowly moving her head up and down in response to Hylda. Cynthia was always played by a man – the last one was Matthew Kelly. Hylda first came here in 1937 and was a regular until 1961.

Audiences loved her mangling of English – she used to tell them that “no one has dallied with my afflictions, and I say that without fear of contraception!” She described Cynthia as “blonde with sort of aquamarine features and her hair in a nutcracker suite”; she was “not all she should be – she’s seen the piesyachrist, y’know!” Despite everything however, Hylda joyfully told her audience that “she knows y’know, she knows”.

A more recent funny lady was Marti Caine, who emerged in the 1970s from a difficult background in Sheffield and the Northern clubs to become a star singer and comedienne. She won the TV talent show New Faces in 1975, beating Lenny Henry and Victoria Wood – what a vintage year for talent that was! When the programme was revived in the late 1980s, Marti hosted the show direct from the Hippodrome’s stage. Her only other appearance here was in one of the few years when there was no pantomime at Christmas – instead, there was a nine-week season of Cannon and Ball’s Christmas Spectacular in 1984/85.

Although she did not win New Faces in 1975, Victoria Wood went on to become one of the funniest and most talented of our comediennes and writers. Between 1986 and 1997, she appeared at the Hippodrome four times, each time commanding our stage for nearly three hours and having us in fits of laughter with her witty observations on modern life – including subjects that would previously not have been talked about so freely or so humorously. By now, comediennes were able to tackle anything, just as much as their male counterparts had done for many years, such was the change in our attitudes.

These were just a few of the many ‘funny girls’ who have made us laugh at the Hippodrome over nearly 120 years. Sadly, Fanny Brice, the subject of the current musical, never appeared here but that is more than made up by Sheridan Smith’s stunning performance of her.