afrovicar

Hello everybody - I'm not sure whether this is the correct area to post this but I think I may need your help!

I am currently attempting to write a feature film screenplay about the decline of the Music Hall, set in the late 1950s. I am about to enter my final year as a Media Production student at the University of Lincoln and the screenplay is my first feature film, having written and produced a number or short films to date, including the Award winning ‘Jellied Eels’ (2006) and ‘Reliant Robbers’ (2008). The script is hardly even started at the moment but I would like the basic story to be based around a group of Music Hall entertainers who are trying to save their theatre.

Unfortunately, as much as I love the music, comedy, (my favourite comedian is Will Hay) and general idea of the Music Hall, I have very little knowledge about the years surrounding its demise. If it’s at all possible, would anyone here be able to shed some light on the Music Hall years in the 1950s. My original idea was to set the film 20 years earlier in the inter war period, but I have decided that this time period with the onset of the Second World War has frankly been done to death and so thought the 1950s would be more suitable.

Although the script will be about the demise of Music Hall in general, it will specifically be based around the destruction of a physical building too. I’d rather it weren’t set in London as again it’s been seen too many times, so if you can suggest an area of England that might fit the bill and even a specific theatre that you’d like to see in the screenplay, please let me know – along with any ideas for interesting variety acts for me to base the characters on. I am planning to create my own characters as much as possible but it would be better if they were based upon living persons.

Thanks

Tom (afrovicar)

'If ignorance is bliss, why aren't there more happy people in the world?' - Stephen Fry

picture show

I can remember being at the Chiswick Empire in the '60's,and other theatres on newspaper assignments.Have you tried 'googling' these theatres,then working backwards into the provinces.Pick a town,then stick the word,Empire on the end.Moss Empires were one of the biggest controllers.
What about music artists associations,must be a wealth of information somewhere you can lay your hands on.
Have a word with "The Stage" newspaper,place a 'looking for'there,in the letter column.

samkydd

Roy Hudd is the definitive Music Hall historian. I used to have his address but it's been mislaid. You may want to read some of his excellent books in the library.

"...the chairman of Littlewoods stores made a Keynote speech!"