“Barry Cryer takes a look at the cottage industry of music-hall recording restoration, and at the lives and works of some of the genre’s stars. Thanks to modern computer technology we are able to hear again performances by artists such as Mark Sheridan, Ernest Shand, Vesta Victoria, and Albert Chevalier , material originally recorded at the turn of the last century. The music hall artist Vesta Victoria, who gave the first performance of Daddy Wouldn’t Buy Me a Bow-Wow in 1892.
This edition of The Archive Hour not only shines a spotlight on the lesser-known stars of the British music hall but also reveals how this cultural phenomenon is surviving, thanks to a team of dedicated archivists who are using their computers to store recordings that go as far back as the 1890s.