Since I missed a ‘Song of the Week’ last week when I was busy with other things, I think you deserve a double treat this week!

In the course of yesterday’s event at East Sheen Library I was sidelined into talking briefly about Music Hall and early cinema.  I mentioned that brothers Alfred and Reginald Bromhead, who’d established the British branch of the French Gaumont company, had from 1904 exploited the Chronophone, a synchronized film sound system, with several well-known British music hall singers.

Although these very early films seem no longer to exist, Music Hall always figured large in early British cinema.  British Pathé captured several of the stars of the Edwardian Music Hall, most now in their 70s and 80s, on film in the 1930s.  Here are two of our favourites: Gus Elen (1862-1940) and Charles Coborn (1952-1945).