HAODS - For the best entertainment in live theatre, together with top quality drama - amdram at its best, Henley Operatic & Dramatic Society has it all. Performing at the Kenton Theatre, Henley-on-Thames, NODA award winning HAODS musicals and plays are renowned for excellence.

Bill Port has written some histories about events that have happened at the Kenton deep in our past. Many HAODS members will find them fascinating. Bill will be publishing these little potted histories here on a monthly basis.

No.1  Albert Chevalier (1861 - 1923)  The Coster's Laureate

Off stage, Albert Chevalier bore no resemblance to the cockney character he portrayed in his Music Hall and Variety act. He was born Albert Onesime Britannicus Gwathveoyd Louis Chevalier at 21 St Ann's Villas, Royal Crescent, Notting Hill. His father, of French descent, was French Master at Kensington Grammar School. His mother was Welsh. Neither had any connection with the theatre, but Albert showed an early interest in the stage and made his first performance at the age of eight in the Cornwall Hall in Notting Hill reciting Mark Anthony's oration over Caesar' s body. At the age of fourteen he joined a local amateur dramatic society (The Roscius Dramatic Club) using the stage name Albert Knight ' 'knight' being the English for 'chevalier'. His first professional performance was at the King's Cross Theatre where he sang a solo between the acts of Still Waters Run Deep. He was paid ten shillings. His appearance led to him being introduced to the Bancroft Company which gave him his big break at the age of sixteen. He remained a serious actor for some fourteen years, occasionally writing plays. He soon became well established as a straight actor and moved to Liverpool where he became the principal comic actor at the Bijou Theatre. While there he began to write musical farces and this was the start of the 'coster' songs for which he is best known.

In 1888 he appeared in the burlesque Aladdin or the Wonderful Scamp at the Strand Theatre. In this he sang 'Our 'Armonic Club' the first cockney song he ever performed. When Aladdin closed Albert had a lengthy period without work and he finally succumbed to the persuasions of a few of his friends to try the halls. 

He tried out his new act for the first time, with some trepidation, at the London Pavillion opening with 'The Coster's Serenade'. Dressed in his chequered jacket, peaked cap, neckerchief and bell-bottomed trousers all trimmed with velvet and the pearl buttons of the cockney comedian, he was an immediate hit. He was hailed by the press as 'the master among variety artistes ', 'the Kipling of the Halls' and 'The Coster Laureate'. Although strictly a 'stage' cockney, he is to be admired for his meticulous attention to points of detail and his make'up, wardrobe, accent and stage presence convinced audiences that he really had been born within the sound of Bow bells. When Chevalier came to the Kenton (then St Mary's Hall) in 1900 and 1901 he was at the peak of his career. On both occasions he did one night during Regatta Week. There is talk that he really came to Henley for the Regatta and made a little bit of cash while he was here. It is known that he had a boat moored on the river at this time. Whatever his reasons for appearing, the Kenton welcomed the appearances of its very first celebrity.

The following extract from wikipaedia  helps to complete Bill's Kenton history

[Albert Chevalier was born in the Royal Crescent, in London's Notting Hill. The son of a French master at Kensington Grammar School, and a Welsh mother, he showed a keen interest in acting and performed The September Gale in a private family performance, when he was seven. In 1869, Albert premièred in public as Mark Anthony in Shakespeare's Julius Caesar, in an amateur performance at the local Cornwall Hall. He joined another local amateur group, the Roscius Dramatic Club at the age of fourteen, adopting the stage name, Albert Knight[1]. [edit] Career In 1877, at sixteen, he was engaged as an actor under the Bancrofts in London, and for fourteen years played legitimate parts at the Court Theatre and elsewhere. In 1891, however, he began a successful music hall career as a singer of coster songs of his own invention, a new type in which he had an immediate success, both in England and America. He subsequently organized an entertainment of his own, with sketches and songs, with which he went on tour, establishing a wide popularity as an original artist in his special line. Chevalier appeared in the 1909 production of "The Sins of Society" at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane, London. He played the role of James Hogg. Chevalier performed several sentimental songs in his act; the most popular of these was My Old Dutch, about an old man's long happy marriage to his wife. The song's title is based on Cockney rhyming slang: in this case, "Dutch" is a shortening of the phrase "Duchess of Fife" which rhymes with "wife". The singer's "old Dutch" is therefore his spouse. Chevalier also starred in a film entitled My Old Dutch. His own old Dutch, was his wife, Florrie, the daughter of George Champagne Charlie Leybourne. Albert Chevalier died on 10 July 1923. He is buried with his son and father in law George Leybourne at Abney Park Cemetery, Stoke Newington, London. Their grave is cared for by The Music Hall Guild of Great Britain and America.]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albert_Chevalier

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