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Bedford Music Hall, 123-133, Camden High Street, Camden Town

Also known as The Bedford Theatre / The Bedford Palace of Varieties.

Above - The Bedford Music Hall - Courtesy John Barber.

The Bedford Theatre was built in1861. The Theatre was destroyed by fiire 1899 but then Rebuilt again. The Theatre Closed in 1959 and was demolished in 1969.

Arthur Lloyd is known to have performed at The Bedford in 1879

Also see 'Music hall and Me' by Nick Kathwaroon here...

Also see the Camden Theatre here...

Right - Programme for 'Hamlet' at the Bedford Theatre in 1949. - The Theatre must have been going through hard times as the entire front cover of the programme is taken up by advertisements.

The Bedford Music Hall

At numbers 123-133 on the left hand side of Camden High Street looking towards Camden Town Underground once stood the Old Bedford Music Hall. The office building there is aptly named Bedford House but only a few of Camden's older residents might still ask bus drivers to drop them off at 'the Bedford'.

The original Music Hall was built on part of the tea gardens belonging to the Bedford Arms in 1861, in common with an increasing movement to provide a formal structure for the entertainment once held in the public bars. The interior was apparently a splendid auditorium, capable of seating 1168 patrons on three tiers. Although it was destroyed by fire in 1899, a second Music Hall was rebuilt on the site.

Left - Early Programme for the Bedford. - Courtesy Peter Charlton.

The Bedford Arms was sited on part of the estate owned by the Russell family who later became the Dukes of Bedford. In 1669 William, grandson of Francis, 4th Earl of Bedford married Lady Rachel, daughter and heiress to the 4th Earl of Southampton, whose great grandfather had bequeathed parcels of land that are now known as Holborn and Bloomsbury.

The estates that extended to Crowndale Road were once pasture land and orchards, and later Dukes of Bedford could be grateful for the foresight of William who began the building work that was continued by his heirs up until the 1850's; many street names in this part of Camden can be traced back to this family connection. The philosopher Bertrand Russell was one famous descendant.

However, by 1933 all the estates had been sold but not before the housing that had already been built was quickly taken up by the great migration to London of the new industrial working classes looking for cheap accommodation. These same people flocked to the new Palaces of Variety; and the Bedford Music Hall was no exception in its ability to provide the kind of entertainment that the masses demanded.

The Bedford had also become a favorite haunt of the artists called the Camden Town Group. Most lived near or in Mornington Crescent and the group was headed by Walter Sickert (see below), one of whose paintings was entitled Little Dot Hetherington at The Old Bedford.

Music Hall at the Bedford by Walter Sickert

The audiences did not go to see the likes of Sickert but such stars as Marie Lloyd - 'Our Marie'. She begun her career at the age of fifteen as Bella Delmere at the Royal Eagle where she sang a song 'borrowed' from Nellie Power - 'The Boy I Love is up in the Gallery.' Marie placed her younger sister up in the balcony with instructions to wave her handkerchief at the right moment in the chorus. Soon, the waving of a handkerchief became a feature whenever she sang that song. Nellie Power died in obscurity and poverty in 1887 whilst Marie Lloyd's career went from strength to strength.

Right - Programme detail for 'Hamlet' at the Bedford Theatre in 1949.

One of the other stars to appear at the Bedford was George Leybourne - 'Champagne Charlie'. He came on stage in top hat and tails, dressed as the grand swell with gloves and scarf waving a bottle of Moet & Chandon vintage as he sang the number. Moet thus became the first commercial sponsor but faced competition when Leybourne's great rival Alfred Vance introduced a number called 'Cliquot'. This started a fierce competition between the two in which they quickly ran through any popular wine merchants catalogue until Vance ended it all with 'Beautiful Beer'.

Just around the corner from the Bedford the Council completed the construction of Goldington Buildings in 1904. One of the first tenants was Ethel le Neve, who found infamy as Dr Hawley Harvey Crippen's mistress; in whose arms the latter most probably nestled whilst his wife appeared on the stage of the Bedford.

In 1912 both Gracie Fields and Charlie Chaplin appeared at the Bedford and in 1920 Marie Lloyd celebrated her 50th birthday in pantomime there.

Unfortunately the Bedford fared no better than any other as the cinema quickly overtook it as the principal form of popular entertainment. The theatre fell into decay, escaped major bomb damage during the Second World war, but was reopened in 1949 under new management.

The Bedford in decay

There was a gala opening attended by amongst others George Robey who arrived in a stage coach, and has a pub named after him just a few miles up the road at Finsbury Park ( now a rock venue). The first production was Lady Audley's Secret starring Anne Crawford, followed by a succession of plays that are best left in anonymity. In the same year, 1949, the film "Trottie True" opened starring Jean Kent, Bill Owen and Lana Morris. It tells the story of a young actress who is inspired to become a gaiety girl after visiting the Bedford.

This was the shape of things to come. The arrival of Hollywood, colour films, radio and eventually TV was also the end of Music Hall. The management of the Bedford Theatre went into liquidation, the theatre fell into terminal decay and was demolished in 1969.

Right - The interior of the Bedford Music Hall after it had closed in 1959 - Courtesy John Barber.

For many years there was just a wide gaping hole in the shopping facade, opening out into what was probably the old tea gardens. Now nothing remains. The Bedford is gone and with it Music Hall.

Much of my research for this article came from a Souvenir brochure issued by the Borough of St Pancras in 1966 commemorating the history of the borough before its amalgamation into Camden. © John Barber, written for The Stage and amended for the Camden Journal (awaiting publication).

Text (edited) - courtesy John Barber.

Sir Donald Wolfit got quite a large national press coverage in 1949 when he took a season of Shakespeare into the delightful, but by then somewhat tatty twice nightly variety house, the Bedford Camden Town. Sir Donald was not the easiest of persons to know or to work for, as indeed is the case with most perfectionists, the result was sometimes that he was not always able to employ the best backstage crew, and during the Bedford season a flat fell over during the performance, almost injuring several actors. - Courtesy Alan Chudley.

Just a little bit of info on the Bedford music hall Camden. Around 1929-30 the great comic-actor Peter Sellers lived with his mother and grandmother in rented quarters upstairs at the Bedford. His mother was performing there in a revue called 'Ha!Ha!!Ha!!!' along with his father. When the revue finished, Peter's father Bill did a "bit of a runner" as the cockneys say, leaving poor Peter, his mother, and grandmother to fend for themselves, they carried on living upstairs at the Bedford music hall for a short time after he departed. - Courtesy Thomas Potter.

In the 1930s the Bedford, together with the Bristol Empire (also an ABC cinema during the 1930s,) was then owned by Harry Day, who in 1920 presented Revues on tour, and at the London Palladium. Both houses passed to Freddie Butterworth (FJB Theatres) who controlled a circuit of around a dozen number two Theatres. Both the Bedford and Bristol Empire returned to Live theatre on Boxing Day 1937. The Bedford passed out of the Butterworth Circuit circa 1950 and the Bristol Empire closed as a live theatre in 1953. - Alan Chudley.

Right - Cutting for the Bedford Theatre when it was in use as a cinema from 1933 until the end of 1937 - Courtesy Alan Chudley.

Also see 'Music hall and Me' by Nick Kathwaroon here...

Also see Camden Theatre here...