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____________________________________________________________________________________________ Finsbury Park Empire, St. Thomas's Road and Prah Road, Finsbury Park, London
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A Child's Eye View of the Finsbury Park Empire When I first entered this world in late 1930, my father was a professional violinist working in London. That time was very bleak for the music profession, for talking films had come to the cinemas and whereas a few years earlier, each cinema had its own orchestra, now they were no longer needed and many hundreds of good musicians were looking for work. Right - Programme for the Finsbury Park Empire 1939 - Courtesy Brian Kendal. For several years my father was able to get seasonal jobs at holiday resorts such as Bournemouth, Scarborough and Clacton, but as I approached school age, it became necessary to find a permanent home.
Left - Programme details for the Finsbury Park Empire 1939 - Courtesy Brian Kendal. I remember that he briefly had a job doubling; in this, two theatres ran alternate stage and screen shows. The orchestra played a spot on one stage and then immediately jumped into a coach to go to the other theatre whilst the first was showing a film. They then played their spot at the second theatre and again into the coach to be back in time to play their second spot at the first theatre. In this way they could play three spots in each of two theatres each day. |
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One night, he was coming home from Finsbury Park Empire on the train and he alighted, as usual, at Crystal Palace Low Level station. He sniffed the air and asked the porter "has there been a fire". There had - Crystal Palace had burned down! Right - Programme details for the Finsbury Park Empire 1939 - Courtesy Brian Kendal. He had not been at Finsbury Park Empire very long when I was involved in a serious road accident that resulted in a prolonged stay in hospital followed by several months recuperation at my grand parents home in Yorkshire. When I returned to London, my parents had moved to a new flat in Grange Park - just a few stops down the railway line from the Finsbury Park Empire. One of the great advantages of working at the Empire was that families were offered two complementary tickets for the front stalls Monday night first house performance. This became my weekly treat. |
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Left - Programme details for the Finsbury Park Empire 1939 - Courtesy Brian Kendal. Tommy Handley brought ITMA to the stage, but we were very disappointed as it did not transfer well from the radio. Arthur Askey and "Stinker" Murdoch did a hilarious sketch purporting to be in their flat on the top of Broadcasting House. One gag was that every time Arthur crossed the stage he tripped over a mat. The mat was removed but he still tripped every time he went where the mat had been. He also sang his popular nonsense songs. Another frequent act was Forsythe, Seamon and Farrell. Charlie Forsythe and Eleanor Farrell were both quite big people and their act started as if it were a singing duet but soon disintegrated into hilarious comedy with Addie Seamon joining in. |
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Two other acts that were popular were Blackaman on Koringa - both fakirs, climbing stairs of swords, being buried alive and hypnotising snakes and crocodiles etc. Whole shows were devoted to speciality acts. For the spectacular show "Switzerland" an ice rink was built on the stage. The magician Dante presented an evening of magic in "Sim Sala Bim" and Brian Michie presented a very youthful cast in "Youth takes a Bow". Right - Programme details for the Finsbury Park Empire with William Kendall as Musical Director in 1939 - Courtesy Brian Kendal. For this we took along my girlfriend from next door and her mum. At one point of this show, the youthful cast came down into the audience and I was rather miffed when my girlfriend got up and danced with Ernie Weissman (later Ernie Wise). At the time she was six years old and I was all of eight! When the normal Musical Director, then Eric Ogden, was away, my father took his place on the rostrum and it was on one of these times that Adelaide Hall was on the bill.
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On the Thursday night, George Black was in the audience and after the show, immediately went backstage and offered Miss Hall a contract to appear at the Palladium. She was so delighted that she sent a bottle of whisky down for my father and a case of beer for the rest of the orchestra. Many other acts still spring to mind, to name a few Billy Scott Coomber and his singing Mounties (or Sailors, Soldiers or Airmen depending on their uniforms!), Hutch, Dougie Wakefield and the lads from Lancashire who always started his second spot with "We've been practicing very hard behind these blinds and we're acrobats - I'm Acro and they're bats". I also remember Jack Doyle, the singing heavyweight boxer, Freddie Bamberger and Pauline (a singing duo), Billie Russell, comedian (In the last war the zeppelins came over and shelled all my peas), Sid Walker and, of course the great comedians - Jimmy James, Rob Wilton, Wilson, Keppel and Betty, Vic Oliver and Ben Lyon and Bebe Daniels, Elsie and Doris Waters (Gert and Daisy) and Revnell and West (the Long and Short of it).
When the war started, by government decree, the theatre was dark for a couple of weeks, but then carried on much as before. However, in November 1940, during the blitz, an oil bomb fell into the gents toilet and more or less burned itself against the tiles. But this was sufficient to close the theatre. Left - Programme details for the Finsbury Park Empire 1939 - Courtesy Brian Kendal. My father was then without work and he realised that there would be little likelihood of work in music for the duration of the war. He therefore decided to return to our home town of Rotherham and seek employment in the steel works, for he had completed a apprenticeship before becoming a full time musician. This he did for a couple of years before he was offered a job with a touring orchestra. When this ended he joined ENSA and later the Liverpool Philharmonic. For myself, I still had an association with theatres, for our family was well known at the Regent Theatre, Rotherham, where my father had been Musical Director in the 1920s. Many of my parent's friends were still working there and on Friday nights we entered by the stage door, I was deposited in the auditorium whilst they made use of the Stalls Bar. Here I was exposed to Northern Comedians for the first time - but that is another story. This article was especially written for this site by By Brian Kendal.
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FINSBURY PARK EMPIRE This was the tryout date for all the variety bills before they were sent out on tour and Cissie Williams reigned supreme over the artistes that she booked with a rod of iron. It was a wonderful Matcham house with a fantastic atmosphere. David Wilmot was the manager and he went on to the Palladium when it closed. He was a great one for maximising the revenue and because it was in the inner suburbs all the pros used to go there to pass in on the card on a Monday and Tuesday first house. If you were on your own he passed you in free if there were two of you he gave you one free and made you pay for one. Needless to say very few turned up in pairs. Sid Kaplin was musical director with a very good 12-piece orchestra. He came there from the Holborn Empire when it was bombed and remained to the end. He had an awesome reputation with the artistes. He would pretend that their band parts were unreadable and then charge them for rewriting the dots. He also had a friend who was a photographer and used to bully the turns into having photographs taken of the act. You can still find some of them with the logo at the bottom taken at the Finsbury Park Empire. He was on commission of course. I got on very well with him but he became very embittered towards the end. I understand that he departed for Canada a couple of days after the place closed and was never seen or heard of again. Alf Padgwick was the stage manager and loved his Scotch. He lived a life in fear of Cissie Williams and moved to the Victoria Palace when the theatre closed. He said he felt twenty years younger there without Cissie breathing down his neck every Monday night. The end was very sad, they took the seats out when it closed and it became a scenery store and a place to rehearse. I rehearsed a Coventry Spring Show there in the early sixties and it was not a good experience to look out at the decaying seat-less auditorium from the empty stage. Moss Empires let the building go and it was eventually demolished as being dangerous. A block of flats now stands on the site. This article forms part of a larger piece on Moss Empires' Theatres in the Fifties, and was kindly written for this site by Donald Auty. Also by Donald Auty on this site: |
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The
Finsbury Park Empire was built by 
My
parents found a flat in Anerley in South London, but at first things
were even worse. Except for a few one-off jobs such as concerts on the
Embankment my father did not work for over six months. Each day dad
would walk from Anerley to Archer Street, where all the agents were,
in the hope of picking up a gig or, better still, a week or more work.
The street was invariably crowded with out of work musicians, most of
whom could not even afford a cup of tea at the local café. 
His
luck then changed and he was offered a job in the pit band at Penge
Empire. Shortly after this he was moved to lead the orchestra at the
The
Finsbury Park Empire was No. 2 on the Moss Empires Circuit (No. 1 was
the 
Max
Millar also appeared but I was too young and innocent to understand
his double entendres. 
Other
odd memories were that at one period my Uncle Les, one of dad's younger
brothers, was playing as his repet (second violin) when he met and married
one of the showgirls from an Ernie Lottinger show, with Ben Warris acting
as his best man. 
