One day earlier this year I got into conversation with a neighbour down the road busily working on a rather cool looking electric blue MG Midget. ‘Oh it’s you who makes all that racket revving and driving up and down the street!’ I said. It turned out my neighbour, when not lovingly restoring a Vespa or a classic car or two, is a DJ and musician. ‘Hop in!’ he said. I had a short but exciting circuit of the local area, despite an alarming knock-knocking coming from underneath the Midget’s chassis. ‘Hm,’ said my musical neighbour thoughtfully after parking his car, and took out a variety of tools to start more tinkering. I asked him about his work. He told me he’d once organised a variety act at London’s Hippodrome, including a tribute to music hall star Little Tich.
‘Little Tich!’ I exclaimed and told him how years before, I’d been at one of the National Portrait Gallery’s free concerts, with performances by the Kreutzer Quartet. I always have a notebook in my pocket and began to take notes.
The Quartet played a piece by Stravinsky, with an intriguing somersault of notes apparently in homage to Little Tich. Stravinsky was a fan of music hall, and had seen Little Tich in London. ‘Wait here, ‘ said my neighbour. He went to his flat, rummaged around and produced a battered leather case. Inside was a pair of extraordinary boots. ‘We commissioned someone to copy the originals,’ he explained, ‘and a clown performed the trademark Big Boot Dance.‘ Wish I’d been there.
There’s another connection to Little Tich. In 2019 I was fortunate enough to visit the wondrous House of Automata in Scotland, and photographed some of the automata there. On one of the studio tables lay part of a Little Tich automaton, being lovingly restored.
