Lloyd George of Criccieth

AKA Of Lloyd George of Criccieth
First Published 1920
Writer/composer RP Weston and Bert Lee Roud RN29796

Music Hall Performers Will Evans and Stanley Lupino
Folk performances Source Singers
Bentall, Brenda 1970 England		 

[A Fragment]
Of Lloyd George of Criccieth and gallant Welsh Wales
Where the little Welsh lambs are frisking their tails
And Lloyd George of Criccieth the [military??] need
Why Lloyd George of Criccieth you're curious indeed [?]

A 1920 pantomime hit for Music Hall stars Will Evans and Stanley Lupino, a fragment of which was collected in 1970 by Roy Palmer from the singing of Brenda Bentall. I have been unable to access the original sheet music – the lyrics above are very roughly transcribed from her singing. I will update when I can..

Modern British pantomime, pantomime in the form familiar to British audiences today, can be traced back roughly to the 1880s. At that time Music Hall Stars and their hit songs began to appear in the Christmas productions of “legitimate theatres”. This was an important route for the stars and their songs to become better known amongst more respectable (i.e. middle class) audiences. Often songs would be lifted out of the Halls, but by the 1920s bigger theatres might commission specially written songs.

The prolific Music Hall songwriters, Weston and Lee, were commissioned to write songs for the 1920 production of Cinderella at the Drury Lane Theatre. This was one of two songs from that production remembered by traditional source singers late in the 20th century – the other was All the girls are busy knitting jumpers.

You can hear Brenda Bentall singing her fragment at the British Library Sound Archive

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