Gibbons' Bio-Tableaux

Early music hall performance designed to be performed with synchronised gramophone recorded sound.

An early variety performance with synchronised gramophone sound. Thought to be an early version of The Blind Boy (1917).

Walter Gibbons was one of Britain's most forward-thinking film entrepreneurs, and deeply entranced by the music hall. In 1900 he launched his 'phono bio tableaux', which synchronised songs recorded by famous music stars on disc with a film of the performance. Sadly, all but one of the films are lost, making this last survivor a unique record of a major Victorian music hall star in sound and vision, as well as the oldest British 'sound film', nearly thirty years before the 'talkies' arrived. Lil Hawthorne, who performs this song, was a well-known American singer, often adopting a male persona, although she was not strictly a male impersonator.

A man exchanges shoe blacking for his friend's soap.