Tom Woottwell (born Thomas Hare Burgess; 25 March 1864–13 February 1941) was an English

music hall Music hall is a type of British theatrical entertainment that was popular from the early Victorian era, beginning around 1850. It faded away after 1918 as the halls rebranded their entertainment as variety. Perceptions of a distinction in Bri ...

comedian, dancer and monologuist, popular around the turn of the twentieth century.

Biography

He was born in

Highbury Highbury is a district in North London and part of the London Borough of Islington in Greater London that was owned by Ranulf brother of Ilger and included all the areas north and east of Canonbury and Holloway Roads. The manor house was situ ...

, London, the son of a builder. He took to the stage as a member of a

double act A double act (also known as a comedy duo) is a form of comedy originating in the British music hall tradition, and American vaudeville, in which two comedians perform together as a single act. Pairings are typically long-term, in some cases f ...

, and later as one of a successful troupe, the Girards, performing an act of " legmania" - a craze in the 1870s and 80s described as "a cross between eccentric dancing, acrobatics and gymnastics, all performed at a frenzied speed." Alwyn Turner, "Halloween hits: Wait a Minute", ''The Lion and Unicorn'', 30 October 2018
Retrieved 26 December 2022 After the troupe leader, Julian Girard, was injured, in 1882 Woottwell started working as a solo comedian and stage performer. He performed as a "mock strong man", and in

pantomimes Pantomime (; informally panto) is a type of musical comedy stage production designed for family entertainment. It was developed in England and is performed throughout the United Kingdom, Ireland and (to a lesser extent) in other English-speaking ...

. He was sometimes billed as "The India Rubber Man" and "The Loose Legged Comedian". By the mid-1890s he was in full time work, and later claimed that, in 1900, he was the first music hall performer to own a

motor car A car or automobile is a motor vehicle with wheels. Most definitions of ''cars'' say that they run primarily on roads, seat one to eight people, have four wheels, and mainly transport people instead of goods. The year 1886 is regarded as t ...

, which he used to transport himself around London to up to eight shows a night. He married another music hall performer, singer and actress Emily Lyndale, who was a popular

principal boy In pantomime, a principal boy role is the young male protagonist of the play, traditionally played by a young actress in boy's clothes. The earliest example is Miss Ellington who in 1852 appeared in ''The Good Woman in the Wood'' by James Planch ...

in pantomimes. Woottwell toured in Australia — where he helped launch the career of Billy WilliamsMichael Kilgarriff, ''Grace, Beauty and Banjos: Peculiar Lives and Strange Times of Music Hall and Variety Artistes'', Oberon Books, 1998, , p.277 — as well as in South Africa, and the U.S.. In 1897, "Tom Woottwell's Komic Song Album" was published in Australia, containing 17 of his songs and an autobiographical sketch in which Woottwell made preposterous claims about his background such as "I invented steam... ndmade several stars and stuck them in the sky...". He also made recordings between about 1905 and 1913 of around sixty of his songs and monologues, most of which he wrote himself. Many reflected a comic

Cockney Cockney is an accent and dialect of English, mainly spoken in London and its environs, particularly by working-class and lower middle-class Londoners. The term "Cockney" has traditionally been used to describe a person from the East End, or b ...

persona, including "Wait a Minute", "Ave a Drop of Gin, Old Dear", "Interruptions", and "Blowed if I Didn’t Wake Up". Woottwell also performed as an actor, in the original 1917 run of ''

The Better 'Ole ''The Better 'Ole'', also called ''The Romance of Old Bill'', is an Edwardian musical comedy with a book by Bruce Bairnsfather and Arthur Elliot, music by Herman Darewski, and lyrics by Percival Knight and James Heard, based on the cartoon charac ...

'', a comedy based on the cartoon character Old Bill, drawn by

Bruce Bairnsfather Captain Charles Bruce Bairnsfather (9 July 188729 September 1959) was a prominent British humorist and cartoonist. His best-known cartoon character is Old Bill. Bill and his pals Bert and Alf featured in Bairnsfather's weekly "Fragments from Fr ...

. The Better 'Ole - Oxford Theatre 1917-18, ''Bruce Bairnsfather''
Retrieved 26 December 2022 He retired from performing in the early 1920s, and moved with his wife to live in

Milton, Portsmouth Milton is a residential area of the English city of Portsmouth, Hampshire, England, on the south eastern side of Portsea Island. Milton is bordered on the eastern coast of Portsea Island by Langstone Harbour, with Eastney to the south-east, Sout ...

. He died from heart failure in 1941, at the age of 76.

References

External links

"Interruptions"
- 1909 recording by Tom Woottwell {{DEFAULTSORT:Woottwell, Tom 1864 births 1941 deaths 20th-century English comedians English male comedians Music hall performers British novelty song performers