![]() Nicknamed the Cheeky Chappie, Miller was known for his risque jokes and gaudy suits. Max Miller was Britain’s top music hall comedian in the late 1930s to the late 1950s. The most famous establishment was The Grecian Saloon, at The Eagle public house in City Rd in London, its name etched into memories of generations of British children because of Pop goes the Weasel. While the theatre was more formal (with a separate bar), in a Music Hall you’d sit at a table and could drink and smoke while watching the show. But Max Miller was Great Britain’s most famous Music Hall artist, and our country’s famous Music Hall tradition hails from the mid-19th century, founded in the saloon bars of pubs. Let’s Have A Ride on Your Bicycle was issued (on 78rpm) in 1953, so, historically, it’s much newer than other items on this website. They also became useful stage props in theatre and the focus of many songs. Punch magazine particularly enjoyed ridiculing them. Since their invention, bicycles and their riders became the subject of satire. The Night Side of London – The Eagle Tavern, by J. God help the lad that gets entangled with such as they! And then there are the unfortunates from the City-road, with painted faces, brazen looks, and gorgeous silks mercenary in every thought and feeling, and with hearts hard as adamant. The Haymarket may be far off, but the Grecian Saloon is near and the young hopefuls come in at half-price, for six- pence, and smoke their cigars, and do their pale ale, and adopt the slang and the vices of their betters with too much ease. Anxious mothers in the country, fearing the contaminations of London and the ruin it has brought on other sons, lodge them in remote Islington, or Hoxton, still more remote. These worthy creatures see a splendour in the Grecian Saloon which I do not. They come early, sit out Jack Shepherd with a resolution worthy of a better cause, listen to the singing from the Music Hall, return again to witness the closing theatrical performances, and enjoy all the old stage tricks as if they had not heard them for the last fifty years. There you see Smith, Brown, Jones, and Robinson, with their respective partners and the dear pledges of their well-regulated loves. To sit out a five-act tragedy and then a farce is a bore which only quiet old fogies and people of a domestic turn can endure and even where, as in the Grecian Saloon, you have dancing, and singing, and drinking added, it is not the fast men, but the family parties, that make it pay. ![]() ![]() As a rule, I do not think what are termed fast men go much to theatres. Children are taught to say-Īnd the apprentice or clerk, fresh from the country, and anxious to see life, generally commences with a visit to the Grecian Saloon – Eagle Tavern. From time immemorial the Cockneys have hastened thither to enjoy themselves. The Eagle Tavern is situated in an appropriate locality in the City-road, not far from a lunatic asylum, and contiguous to a workhouse. ![]()
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