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Caricature
Cooke, George - Enlarge image
Caricature
- Date:
May 1905 (drawn)
- Artist/Maker:
Cooke, George (artist)
- Materials and Techniques:
Pen and ink and wash on paper
- Museum number:
S.393:9-2002
- Gallery location:
In Storage
This caricature is of Sam Mayo, ‘The Immobile One’, when he was performing at the Grand Theatre of Varieties, Hanley, during the week of 29 May 1905. He was billed as ‘the Original Immobile Comedian’. It is one of the many superb caricatures of Edwardian music hall performers that were drawn by the artist George Cooke when he was based at the Grand Theatre. He compiled them in a series of albums.
One of Mayo’s songs was ‘I Never Stopped Running Till I Got Home’. When he was at Hanley in May 1905 the theatre held a competition to find the person who could most accurately imitate him.
Music hall performers liked to cultivate specialities. Like his contemporary, Alf Gibson, Mayo specialised in standing still on stage, often with his hands between his knees. He also sang songs at a piano wearing an old dressing gown, a motoring cap, a yellow wig and a lugubrious expression.
Born Sam Cowan in Waterloo Road, Lambeth, London, in 1881, Mayo made his first music hall appearance at the Alhambra, Sandgate, in 1898. Later he toured in his own revues. He wrote songs for himself and others, and regularly appeared in pantomime. Mayo claimed to hold the record for the number of nightly music hall appearances, when for four weeks he was on the bill of 12 London halls every evening. In the days of horse-drawn transport, this meant rushing from hall to hall by hansom cab in time for his ‘spot’ on the next programme. He died in 1938.
