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Caricature
Cooke, George - Enlarge image
Caricature
- Place of origin:
Hanley, England (made)
- Date:
October 1904 (drawn)
- Artist/Maker:
Cooke, George (artist)
- Materials and Techniques:
Pen and ink and wash on paper
- Museum number:
S.392:27-2002
- Gallery location:
In Storage
This caricature is of Joe Peterman as the Jewish moneylender Ike Novinski in The Belle of the Orient. He was performing at the Grand Theatre of Varieties, Hanley, during the week of 24 October 1904. 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.
The Belle of the Orient was a 35-minute condensed musical, or ‘comedy extravaganza in three acts’, written by Peterman with Clifford Harris and George Arthur, and with music by Paul Knox and J. W. Tate. It had previously run for two months at the Oxford Music Hall in London. Ike Novinski’s ‘pawnbroker’s cakewalk’ dance was featured in Act III.
Joe Peterman had his own company, which specialised in presenting musical sketches or revues on the variety stage. In September 1912 a review in The Era shows that his company was topping the bill at the Hippodrome, Poplar, with a farcical musical comedy called The Stationmaster. This was a comic piece that included singing and dancing. Another of his shows was Flyaway’s Derby, featuring female bookmakers in ‘startling costume’. Also on the bill that week at the Grand were Gilbert Girard and Cliff Ryland, who were also drawn by Cooke.
