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Caricature
Cooke, George - Enlarge image
Caricature
- Place of origin:
Hanley, England (made)
- Date:
August 1905 (drawn)
- Artist/Maker:
Cooke, George (artist)
- Materials and Techniques:
Pen and ink and wash on paper
- Museum number:
S.393:14-2002
- Gallery location:
In Storage
This caricature is of Norman French performing in Hanley in August 1905. 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 of Varieties, Hanley. He compiled them in a series of albums.
Although not dressed for the act in this image, Norman French was described by the artist George Cooke as a ‘sand dancer’. When he appeared at the Grand Theatre at Hanley in February 1903, the reviewer noted, ‘Mr Norman French, the comedian and eccentric dancer, is about the most gifted of this class of entertainer who has yet put in an appearance at this hall’.
The sand dance was a popular music hall number in which the performer did an ‘eccentric dance’ with exaggerated oriental movements, dressed in an approximate Egyptian style. Wilson, Keppel and Betty were exponents of the act in the 1930s. Their fame was more enduring than that of Norman French.
