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Caricature
Cooke, George - Enlarge image
Caricature
- Place of origin:
Hanley, England (made)
- Date:
October 1906 (drawn)
- Artist/Maker:
Cooke, George (artist)
- Materials and Techniques:
Pen and ink and wash on paper
- Museum number:
S.393:35-2002
- Gallery location:
In Storage
This caricature is of Will Murray (b.1877) in ‘The Casey Circus’ at the Grand Theatre of Varieties, Hanley, during the week of 8 October 1906. 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.
Murray established a company of juvenile performers called ‘The Casey’s Circus and Casey’s Court Nibbs’, in which he appeared as the redoubtable Mrs Casey. The entertainment occupied most of the second half of the bill at Hanley. It was billed as ‘a screamingly funny eccentric act’ concerning a street urchin trying to produce a circus. A review of the performance noted that ‘while its humour is in progress of development, everyone is highly entertained’. Among the members of Murray’s company at various times were his son Roy Leo, his grandson Roy junior, Tommy Trinder and the young Charles Chaplin. Charlie Chaplin later described it as ‘an awful show’.
